On Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades, Michael Martin Murphey puts on his black hat, pulls up his bandana, takes aim and blows a few big holes in the Hollywood myth about Old West outlaws and gunfighters.
In a followup to his acclaimed Cowboy Songs Vol. I and Cowboy Christmas Songs Vol. II albums, Murphey moves away from songs about working cowboys and ranchers to focus on the lives of infamous Western outlaws. By blending traditional folk ballads with original songs, he gallops beyond the fictional fables and sticks a spur in the Old sensationalized stories. Instead of puffing up the old legends, he examines the true tales of these celebrated men and women and delves into the culture, social climate and political forces that shaped their lives.
"When I did the first two albums, I was determined not to deal with guns and robberies and stage coaches and Indian fights, because those are the cliches of the Old West," Murphey explains. "But as I was doing my research, I found out that the real stories behind these famous outlaws are absolutely more fantastic and interesting than the myths that have been created."
Eventually, Murphey discovered that the old, traditional ballads tended to stick closer to the truth than the superficial stories passed along in movies, books and magazines. "I finally came to the conclusion that I wanted to create an album that put people like Frank and Jesse James, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr in the right context," Murphey explains.
"Hollywood made up this image of a cowboy with a six shooter strapped to his hip. The truth is there were plenty of working ranchers and cowboys who never owned a gun. The movies and the dime-store novels distorted the lives of real people to create mythological legends. They took out the human quality. The old ballads, I discovered better represent the character of these people than most of the films. They come closer to telling the real story, and they include the element of tragedy that was a part of all these outlaws lives. I thought that needed to be brought out.
The result, Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades, is the third in a series of albums spotlighting traditional Western music, continuing a project that the veteran Southwestern artist calls "my most deeply heartfelt work." A ranch owner in Taos, N.M., since 1978, Murphey calls his cowboy trilogy "the music of my people, my land, my culture and my own life."
The album features many beloved American folk music standards, including "Birmingham Jail," "Streets of Laredo," "Prisoner's Song," "Strawberry Roan," "Ghost Riders" and such outlaw classics as "Billy the Kid," "Jesse James," "Cole Younger" and "Sam Bass." (Almost all of the outlaw songs were written in the 1880s with a few exceptions like "Belle Starr".)
An album of Western outlaw music wouldn't be complete without a song by the late, great Marty Robbins, and Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades allowed Murphey the opportunity to realize a dream of a lifetime.
In researching the song possibilities of the Robbins' catalog, Murphey discovered that Robbins was among the first artists in Nashville and in country music to utilize multi-track recording. Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades does include his own revamped version of Robbins' classic "El Paso;" it also presented him the chance to record a duet with his idol on Robbins' famous gunfighter ballad, "Big Iron" (a 1960 country hit).
"That was probably the greatest honor I've been afforded in my life," Murphey says of the hi-tech duet. "To be able to sing a duet, albeit posthumously, with my hero Marty Robbins. I think he was the greatest country singer and one of the greatest pop singers ever. He came from Arizona, and he brought with him to Nashville a love of cowboys, He kept Western music alive in Nashville, in what is essentially a Southern city, at the time when most people were encouraging him not to do it."
On the original songs, in Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades, Murphey blends a couple of other fact-based outlaw stories (his own 7-minute epic "Belle Starr" and Hal Ketchum's wistful "Frank James' Farewell") with several other songs that confer a more general feel for the Old West lifestyle.
"The traditional songs are very old-fashioned in their phraseology, and they're poetic and so linear in how they tell a story," Murphey says. "I thought the contemporary stuff should offer more of a psychological view."
These range from the wise advice an old bandito gives a lovestruck young man on "Roses and Thorns" to the boot-scootin' fun-lovin'-romp of "The West is Gonna Get Wilder" to the poignantly pensive "Queen of Heartaches."
In all, Cowboy Songs III--Rhymes of the Renegades, is a powerful continuation of the series that Murphey began when he issued the critically acclaimed, commercially successful Cowboy Songs in 1990. That album was the culmination of three years of research on the Old West. For Murphey, the experience turned the music and history of the American Frontier into the primary focus of his creative life.
His activities are multi-dimensional. His highly popular West Fest events spotlight the music, art and culture of both the Old and New West; he is chairman of the National Indian Education Association; he is on the board of annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering; he is a part of the Holistic Resource Management Institute, which encourages environmentally sound ranching; he has received the New Mexico Department of Agriculture's Governor's Award for his role as a spokesman for agriculture; and his two previous cowboy albums have received the Heritage Award of the Cowboy Hall of Fame. "Researching the West has totally changed my life," Murphey says. "I would encourage everyone that, if they ever got the chance to look into their roots or their history, do it. You'll walk away with a changed view of the society you live in today."
Murphey, throughout his career, has displayed his affinity for the old and new West. He first began entertaining while sitting around a campfire at the Sky Ranch in Lewisville, Texas, where he performed old cowboy songs. While attending UCLA, he was a member of the folk-rock group the Lewis and Clark Expedition, named after pioneers of the West. In 1971, he moved back to Texas and joined the burgeoning Austin Music scene, which engendered the famed Outlaw movement that revolutionized country music and impacted rock music throughout the 1970's. Murphey's first hit, 1972's "Geronimo's Cadillac," quickly turned into an anthem for the Indian rights movement and made him a central figure in the Austin scene.
It was three years and three albums later that Murphey established himself as a major hitmaker with the Top 10 smash "Wildfire" and the followup hit, "Carolina in the Pines." Within years, he also validated his country credentials with such hits as "Cherokee Fiddle" and "A Mansion on the Hill."
His first Number One country song, "What's Forever For," came in 1982 and has been followed by such memorable hits as "Still Taking Chances," "Disenchanted," "Will It be Love by Morning," "What She Wants," "A Long Line of Love," "I'm Gonna Miss You, Girl," "Talkin' to the Wrong Man," and "From the Word Go."
However, Murphey has always been determined to reach those listeners who yearn to reach beyond the current hits and find music that taps into a deeper part of the soul. "I think the sales of my cowboy albums prove there is a hunger out there for history and roots and analysis of who we are and what we are all about," he says. "These albums didn't make it because of hit records on the radio. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there who seek out music that strikes them on a deep level. Those are the people who I want to connect with."
Michael Martin Murphey is one of the artists credited with keeping the western musical tradition alive and as one of the creators of the Warner Western imprint. His first album of cowboy songs in two years is a stirring collection of songs new and old that explore life on the other side of the law.
"Rhymes Of The Renegades" tells the stories not only of the gunfighters of the Old West, but of people forced by circumstance to live outside the lines of society. Many of the characters Michael sings about on this album have become a part of American history: Frank and Jesse James, Billy The Kid, Belle Starr, Sam Bass, Cole Younger.
Highlights of the album include Michael's remake of Marty Robbins's classic ballad "Big Iron"--it incorporates Robbins's original vocals to create an after-the-fact duet (Michael has also recorded a version of Robbins's "El Paso" for this album). Also included are present-day duets with Hal Ketchum and Chris LeDoux. Fellow Warner Western artist Bill Miller also makes an appearance. Many of the songs on "Rhymes Of The Renegades" are traditional, but there are also several newly written tunes.
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