Chillin' with a Conspicuous Cowboy

I have a little more catching up to do. When I was down in Utah in November, Nicole and I spent a night at the Homestead, a little resort in Midway, Utah. Nicole had a free night’s stay from performing at a charity event at the Homestead this past summer.

My sis and I went for a dip in a 10,000 year old crater, filled with 95° mineral water (it goes 55 feet into the earth). We were swimming around in the crater, and this nice older guy we had talked to earlier swam over and we started chatting. I mentioned that Nicole was a singer, and he was like, “I need to introduce you to one of my friends.” So we swam over to this bench area in the crater to meet...drumroll...Michael Martin Murphey. We had no idea who he was, to be honest, but we soon found out. He had a #1 hit back in 1975 (which he cowrote) called “Wildfire.” I had never heard of it, but when we told our mom, she was like, “Oh, I love that song!”

So we chilled with Michael Martin Murphey and his fun cowboy friends in this crater for over an hour. Michael told us his life story. He’s from Dallas, Texas, and he had been writing songs and performing for while. This drunk guy would come to his performances all the time and make a ruckus at every show. At one point, Michael even told him he needed to sit in the very back so as not to distract the audience. But he was a huge fan. He told Michael, “I’m going to do everything in my power to see that you make it.” Michael just brushed it off. After all, this guy was a drunk…what could he do? But one day after a concert, this guy from A&M Records in Nashville came up to him, and said, “Hey, I LOVE your stuff. Do you want to record an album?” Michael responded with an enthusiastic yes. He asked the A&M guy how he had found out about the concert, and he pointed to the drunk man. They had recently attended the same wedding, and the drunk guy had told him he just had to come hear Michael Martin Murphey sing.

We said goodbye after a lovely chat, and went back to our hotel room to get dressed for dinner. Our hotel phone rang and we wondered who it could be. It was Tennessee, one of Michael’s cowboy friends...they had connections. “We’re going out to dinner tonight at the Bear Dance Café—wanna come?” We joined them and had a blast. We enjoyed a jam session after dinner. Nicole played for them as well and they loved her music. It was fascinating to hear these cowboys tell tales of the wild, wild west.

Murphey's claims to fame: MMM has played alongside Willie Nelson. In 1983, he was voted Best New Male Vocalist of the year by the Academy of Country Music. His songs have been recorded by Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Cher, Lyle Lovett, Bobbie Gentry, and the Monkees.

Nicole and me with Michael Martin Murphey

He sang “Wildfire” for us. Here’s an excerpt from
our jam session (sorry the quality's not great):

Here’s MMM performing on the David Letterman show in 2007: