Elliott Murphy

Elliott Murphy has been a figure on the outskirts of both the New York art scene and American rock music in general for some thirty years now. Besides writing the liner notes to the Velvet Underground album Live 1969 (a truly great piece of writing about discovering the Velvets as a teenager, doing lots of drugs and stealing your dad's car), he's released a dozen or so records that have made him a treasure in Paris, where he lives. Sadly, his work is often overlooked in the States despite its merits. Murphy is a talented songwriter, drawing worthy comparisons to Bob Dylan, and his songs of loss and survival are delivered with a haggard voice and punchy Folk-Rock arrangements.