Michael Martin Murphey - Cowboy Songs

Cowboy Songs

Despite the impressive critical and commercial success he achieved throughout the 1980s, Michael Martin Murphey's creative heart and spirit began to focus on the Western music that first captured his imagination as a boy growing up in Texas. As early as 1985, Murphey performed with the New Mexico Symphony in a show called A Night in the American West, which led to many subsequent performances with American and Canadian symphonies, including the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C. These western shows, and the songs he was writing and recording at the time, presaged a major change in Murphey's career—a change that would lead the artist down the unlikely trail of Cowboy music.

In 1990, Murphey released the album Cowboy Songs—a project he'd been working on for several years. This was a pure labor of love, since no one had recorded an album of authentic cowboy songs in more than twenty years. The album contained Murphey's versions of old cowboy songs from the public domain such as "Tumbling Tumbleweeds", "The Old Chisholm Trail", the beautiful "Spanish is the Loving Tongue", the classic "The Streets of Laredo", and his tip of the hat to Roy Rogers, "Happy Trails". The album also contained Murphey's own "Cowboy Logic".

Murphey was reluctant to promote the project, but he eventually released "Cowboy Logic" as a single and it quickly became a hit. Soon after, the album caught on and sold much better than expected. Cowboy Songs earned widespread praise from country and folk music critics, such as Jack Hurst from the Chicago Tribune who wrote, " not only one of the finest albums of year but also one of the finest of the last decade. Its 22 riveting cuts represent a labor of not only love but also scholarship; it raises a cult musical genre to the level of mainstream art." Cowboy Songs went on to achieve Gold status, the first western album to do so since Marty Robbins' No. 1 Cowboy in 1980.

In 1991, Murphey followed up with two additional albums of cowboy songs. His innovative concept album Cowboy Christmas: Cowboy Songs II contained versions of traditional and original western Christmas songs, including "The Christmas Trail," "The Cowboy Christmas Ball," and "Two-Step 'Round the Christmas Tree." An accompanying video was later released of one of Murphey's Cowboy Christmas Ball concerts, which included many of these songs. Cowboy Songs III contained a mix of traditional and original cowboy songs, including a virtual duet with Marty Robbins, "Big Iron," which used an early Marty Robbins' vocal track.

Cowboy Songs and its followup albums were so successful that they inspired the formation of Warner Western, a new subsidiary label of Warner Bros. Records 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 1995, Murphey further demonstrated his musical ambitions with the concept album Sagebrush Symphony, recorded live with the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra, Herb Jeffries, and the Sons of the San Joaquin.

In 1997, Murphey released the album The Horse Legends, a musical tribute to this majestic animal. The album included several new Murphey songs, a new version of "Wildfire," and covers of some well-known songs, such as Dan Fogelberg's "Run for the Roses" and Gordon Lightfoot's "The Pony Man."

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 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.

In 2004, Murphey released Live at Billy Bob's Texas, and in 2006, he released Heartland Cowboy: Cowboy Songs, Vol. 5.

During the past twenty years, Michael Martin Murphey has been a champion of western cowboy culture and the western wilderness. In 1986 he founded WestFest, an annual music festival held at Copper Mountain, Colorado that celebrates western art and culture. The festival has attracted the biggest names in Country Music as well as Western Music.

Murphey almost singlehandedly resurrected the cowboy song genre and its image throughout the country. Molly Carpenter, writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, noted, "Murphey's love for the American West clearly comes through in his songs, painted with vivid images of the rugged mountains and vast deserts of southwest landscapes, all evidence of his travels from his native Texas to California's Mojave Desert, Colorado's Rockies and the wild diversity of New Mexico, his home for the past 10 years."

During the 1990s, in a further effort to preserve the traditions of the West, Murphey led a group of performers—including cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell and western music historian and troubadour Don Edwards—in a series of improvisational concerts called Cowboy Logic, which toured throughout the United States, including such unlikely locations as New York City and Las Vegas. Waddy Mitchell is the co-founder of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Murphey met Mitchell there in 1986, the first such event he had ever attended. Murphey later described the transforming event as "a religious experience," noting, "I'd been collecting cowboy music and performing it among my friends. But when I saw a lot of other guys like me and also women performing this music and enjoying each other's company, it was the most important thing that had happened to me in years in my musical life."

On May 22, 2007, Murphey made a rare appearance in New York City to perform "Wildfire" on the Late Show with David Letterman. The song had become one of Letterman's favorites and was included regularly on the show. That same month, Murphey organized and performed for John Wayne's 100th Birthday Celebration, with the approval of the John Wayne Family. Murphey was commended by the White House for his activities. Later that year, Murphey released three DVDs detailing his love of the cowboy ways, life, and preservation of the American West traditions. The DVDs document his trail rides, cattle drives, and Cowboy Poetry gatherings. One of Murphey's Cowboy Christmas Ball concerts, recorded in Oklahoma City, was included as a fourth DVD in the combination CD/DVD set. In December 2007, Murphey released "A Soldier's Christmas" based on a poem by Michael E. Marks, a soldier serving in Iraq. Marks sent the poem to Murphey, who was so moved by the poem he sought permission to set it to music, which he did. Murphey started including the song in all his concerts, including his Cowboy Christmas Ball concerts, to long standing ovations after its performance, which prompted its release in December 2007.