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spur@thetexasspur.com
BARBARA BRANNON
If you were scripting a music wishlist for a gathering of print journalists, you might jot down Queen’s 1977 “News of the World.” Prince, for “The Morning Papers.” Joe Jackson’s “Sunday Papers.” The headliner, of course, would be Huey Lewis and the News. Oh, and Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” happens to mention a couple of famous newspapers, one of which is also cited in Elton John’s “Levon.” And the Beatles “read the news today” in “A Day in the Life.”
For the Texas Press Association’s annual conference last week in College Station, the evening’s performer might’ve seemed an unexpected choice. But he did high honor to the profession, and to his home state, on June 21 with an unforgettable evening of music and storytelling.
Michael Martin Murphey. The multi-award-winning, genre-spanning, gold-record singer-songwriter did us proud. In a 90-minute solo set under a tinroofed open-air pavilion, Murphey brought his wide-ranging talents to bear, reflecting at times on the importance of newspapers to American society and his own life.
Opening with his rousing, early hit “Carolina in the Pines,” Murphey segued smoothly into recollections of the local newspapers that would always await him in the lobbies of road-trip hotels. He deftly led his audience of a couple hundred (embracing die-hard fans like this writer, as well as youngsters on the other end of the spectrum, who’d never heard anything but his top hits) on a journey describing the arc of the land, and the Native peoples who first called it home, to the arrival of the settlers and cowboys, to the trajectory of folk and country music in the Lone Star State.
Particularly moving, to me, was Murphey’s memorial tribute to his long-ago friend and fellow singer-songwriter, the late John Denver. Like Denver, Murphey departed Texas early for Los Angeles to pursue his musical aims. Murphey’s sweet medley sampling “Boy from the Country” (recorded by Denver), “Has anybody seen my old friend John” from the 1968 Dion DiMucci hit, Denver’s own 1971 “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and a soaring “I’ll Fly Away” demonstrated his vocal and instrumental agility seven decades into a consistently creative, and generous, career.
The original Cosmic Cowboy took his appreciative audience on a tour of that career, from his groundbreaking “Geronimo’s Cadillac” and how that song became an anthem for Native American rights, to his Austin days with the likes of Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, and the outlaw newcomer Willie Nelson, to his latter days as cowboy songster and supporter of causes like his Murphey Western Institute for preservation of American Western culture.
Midway through Murphey’s set a brisk breeze churned up across the Bryan bison ranch that was hosting our event. It brought first the view of a double rainbow behind the stage, and then a quick rain shower that send his roadie scurrying to protect the instruments.
Unfazed, Murphey exchanged his guitar for a banjo and launched seamlessly into “Mountain Storm” from his “Red River Drifter” album. Raindrops on tin provided backing instrumentals as the performer finished the line “God gave Noah / the rainbow sign,” closed out the number and doffed his flat-brim hat to the deity. Turning back to the audience, he offered with a smile, “I have no songs about tornados,” before slipping right into “Don’t Count the Rainy Days.”
That deft wit, a memory sharp enough to sustain a solo performance of complex and varied tunes, and a catalog of song and story spanning the rich history and culture of Texas itself is what has made Michael Martin Murphey a star worthy of the name. It’s what made him an unforgettable part of our gathering of Texas journalists.
Like one of Murphey’s numbers that he performed early in the evening, we might feel we’re a “Vanishing Breed.” But he showed us that we’re really more like the old night hawk, keeping a keen eye trained around us as others slumber.
“Small-town newspapers, they write about the important stuff,” Murphey quipped.
“Keep loving and living like Wildfire,” he advised the crowd after closing with his best-known tune.
We will, we promise. Thanks for sharing your inspiration to keep us going.
