Lost Generation and Night Lights are finally available! – Sony/BMG has announced the re-release of these two classic albums as digital downloads after years of waiting by frustrated fans. Lost Generation (1975) was Elliott's second album where to escape the New York media frenzy following the release of his iconic first album Aquashow he relocated to Los Angeles to work with legendary Doors Producer Paul Rothschild and a who's who of the finest session players of the time including drummer Jim Gordon (Derek and the Dominos) and keyboardist Richard Tee (Paul Simon). For Night Lights, Murphy returned to New York's mythological Electric Lady Studios with producer Steve Katz (Lou Reed) and an amazing iconoclastic band including Ernie Brooks (Modern Lovers) and Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads). Both albums have long been rated 4 stars by the respected All Music Guide and are now available at iTunes (Lost Generation | Night Lights), Amazon (Lost Generation | Night Lights) and other digital download sites.
The great photos of Olivier Durand and Laurent Pardo are by Dany Wilmet whose credit was mistakenly left off the CD.
GB Music in the USA is proud to announce the release of three ELLIOTT MURPHY CDs:- Elliott Murphy - The most recent studio album.
- Just A Story From New York - A brand new full band live album recorded in New York last December.
- Apres Le Deluge - A remastered reissue of the rare and out of print classic.
All three cds are in digipacks.There is also A Deluxe Signed Limited Edition of the new live Just A Story From New York. This 2 CD version has 4 bonus tracks and is limited to 100 copies. Each copy is hand signed by Elliott and comes with a print of the setlist from the show, hand signed and numbered as well. To order please go to the GB Records site.
Just like Mark Twain – Every Elliott Murphy concert is unique but this sold-out event, which was held on the vintage Swedish steamboat Blidösund on July 20, 2011, was very special indeed. The packed boat circled the incredible archipelago of Stockholm while Elliott played two personalized solo sets to the accompaniment of an awe-inspiring sunset. Everyone who returned to port said their life was indelibly changed for the better. We are trying to make it an annual event!
New Video! Watch the new video for Elliott's new single "Counterclockwise" by French director Ronan ... Time will fly by! [watch now]
New iTunes Exclusive Album! Elliott Murphy & The Normandy All Stars featuring Olivier Durand recently spent a day in an Amsterdam studio for the legendary 2 Meter Radio show. They recorded 7 songs including David Bowie's "Heroes" as well as selections from the recently released Elliott Murphy album and a slow, soulful version of Elliott's classic "Green River" and you can get it now on iTunes: 
New Album! Elliott Murphy's new 2011 album, although musically rich and lyrically intense, has a very simple title - Elliott Murphy - and begins a new cycle in the Murphy career and legend as it was produced by none other then Elliott's 20 year-old son Gaspard Murphy. Once again featuring virtuoso guitarist Olivier Durand and The Normandy All Stars, the album was recorded in Le Havre, New York City, and Paris with guests Kenny Margolis on keyboards (Willy DeVille) and backing vocals by Laura Mayne (Native), Alain Chenneviere (Pow Wow) and Lisa Lowell (Bruce Springsteen). 11 Unforgettable songs like "Poise 'n Grace" and "Rock 'n Roll 'n Rock 'n Roll." A classic in the works!
Order the CD now from the website store!
It's also available at iTunes:
Fall Shows: Elliott Murphy and the Normandy All Stars featuring Olivier Durand will be playing shows all over Europe in anticipation of the January 2011 release of Elliott's new album simply titled Elliott Murphy and produced by Gaspard Murphy. Hear many of the new songs performed live! Check the tour section for details.
Elliott Immortalized: Hard rocking Bob Dye & The Usual Suspects have written and recorded a moving homage to Elliott with their incredible song "The Last Rock Star." Check out news section for song lyrics and links to the MP3.
Summer Shows: Elliott Murphy and the Normandy All Stars featuring Olivier Durand are about to start hitting summer festivals all over Europe - France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Sweden. Check the Tour section for details.
The 2010 Annual Birthday Show: For Elliott's European fans (or those visiting Paris from the US) be sure not to miss his annual and legendary show at New Morning in Paris on Saturday March 27, 2010. (click on the image for a bigger version)
The Unfished Complete Lyrics Of Elliott Murphy Lenoir Ediciones announces the publication of The Unfinished Complete Lyrics of Elliott Murphy featuring the lyrics of 231 songs album by album. With a beautiful cover photo by Jack Mitchell from the Aquashow sessions and full of photos from all periods of Elliott's career inside. All the words from Aquashow to Notes From the Underground! Now available in the store on this site.
EM COME HOME...Elliott Murphy and the Normandy All Stars featuring Olivier Durand will play seven shows in the Northeast USA early December. Be there! Click on image for full schedule.
Cafe Heartbeat Concert On A USB Stick: Radio T in Chemitz, Germany recently recorded an Elliott Murphy And The Normandy All Stars Featuring Olivier Durand show at the great Cafe Heartbeat in Zwonitz and to satisfy the fans who wanted to take that great night home with them Radio T immediately burned engraved USB sticks to purchase after the show. The set list is:
1. The Valley Below
2. O Wyoming
3. A Touch of Mercy
4. Green River
5. Sonny
6. Pneumonia Alley
7. The Day after Valentine's Day
8. Razzmatazz
9. Canaries In The Mind
10. You Never Know What You're In For
11. The Last of the Rock Stars
12. On Elvis Presley's Birthday
Here's the link to purchase the USB. They still have a limited supply left so act fast.
We're so East Coast! Elliott Murphy will be returning to the East Coast of the U.S.A. for five shows in mid April 2009 on his Memory and Desire tour. Elliott will be performing with his incredible French backing band The Normandy All Stars featuring his amazing guitarist Olivier Durand. Once again, opening the show will be singer-songwriter Jann Klose and expect some surprises during Elliott's encores. Dates are confirmed in Fairfield CT, Fall River MA, Asbury Park NJ, Hoboken NY and Amagansett NY - check Tour section for details. These will be Elliott's first USA shows with a band in over a decade. For booking/gig information Anne Leighton and stay tuned for more information. "We're so East Coast - So here's a toast - Here's to everything that I wanted the most." ("Change Will Come")
Crawdaddy! Feature Article: One of the true original and long standing American rock 'n roll mags, Crawdaddy!, has posted a long interview and feature article on Elliott on their site written by legendary rock writer and long time Murphy admirer Mick Skidmore. Check it out.
I wish they all could be California Girls! Elliott Murphy will be playing his first West Coast shows in the U.S.A. in twelve years in January 2009 on his Hollywood Tour! Opening the show will be up and coming singer songwriter Jann Klose and Elliott will be appearing as a duo with his amazing guitarist Olivier Durand. Dates are confirmed in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Tehachapi, San Diego, Long Beach and at the NAMM show in Anaheim - check Tour section for details. Plans for an April 2009 Mid West tour with band are in the works. For booking/gig information Anne Leighton and stay tuned for more information. Hollywood - you shaped my life with a technicolor carving knife ...
Hometown boy makes good! The Marie of the 6th Arrondisement in Paris, along with the University Paris Diderot, will host a two week long exposition honoring the 35 year career in music and literature of Elliott Murphy from September 10 - 26, 2008 entitled Elliott Murphy - Last of the Rock Stars - Retrospective that will culminate with a live concert on 26 September. It will be located in the beautiful Mairie (town hall) of the 6th Arrondisement in Paris right near the famous cafés of St. Germain. If you're planning a trip to Paris and you're an Elliott Murphy fan it's a great time to visit the city of light which Elliott has called home for the past 18 years. Right click on the image to download a full size, press quality PDF poster. (It's a big file.)
Elliott, Gaspard and Bruce: On June 27, 2008 Elliott Murphy and his talented guitarist son Gaspard Murphy joined Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band for "Born To Run" in front of 50,000 ecstatic fans at Parc de Princes in Paris, France. When Bruce invited Elliott to join him on stage shortly before the show and suggested "Born to Run" Elliott thought he might be unsure of the chords but Gaspard piped in that he could teach Dad as he knew the song by heart. And Bruce, in an incredible gesture of generosity, said "Well, if you know the song Gaspard then you can come up and play it too!" An unforgettable night for a father and son reunion and a memory that will last forever. See a larger version of the photo.
US radio airplay! "What's That" - an exciting up-tempo track from Elliott's recent release Notes From The Underground in which he sings his way through the entire alphabet ("A is for amazed when you walk out of the show - B is for bedazzled its the witching hour") is receiving airplay on NEXT: A New Music Show on radio station The Peak 107.1 from White Plains, New York. If you listen to The Peak and would like to hear more Elliott Murphy music on that great rock station send them an email at studio@1071thepeak.com and let them know.
New album now available! Elliott Murphy's new album Notes From The Underground is now available in the store here at elliottmurphy.com. It's also available at iTunes:
New online store! We've launched a new store here at elliottmurphy.com. Most of the items are available at our special "nice" price. We'll be adding more items soon. Visit the new store HERE.
Remember though, this is just a small portion of the Elliott Murphy CDs and LPs available. You can find a much larger collection at the "Official" Elliott Murphy store located HERE. You'll also find T-Shirts and books there.
New MP3 of "Canaries In The Mind." A solo acoustic version of the song from Coming Home Again. LISTEN NOW
Elliott Murphy and Red Lounge Records announce the release of The Murphys - The 1973 Aquashow Demos - on a limited Vinyl edition:
The album features a stunning photo from the original Aquashow sessions taken at the Plaza Hotel in New York City and consists of the very high quality demos that Elliott Murphy, Matthew Murphy and friend George Gates recorded before the final Aquashow sessions. Click here for more information and to order.
Purchase Downloads
You can now purchase selected song downloads directly from this site. Currently you can purchase individual songs from Coming Home Again for $0.99 each. More songs will be added in the future.
New CD! Coming Home Again
From the opening drum fill of "Pneumonia Alley" it's clear that Elliott Murphy's 29th album Coming Home Again is something very special in the career of this legendary singer-songwriter. Coming Home Again is already being talked about as a return to the classic Murphy songwriting style that marked his early albums Aquashow and Just A Story From America. Recorded in Le Havre, France with a talented crew of musicians from Europe and America including virtuoso French guitarist Olivier Durand and New York keyboardist Kenny Margolis. In this impressive collection of 13 new songs Murphy tips his hat to cultural icons as diverse as Hemingway and Paris Hilton and exotic locales from India to Veracruz although the music and words belongs to that mythical place his fans now call Murphyland. They will even give you a passport if you ask!*
Coming Home Again features moving anthems ("Pneumonia Alley") and righteous rockers ("Marianne's Garage Sale") and of course the tender ballads Murphy is famous for "(Making Friends With The Dead" & "Home Again") as well as a eulogy to a fallen musical comrade ("Jesse"). The album includes a track so radio-friendly ("A Touch of Kindness") that perhaps we'll be hearing Elliott Murphy back on the radio all over the world once again as with his FM hits of the past "Drive All Night" and "Anastasia."
Murphy (who with guitarist Olivier Durand plays over 100 shows a year all over Europe) says that most of the songs were recently written on the road: "After my blues album Murphy Gets Muddy I wanted to get back to a rich and diverse sound and I was confident that my current band (drummer Alan Fatras [ex-Moon Martin] and bassist Laurent Pardo [ex-Kid Pharoen] and of course guitarist Olivier Durand could give me what I wanted to hear when we went into the studio. In fact, I could hear the finished songs in my head even before we began recording and all the musicians seemed to read my mind. We recorded in-between tours at Florent Barbier's [ex-Roadrunners] brand new studio in Le Havre. For many years now I've been an expatriate American musician living in Paris and on the road and to tell the truth I don't know where home is anymore. But I know that Coming Home Again is where I want to be."
Come home to the legendary sound of singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy with Coming Home Again and you'll never want to leave!
iTunes! Almost all of Elliott's albums are now available for purchase at iTunes, both in Europe and the US. 24 albums are currently available, including the "Vintage Series" releases (which are available at a special low price). You can purchase entire albums or individual songs. And the best part is all the proceeds go to Elliott, not some record label somewhere. Click this button to view Elliott's albums at iTunes.
New MP3 of "Open City." A radio performance of "Open City" By Elliott and Olivier Durand at Radio Paradiso on Suisse Radio recorded February 24, 2006. LISTEN NOW
Read Elliott's thoughts about Paul Nelson who died recently. Paul was important to Elliott in the early days of his career and without Paul's help Elliott would probably never have been noticed by the rock critics who were so influential at the time. Read Elliott's essay HERE.
Download Elliott's original handwritten lyrics for "Winners, Losers, Beggars, Choosers."
Franck Dumaine was kind enough to send us the original handwritten lyrics for this classic song. We've reproduced them as a PDF file which you can download HERE.
Aquashow featured in Uncut magazine. The April 2006 edition of the UK's Uncut magazine features a full page article on Aquashow under the heading "All-Time Classics." We've reproduced it as a PDF file which you can download HERE.
Join the new Elliott Murphy Mailing List. We'll keep you updated with news and information about Elliott, tour dates, CD releases and more. JOIN NOW
Download Elliott's original liner notes for the Velvet Underground's 1969 Live
Elliott recently came across his original liner notes for the Velvet Underground's 1969 Live album. We've reproduced them as a PDF file which you can download HERE.
Justified!
Been reading in Wikipedia (where else?) about famous American pioneer figure Kit Carson who, if nothing else, had a great rock 'n roll name. Most of his renown came from fighting Indians in the US Southwest, primarily the crafty Apaches, and although my own sentiments tend to lie on the side of the Indians, it does seem that there was a grudging respect from both sides back in the day. Toward the end of his life, Kit himself buried the hatchet and travelled east to Washington DC with some Ute chiefs to plead with the US Government for better conditions on the pitiful reservations – no need to wonder how that turned out. Kit died soon afterwards of a stroke. Nowadays, in a stroke of irony, many Indian reservations are sporting very profitable gambling casinos and hosting rock 'n roll concerts and even, I hear, some of the money gets back to the tribes themselves – call it Geronimo's revenge. I know that Bob Dylan has played at numerous such venues and I'd jump at the chance myself if given a chance. I enjoy playing casinos myself although honestly, I'm not much of a gambler, having had a stepfather who appreciated the ponies running at the local track a lot more then he appreciated me. But I do like that hypnotic anticipation of watching a large roulette wheel spinning around and around. Makes me feel like James Bond.
Frankly, I always thought that being a musician was gamble enough for me to take in this fickle world. That's why I'm pushing my son Gaspard to finish his degree at SUNY Purchase before he embarks down the dangerous rapids of the rock 'n roll river. Gaspard is a fine guitarist, singer, songwriter and producer (he produced my last album, Elliott Murphy, and we're already working on the next) and I think he has a good chance to make his own mark in the music world. But God knows (and so do I), that this is a business, which freely breaks hearts, minds and souls of even the most gifted musicians. After nearly forty years of knock, knock, knocking on the Grammy Awards door (somebody let me in!), I'd have to say that the secret ingredient for anyone trying for a coveted place in the Rock 'n Roll hall of fame is faith and, above all, perseverance. Of course, a little bit of talent never hurts either but whether it's still a prerequisite for success these days ... well, you tell me. So, I'm hoping Gaspard will have that warm fuzzy feeling of a college degree in his back pocket when he's riding in a van with miles to go for his next show.
Watched an interview with The Rolling Stones' always entertaining Ronnie Wood the other day and heard him talking about how difficult it can be between tours just to settle down when there's no plane to catch or stadium show to perform. Ronnie is a fine and internationally recognized painter in his own right and I'm sure that helps him stay focused for the years that pass before that huge Stones machine decides to get back into gear. My own tours are somewhat smaller undertakings and tend to be long-weekend affairs, sometimes bridging the weekdays in-between but I'm rarely out there on the proverbial road for more then 10 days or two weeks at a time. But unlike mega groups and artists, I often do four or five shows in a row and the odd thing is that I never feel the exhaustion until I get back home. Then I just lay in bed for a few days and start getting into all the great cable TV series I've missed since living in France via iTunes. I went through The Sopranos (loved Little Steven in that), Deadwood (the Wild West full of whores with hearts of gold), Downton Abbey (delightful British upper class drama, which only they can do with a straight face) but now, I am totally addicted like never before to Justified, the story of a fearless modern day U.S. Deputy Marshall carrying out his deadly duties in the depressed coal mining region of eastern Kentucky. Star of the show is charisma king Timothy Oliphant (also great in Deadwood) who plays Marshall Raylan Givens but its bad guy and smart hillbilly criminal mastermind Boyd Crowder (played by Walton Goggins) who keeps me coming back. Boyd's a homespun villain who speaks in a gothic southern vernacular, something akin to how William Faulkner wrote, with a hairstyle that literally stands on end. I chain-watched my way through Seasons 1 and 2 in less then a month and now I'm on to Season 3 where I gnaw at the bit waiting for each new episode to be delivered on Tuesday. And the theme song, which gives hip-hop a country twang, is brilliant as well. Not to mention that if what I see on Justified is a true representation of what the femmes in Eastern Kentucky look like, I might consider moving.
Hope this is not starting to sound like some sort of blog (I hate the sound of that word blog, sounds like a disease among Irish farm animals) and really what is a blog anyway if not a continuing series of essays on nothing in particular via the internet. So I want to know if Thomas Paine's [US revolution rebel rouser who eventually moved to France) Common Sense [pro-independence pamphlets] was the first of the blog? Off the point, I know, but if revolution is around the corner that's where it's going to come from.
Seems to me like there's more creativity in TV these days then films. Maybe that's because it takes 5 years or more to make a film and a TV series can be put together in 6 months. Suits the zeitgeist of the time, and especially super-series like Justified that leave you hanging after each week. We're living in the age of addiction, whatever that may be: booze, drugs, sex or great TV. I'll take door number four ... well maybe door number three too. Often journalists ask me about my musical and literary influences and I give them the usual menu: Books (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Kerouac), Films (John Ford, James Cagney, Marilyn Monroe), and, of course, Music (The Dylan Stones Beatles holy trinity). But is that really what carried me along to where I am today as an artist? The truth of the matter is that I have probably spent more time watching TV then reading books, watching films or listening to music put together. What really has been always watching over me, from a very early age, has been the omnipotent and ever-present God of television – and I'm grateful for that benediction. My first sexual desires were definitely kindled by Annette Funicello on the Mickey Mouse Club, and my wardrobe tastes were shaped by the western series Have Gun Will Travel (black always works best). I learned what a family should be like in Father Knows Best (although that's rarely the reality) and, then of course, there were endless hours of watching nonsensical cartoons of singing cats and dogs and lampposts and Tex Avery wolves howling after pretty girls. So I was perfectly ready when the next step of singing animals came along, that's right, The Beatles, right there on TV's Ed Sullivan Show in 1965.
When I came home from school, it was the first thing I'd do – turn on the TV. And now when I get home from a gig and plop onto my hotel bed what's the first thing I do? Zap on to CNN and make sure the world hasn't gone up in flames while I was burning up on stage. My mother says her television is her best friend. I don't know if I'd go that far but a friend indeed is a friend in need. What's on tonight?
February 9, 2012
Read more archived messages from Elliott.
