Artist: Michael Martin Murphey
Album: Red River Drifter
Country: US
Genre: Country, western
Release: 2013
Quality: FLAC | lossless

2013 release from the Country singer/songwriter. In recent years Murphey has been exploring the similarities between Bluegrass and American cowboy music. But for Red River Drifter, he brought in some very eclectic and unexpected elements to the writing process. ''I wrote songs that drew from what is inspiring me at this point in my life,'' he says. ''Every style was fair game. We intentionally did not follow formulas or rules.'' Murphey has received multiple Grammy nominations during his incredible career including one for Best Bluegrass Album for his Buckaroo Blue Grass album in 2009. He has also earned six gold albums and performs more than 150 shows per year.

Tracklist:
1. Peaceful Country 2:42
2. Under A Rolling Sky 3:27
3. Secret Smile 3:06
4. Faded Blues 3:45
5. Shake It Off 3:53
6. Hardscrabble Creek 4:12
7. Mountain Storm 3:33
8. The Gathering 3:37
9. New Old Love 2:44
10.Unfinished Symphony 3:25

Despite the lonesome title “Red River Drifter,” Michael Martin Murphey sings about love the country way on his latest album. Since 1990, the native Texan has recorded and revived traditional cowboy music. The singer-songwriter, a mainstream country hitmaker in the 1980s, has focused in recent years on exploring overlaps between bluegrass and cowboy songs. Here, Murphey, 68, rounds up all his country music influences and even hints of his early 1970s Cosmic Cowboy Movement tunesmithing for 10 ballads.

With lively banjo and fiddle work and Murphey's rapid-fire choruses, his affection for bluegrass is represented on “Peaceful Country,” about a longtime couple making a rural escape to rekindle romance. He covers similar topical ground on “New Old Love.” The multiple Grammy nominee showcases his pleasant tenor as he shuffles along “Under a Rolling Sky,” pays tribute to his longtime lady's “Secret Smile” and likens the nature of true love to a “Mountain Storm.” A Spanish-style acoustic guitar and mournful fiddle accent his melancholy delivery on “Faded Blues,” about a “poor boy” suitor who loses the girl of his dreams to a “highbrow cat” in shiny boots and a new Stetson hat.

Murphey, who yearly brings his Cowboy Christmas Ball to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, nimbly swaps vocals with Pauline Reese while his son and co-producer Ryan Murphey plays mandolin on “Shake It Off,” offering encouragement for folks facing hard times. Universal themes are covered with “Hardscrabble Creek,” and there's a gospel flair to “The Gathering,” a tip of the cowboy hat to loved ones who have passed on.