Biography

David Lee Murphy was born on January 7, 1959 in Herrin, Illinois. By 1983, he had moved to Nashville, Tennessee, seeking a successful career in country music. Two years later, he was spotted by record producer Tony Brown at a club in Nashville, although Brown did not sign Murphy to a record deal until nearly a decade later. In the meantime, however, Murphy did co-write album cuts for Reba McEntire and Doug Stone.

Musical career

Murphy's first recording for MCA Nashville was the song "Just Once", which was included on the soundtrack to the 1994 film 8 Seconds. In 1994, "Just Once" entered the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts, reaching a peak of No. 36. The same year, Murphy began work on his debut album Out with a Bang, released in early 1995. The album produced three hit singles overall, including "Party Crowd", which became the most-played country song of 1995, as well as "Dust on the Bottle", his Number One single. Out with a Bang became the best-selling album for a new male country act in all of 1995, and was certified gold by the RIAA.

Gettin' Out the Good Stuff was the title of Murphy's second album, released in 1996. It produced back-to-back Top 5 singles in "Every Time I Get Around You" and "The Road You Leave Behind". "Every Time I Get Around You" was also a No. 2 on the RPM Country Tracks charts in Canada, and was named as that publication's Number One country song for the year 1996.

Murphy's third and final album for MCA, titled We Can't All Be Angels, was released in 1997. In a 1997 interview, Murphy revealed that he had intended for this album to be experimental in nature, saying that he "wanted to create just a whole different tone, sonically. I just wanted a different sounding record." We Can't All Be Angels had two singles, "All Lit up in Love" and "Just Don't Wait Around 'Til She's Leavin'", peaked at No. 25 and No. 37, respectively, on the country charts.

2000s

Main article: List of songs written by David Lee Murphy

By the 2000s, Murphy had shifted his focus to songwriting. One of his first cuts in the 2000s was the title track to Aaron Tippin's 2000 album People Like Us; this song was a Top 20 for Tippin in 2001. Trick Pony also entered the country Top 20 one year later with another one of Murphy's compositions — the title track to their 2002 album On a Mission. Murphy also co-wrote album cuts for several other artists, including Brooks & Dunn, Montgomery Gentry, and Hank Williams, Jr.

Koch Entertainment signed Murphy to his second recording contract in 2004. That year, he released his fourth studio album, Tryin' to Get There. The album, whose title track was co-written by Waylon Jennings prior to his death in 2002, produced the Top Five hit "Loco", which reached No. 5 in 2004. The only other single from Tryin' to Get There was "Inspiration", a collaboration with singer and guitarist Lee Roy Parnell, which peaked at No. 48.

Following the closure of the Koch Nashville record label, Murphy continued working as a songwriter, scoring his first outside Number One with Kenny Chesney's 2006 single "Living in Fast Forward". 2007 produced three more chart singles co-written by Murphy: Gary Allan's "A Feelin' Like That" (co-written by Ira Dean, then a member of Trick Pony), Van Zant's "Goes Down Easy", and Blake Shelton's "The More I Drink". 2008 saw the release of Keith Anderson's "Somebody Needs a Hug" and the Eli Young Band's "Always the Love Songs", two more songs co-written by Murphy, and Jason Aldean topped the country charts in September 2009 with "Big Green Tractor", which Murphy wrote with Jim Collins. Josh Thompson charted in 2010 with "Way Out Here", another Murphy co-write.

Other Murphy co-writes include Thompson Square's "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not" and "Everything I Shouldn't Be Thinking About", Kenny Chesney's "Live a Little" and "Pirate Flag", Aldean's "The Only Way I Know", Jake Owen's "Anywhere with You", Blackberry Smoke's "Ain't Much Left of Me" and The Road Hammers' "Get On Down the Road".

Personal life

Murphy is married to his wife, Donna, and they have three sons. They live on a secluded farm just outside Nashville.

Charitable efforts

In 2000, Murphy hosted a series of concerts in his hometown of Herrin, Illinois, raising $25,000 for the Jack Murphy fund, which David Lee started in honor of his father, Dr. Jack Murphy, a local civic leader and educator.

Discography

Studio albums

Title	Album details	Peak chart positions				Certifications
		US Country	US	US Heat	CAN Country
Out with a Bang	Release date: August 30, 1994 Label: MCA Records Formats: CD, cassette	10	52	1	2	CAN: Gold US: Gold
Gettin' Out the Good Stuff	Release date: May 21, 1996 Label: MCA Records Formats: CD, cassette	12	104	—	6
We Can't All Be Angels	Release date: September 23, 1997 Label: MCA Records Formats: CD, cassette	39	—	—	—
Tryin' to Get There	Release date: March 23, 2004 Label: Audium/Koch Records Formats: CD, music download	46	32	—	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Singles

Year	Single	Peak chart positions			Album
		US Country	US	CAN Country
1994	"Just Once"	36	—	28	8 Seconds
	"Fish Ain't Bitin'"	52	—	35	Out with a Bang
1995	"Party Crowd"	6	—	7
	"Dust on the Bottle"	1	—	9
	"Out with a Bang"	13	—	5
1996	"Every Time I Get Around You"	2	—	2	Gettin' Out the Good Stuff
	"The Road You Leave Behind"	5	—	12
1997	"Genuine Rednecks"	53	—	84
	"Breakfast in Birmingham"	51	—	34
	"All Lit Up in Love"	25	—	21	We Can't All Be Angels
	"Just Don't Wait Around 'Til She's Leavin'"	37	—	52
1998	"We Can't All Be Angels"	—	—	—
2004	"Loco"	5	44	—	Tryin' to Get There
	"Inspiration"	46	—	—
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Music videos

Year	Video	Director
1994	"Just Once"	Charley Randazzo
	"Fish Ain't Bitin'"
1995	"Party Crowd"	chris rogers
	"Dust on the Bottle"	Charley Randazzo
1996	"The Road You Leave Behind"	Michael Salomon
	"She's Really Something to See"
1997	"Genuine Rednecks"	Michael Merriman
	"All Lit Up in Love"
	"Just Don't Wait Around 'Til She's Leavin'"
1998	"We Can't All Be Angels"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]