Michael Martin Murphey

In many ways, Michael Martin Murphey has the career that Michael Nesmith of The Monkees -- with whom Murphey performed early in both of their careers -- might've had if he'd never been picked for the NBC series. A guitarist/songwriter, Murphey led the country-rock group The Lewis & Clarke Expedition in the mid-to-late '60s and had some pop success, and even got one song, "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'RoundNULL," recorded by The Monkees (with Nesmith singing lead, natch). His songs were cut by the likes of Flatt & Scruggs, Kenny Rogers, Roger Miller, and Bobbie Gentry, and he eventually began recording for A&M Records, and later for Epic Records, where he enjoyed a huge pop hit in the 1970s with "Wildfire." For a time he was known as the Cosmic Cowboy after one of his early songs. Murphey moved to Liberty Records in the early '80s and later jumped to Warner Bros., where his interest in cowboy and Native American subjects led to the foundation of the Warner Western imprint, a subsidiary label devoted to cowboy music and poetry.

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