He has recorded the hit singles "Wildfire", "Carolina in the Pines", "What's Forever For", "A Long Line of Love", "What She Wants", "Don't Count the Rainy Days", and "Maybe This Time".

Years later he would remember sleeping on his grandfather's porch under the stars, listening to the older man's stories and cowboy songs.

As a youth, he enjoyed writing poetry and loved listening to his uncle's old 78 rpm records, particularly the music of country and folk artists such as Hank Williams, Bob Wills, and Woody Guthrie.

[4] After graduating from W. H. Adamson High School in Oak Cliff, Murphey studied Greek at the University of North Texas.

As a member of the institution's Folk Music Club, he befriended Steven Fromholz, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Shiva's Headband fiddler Spencer Perskin and Armadillo World Headquarters co-founder Eddie Wilson.

Murphey's first big break came through his friend Michael Nesmith, who had become part of the popular television musical group, The Monkees.

Castleman went on to find success with his controversial song "Judy Mae" and as the writer and producer of the million selling novelty hit "Telephone Man" for singer Meri Wilson.

In 1968, Murphey moved to Wrightwood, a village in the San Gabriel Mountains adjacent to the Mojave Desert of California to work on his songwriting.

Based on the success of his songs, he signed a contract with the Screen Gems company, the publishing arm of Columbia Pictures.

Kenny Rogers and the First Edition recorded an entire album of Michael Murphey songs called The Ballad of Calico, about a Mojave Desert ghost town.

[4] Murphey wrote some additional songs for The Monkees, but he grew disillusioned with the poor financial rewards and the Southern California music scene.

Johnston had produced some of the country's most popular recording artists, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Simon and Garfunkel.

Throughout this period, Murphey's band included Bob Livingston and Gary P. Nunn, the author of "London Homesick Blues".

He performed a number of times at the Armadillo World Headquarters, and his photo was even used for the original cover of Jan Reid's book, The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock.

Produced by Bob Johnston, the album included the orchestra anthem "Nobody's Gonna Tell Me How To Play My Music", and "Southwestern Pilgrimage".

Years later, Murphey had a dream about this ghost horse and wrote the words and music the same day with songwriter Larry Cansler.

The song's harmonies were supplied by Jeff Hanna and Jimmy Ibbotson from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the piano introduction and ending coda played by jazz pianist Jac Murphy.

During the late 1970s, he recorded four albums: Swans Against the Sun (1975), Flowing Free Forever (1976), Lone Wolf (1978), and Peaks, Valleys, Honky Tonks & Alleys (1979).

In 1987, he released the album Americana, which included "Once Upon a Time", "My Darling Wherever You Are", and another number one country hit with the song "A Long Line of Love".

In 1988, Murphey released the album River of Time, which produced three hit singles that reached number three on the charts: Jesse Winchester's "I'm Going to Miss You, Girl", his own "From the Word Go", and "Talkin' to the Wrong Man", which featured his son Ryan.

Despite the impressive critical and commercial success he achieved throughout the 1980s, Murphey's authentic creativity began to gravitate towards the Western music that appealed to him as a child coming of age in Texas.

Its 22 riveting cuts represent a labor of not only love but also scholarship; it raises a cult musical genre to the level of mainstream art.

In 1986 he founded WestFest, an annual music festival held at Copper Mountain, Colorado that celebrates western art and culture.

Molly Carpenter, writing in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, noted, "Murphey's love for the American West clearly comes through in his songs, painted with vivid images of the rugged mountains and vast deserts of southwest landscapes, all evidence of his travels from his native Texas to California's Mojave Desert, Colorado's Rockies and the wild diversity of New Mexico, his home for the past 10 years.

"[14] During the 1990s, in a further effort to preserve the traditions of the West, Murphey led a group of performers—including cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell and western music historian and troubadour Don Edwards — in a series of improvisational concerts called Cowboy Logic, which toured throughout the United States, including such unlikely locations as New York City and Las Vegas.

One of Murphey's Cowboy Christmas Ball concerts, recorded in Oklahoma City, was included as a fourth DVD in the combination CD/DVD set.

Over the years, his songs have been recorded by Bluegrass artists such as Flatt and Scruggs, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, the Country Gentlemen, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

He has been a long-time supporter of the conservation movement, attempting to find a middle ground between ranchers and activists on opposite sides of environmental issues.

[25] In the past decade, Murphey has focused his political energies on the issue of private property rights—especially in the western and southwestern United States.

In 2006, he released "The Ballad of Kit Laney" in support of the New Mexico rancher's fight with the United States Forest Service over water rights.