More Music

• Cowboy Junkies revisit, re-record 'The Trinity Session'
• Review: 3D effects flesh out U2
• CD reviews: Jet Lag Gemini; RTX; Metro Station; We the Kings

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

It's a mark of singer-songwriter Michael Martin Murphey's passion for the lore and lifestyle of the West that he can see the cowboy in just about anything.

The Christmas story is no exception.

"It's herdsmen who get the word (of Christ's birth) first," Murphey said during a phone interview from Denver. "The first news goes to people watching grazing animals out in the field.

"Now, the animals were probably sheep. But biblical historians tell me the stock might have included goats and cattle, too."

Murphey takes some measure of comfort from that. As a rancher who raises Longhorn cattle on prime, prairie grasslands, it sort of sticks in his craw to think sheepmen would get the scoop on the Big Story.

"The Christmas story is an interesting story, a very democratic story, whether you are a believer or not," Murphey said. "You got a king being born into a lowly estate and the news being given to the common people, the cowboys of that time and place."

Murphey is bringing his Cowboy Christmas Concert Tour, a show he started 20 years ago, to Albuquerque's Kiva Auditorium on Sunday.

It's the story of Jesus' birth celebrated with the jingle of spurs and the pungent smell of leather.

"It's more like a play," Murphey said of the show, which is making 30 tour stops this season. "I come out as a generic cowboy remembering an older, more sentimental time."

He's talking about a time when people celebrating Christmas were not afraid of being censured if they publicly embraced and trumpeted the holiday's religious roots. Murphey's not afraid of that now.

"My show doesn't avoid the real meaning of Christmas," he said. "It's told in a reflective way but from a cowboy perspective."

And with music, of course. Murphey, 62, has been making music since the early '60s and is best known for his 1975 hit, "Wildfire."

With three Christmas albums to his credit, he has plenty of material to draw from for his holiday show.

"The Christmas show is different every year," he said. "Different music, different special effects. But there are some things that stay the same, things people want and expect every year."

Those things include the traditional carol "Joy to the World," music by George Frideric Handel, played by Murphey clawhammer style on a banjo.

"That always gets a big laugh," Murphey said. "Handel's music played hillbilly style."

Another keeper is "In the Moon of Wintertime," a Christmas hymn written in 1643 by Jean de Br‚beuf, a Christian missionary living among the Huron Indians in Canada.

De Br‚beuf's hymn, originally written in the Huron language, tells the story of Christ's birth in terms the Hurons could relate to. The angels appear not to herdsmen or shepherds but to hunters. The baby is born not in a stable but in a lodge of broken bark, and he is wrapped not in swaddling clothes but in a ragged robe of rabbit skin.

Other recurring favorites in the Christmas show are the songs "Christmas on the Line" and "Christmas Cowboy Style," both written by Murphey, and "Two-Step 'Round the Christmas Tree" by Suzy Bogguss.

But the centerpiece of the Christmas show is "The Cowboy Christmas Ball," Murphey's musical adaptation of Larry Chittenden's 1880s poem about a cowboy Christmas dance in Anson, Texas, northwest of Abilene.

It's the annual Anson Christmas dance, still taking place after all these years, that inspired Murphey's Cowboy Christmas Tour in the first place.

"Anson is a hark back to the Old West, and our whole show is a tribute to what they started," Murphey said.

Murphey, a native Texan who spent some of his growing-up time on family farms and ranches, is himself a hark back to the Old West. He is a top-selling performer of cowboy music and a member the Western Music Hall of Fame.

But his music career didn't look to be headed down the cowboy trail when he started out. People had a tough time putting a label to his first album, 1972's "Geronimo's Cadillac." They called it progressive country, redneck rock, even outlaw music. But not Western.

His hit "Wildfire" is about a ghost or dream horse on the cold, Nebraska prairie, but it's not really a cowboy song. In 1975, it went to No. 3 on Billboard's pop chart and to No. 1 on everybody's adult contemporary charts.

In the early '80s, he began to develop a following on country music radio with songs such as "Still Taking Chances," which he wrote. Murphey beat out George Strait for the Academy of Country Music's 1983 best new artist honor — even though he had been in the music business more than a dozen years.

So by then, he was country — but still not Western.

It was New Mexico that lured him into the fold of cowboy music and culture. Murphey moved to Taos in 1978 and lived in northern New Mexico for 24 years. He still has a cabin near Red River, although he calls a ranch in Wisconsin home these days.

It was while he was in New Mexico that Murphey got into raising horses and mules, and spending as many days in the saddle as he does on tour — a practice he maintains to this day.

In 1985, he turned a corner when he joined the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Western music called "A Night in the American West."

Then in 1990, he released his "Cowboy Songs" album, which went gold, marking the first time a recording artist had achieved that plateau with Western material since the late Marty Robbins.

Murphey hasn't looked back since.

"The demand seems very strong for cowboy music," he said. "I've never been more busy or sold more records than I have since I started doing this music."

Still, he admits that Western music is not a mainstream media genre.

"But that almost drives its audience to buy CDs," he said. "They actually seek out the music in outlets like Western clothing stores and feed stores."

And, unlike other forms of music, Murphey said Western music appeals to all ages.

"People who like cowboy music run from teenagers to middle-aged couples to 90-year-olds," he said. "I think young people are fascinated with the survival mentality of cowboys, the cowboy who is an independent cuss, a rebel and a renegade to the end. That appeals to young people."

Besides, Murphey is sure God looks with favor on the people who ride herd in this world. Probably even sheepmen.