Michael Martin Murphey Biography

Michael Martin Murphey Biography

 Michael Martin Murphey (born March 14, 1945) is a writer and performer of American music. He is respected singer-songwriter in country music, Western music (North America), and popular music. Murphey has become a prominent musical voice for the Western horseman, rancher, and cowboy. A Western Music Association Hall of Fame inductee, Murphey has six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since the career of Marty Robbins. He has recorded the hit singles Wildfire, "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", "Don't Count the Rainy Days", and "Cowboy Logic". Murphey is also the author of New Mexico's state ballad, "The Land of Enchantment". Nowadays, he is recognized in parts of the continent as "America's singing cowboy poet".  Michael Murphey's first big break came through his friend Michael Nesmith, who had become part of the popular television musical group, The Monkees. Nesmith asked Murphey to write them a song for the next Monkees album, and Murphey composed "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round." The album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd. sold over five million copies. In 1968, Murphey moved to the part of the San Gabriel Mountains adjacent to the Mojave Desert of California to work on his songwriting. Based on the success of his songs, he signed a contract with the Screen Gems company, the publishing arm of Columbia Pictures. Some of his songs were recorded by Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs and Bobbie Gentry. Kenny Rogers recorded an entire album of Michael Murphey songs called The Ballad of Calico, about a Mojave Desert ghost town. Murphey wrote some additional songs for The Monkees, but he grew disillusioned with the poor financial rewards and the Los Angeles / Southern California music scene, and he departed.

 In 1971, Murphey was signed to A&M Records by Bob Johnson, who discovered him in a Dallas club, the Rubiayat. Johnston had produced some of the country's biggest recording artists, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Simon and Garfunkel. In 1972, Johnston produced Murphey's first album Geronimo's Cadillac in Nashville, Tennessee. The sound of the album reflects Murphey's love of folk, country, and blues music. Murphey's early gospel influences are also evident throughout the album. The title track was released as a single, and reached the Top 40 on the U.S. pop charts. Rolling Stone Magazine proclaimed, "On the strength of his first album alone, Michael Murphey is the best new songwriter in the country." Throughout this period, Murphey was associated with the outlaw country music movement that began in Austin, Texas in the 1970s. His band during these years included Bob Livingston and Gary P. Nunn, the author of "London Homesick Blues." He performed a number of times at the Armadillo World Headquarters, and his photo was even used for the original cover of Jan Reid's book, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock. But Michael Murphey's musical vision was expanding beyond the confines of the outlaw sound and moving toward a much more ambitious musical tapestry.

 In 1982, Murphey signed with Liberty Records and produced two original albums, Michael Martin Murphey and The Heart Never Lies, and a compilation of re-recorded versions of his A&M, Epic, and Liberty hits. During the early 1980s, Murphey had significant commercial success with hits like "Still Taking Chances," "Disenchanted," "Don't Count the Rainy Days," "Will It Be Love By Morning," "Radio Land," and the No. 1 hit "What's Forever For," co-written with Mike D'Abo, that also reached No. 19 on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart. In 1983, Murphey was voted Best New Male Vocalist of the year by the Academy of Country Music. In 1985, his rerecorded version of "Carolina in the Pines" reached the Top 10. In 1985, Murphey signed a new recording contract with Warner Bros. Records and continued his streak of successful recordings. In 1987, he achieved a No. 1 country hit with the song "A Long Line Of Love." He had additional hits with his duet with Holly Dunn "A Face In The Crowd," which was nominated for a Grammy Award, and "Talkin' To The Wrong Man," which featured his son Ryan. In 1988, he had two hits that reached No. 3 on the charts, Jesse Winchester's "I'm Going to Miss You, Girl" and his own "From The Word Go" from the album River of Time.

 Cowboy Songs and its followup albums were so successful that they inspired the formation of Warner Western, a new label devoted to western music and cowboy poetry. In 1992, Warner Western issued albums by Don Edwards, Waddie Mitchell, and the Sons of the San Joaquin. All three records were produced by Michael Martin Murphey. In 1998, Murphey left Warner Bros. Records and started his own record label, WestFest/Real West Productions. That year, he released Cowboy Songs Four, which contained both traditional and original cowboy songs, including "Utah Carroll," "Little Joe, the Wrangler," and Murphey's "Song from Lonesome Dove." In 1999, he released Acoustic Christmas Carols: Cowboy Christmas II, which included Murphey's quiet renditions of traditional Christmas songs, and featured his son Ryan and daughter Laura. In 2001, Murphey released a very successful compilation of some of his best-loved songs, Playing Favorites, which included rerecorded versions of such songs as "Carolina in the Pines," "Cherokee Fiddle," "Cowboy Logic," "What's Forever For," and "Wildfire." He followed this up in 2002 with Cowboy Classics: Playing Favorites II, which again included re-recorded versions of some of his best-loved cowboy songs. That same year, Murphey released Cowboy Christmas III, which contained a new original song "The Kill Pen," as well as original cowboy poetry written and recited by his daughter Karen.