Michael Martin Murphey

Though best known for his 1975 hit 'Wildfire', Michael Martin Murphey has been a cowboy of country music for decades, spending his life penning odes to the rural, South West heartlands of America and the legends and myths of the Wild West. Born in Dallas, Texas Murphey grew up among ranches and farmland and first discovered a love for music while sitting on his porch and listening to his grandfather play traditional fiddle and banjo tunes. His uncle also gave him a box of records that included tracks by icons such as Woody Guthrie, Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams and he later discovered local blues artists Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, before cutting his teeth playing folk songs in coffee houses in his teens. By the early 1960s he was playing honky tonk bars and dances and he headed to the University of California to study creative writing, but instead fell further into the folk scene and befriended fellow Texan Michael Nesmith. When Nesmith went on to join The Monkees becoming a worldwide pop star, he repaid Murphey by recording his song 'What Am I Doing Hangin' Around?' on the group's multi-million selling album 'Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.', thus kickstarting his professional songwriting career. Murphey also played in the beat group Lewis & Clarke Expedition, but really started to find his voice when he retreated to the San Gabriel Mountains and penned songs for Bobby Gentry and Flatt & Scruggs, creating a concept album recorded by Kenny Rogers called 'The Ballad of Calico' which was based upon a ghost town in the Mojave Desert. Alongside the likes of Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker he was part of a scene dubbed 'outlaw country', and the title track from his 1972 debut solo album 'Geronimo's Cadillac' became his first top 40 hit despite being banned by radio stations in several cities because of its criticism of the treatment of Native Americans. His 1975 album 'Blue Sky - Night Thunder' had a more orchestral, pop atmosphere and was recorded with producer Bob Johnston, and after the single 'Carolina Pines' became a popular, romantic hit, it was 'Wildfire' which shot to number three in the US charts selling over two million copies. He had first created the song in 1968 while working on the Kenny Rogers album, writing the lyrics after waking from a vivid dream that intertwined old stories his grandfather told him with ghost tales and Native American myths. He scored his only other top 20 hit in 1982 with a cover of soft rock duo England Dan & John Ford Coley's 'What's Forever For?', but Murphey continued to regularly release albums, including the acclaimed 'Tonight We Ride' and 'River of Time', and his song 'Land of Enchantment' was officially declared the state anthem of New Mexico. As roots music became known as Americana, Murphey remained an important figure and had his songs covered by Johnny Cash, Cher and John Denver, with 2009 seeing his induction into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. Over the years he has also written a stage show called 'A Night in the American West', recorded prairie folk ballads on 'Cowboy Songs' in 1990 and explored his love of mountain music on the Grammy-nominated 'Buckaroo Bluegrass' in 2009. He returned in 2016 with 'High Stakes', the 34th album of his career.

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