“Murphey was a key player in the Austin phenomenon,” Craig Havighurst of WMOT — The String recently observed. “Murphey, along with Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker and others forged a country-rock hybrid that became the foundation for the progressive folk music field we now call ‘Americana’.”
Murphey came of age in the local Southwestern folk music scene, starting with a Bohemian club called the Rubiyat in Dallas and other acoustic venues in Austin, Houston, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Denver. After briefly attending the University of North Texas (which had its own thriving music school), Murphey transferred to UCLA and worked his way through college as a singer / songwriter while excelling as a student of poetry, songwriter and performer. But a growing family and the pull of his Texas Cowboy roots brought him back to Austin in 1968 – where he began a new musical movement with the help of Rod Kennedy (founder of Kerrville Folk Festival), Segle Fry (club manager and folksinger) and UT ethnomusicologist Roger Abrams.
In May of 2018, the Country Music Hall of Fame honored Murphey’s contribution as a founding member of the Austin music scene as part of their three year Outlaws and Armadillos exhibit. He’s come full circle to his Cowboy roots, having recently been given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum and Cowboy Hall of Fame.