Michael Martin Murphey was born March 14, 1945 in Dallas, Texas. He began riding horses on his grandfather’s and uncle’s ranches when he was six. He remembers sleeping on his grandfather’s porch while listening to stories and songs of the older men.



In the early 1960s, Murphey moved to California and became popular in the folk clubs around Los Angeles. As a songwriter, Murphey had his songs cut by such artists as The Monkees, Flatt & Scruggs, Bobbie Gentry, Roger Miller and Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. In fact, his first big break came from his friend, Michael Nesmith, who had been picked to be part of The Monkees. Nesmith asked Murphey to write a song for them and they recorded “What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round”.

Murphey moved back to Texas in the early 1970s, where a few years later he would write “Wildfire”, which provided him with his first gold record.

In the late 1980s, Murphey switched back to one of his first loves – cowboy music. Because of the success of this genre, by the 1990s Murphey was instrumental in his label, Warner Bros. establishing the Warner Western branch.

Murphey has received five awards from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, formerly known as the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for his accomplishments in the Western and Cowboy Music field. He has too many awards to list them all here.