Murray The K - Legacy

Legacy

He shares writing credit with his mother and Bobby Darin for Darin's breakout song, "Splish Splash"

Beginning in 1960, Kaufman's rock 'n' roll shows at the Brooklyn Paramount theater (as co-host with Clay Cole), Manhattan's Academy of Music theater on 14th Street and, predominantly, the Brooklyn Fox theater provided an inter-racial environment in which the performers and the audiences both thrived. The week-long, eight-show-a-day presentations continued throughout the most explosive periods of civil rights unrest in the mid-'60s, culminating in Kaufman's final show at the RKO 58th Street theater in Manhattan with a line-up that included The Who and Cream in their American debuts.

Murray was the author of a 1966 book, Murray the K Tells It Like It Is, Baby.

Kaufman was program director and primetime evening DJ on the nation's first FM rock station WOR-FM, changing the way in which radio listeners heard rock music. During the short run of progressive rock programming - the station switched to an oldies format within the first year - listeners would have been able to hear the full, album versions of songs like Positively Fourth Street and Society's Child which were either played in shorter versions on AM radio or not played at all.

He is mentioned in the 1980 Ramones song Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? as well as Who Will Save Rock 'n' Roll by the Dictators.

A recording of Murray the K introducing the band Devo appears on their live compilation DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years.

Murray the K introduced Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as the band took the stage on November 4, 1976 in New York City.

He was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1997.