Samantha Murphy

"a great voice with tunes to match." -Ron Sexsmith



-Michael Ross chose Samantha's debut album "somewhere between starving & stardom" as one of his top 10 for this year's Village Voice Annual Pazz & Jop poll.



“…she’s a motivational speaker with a guitar.”
-Chris Kocher, pressconnects.com



About Samantha Murphy is The Highway Girl
Google singer songwriter and the first name you’ll find is Samantha Murphy. For over five years, Samantha has been establishing herself as not only a singer songwriter, but the place to go to hear other great singer songwriters. With her popular show The Highway Girl, Samantha features a different artist from a different city and venue each week as she tours. Past guests include Aimee Mann, Martha Wainwright, Elvis Perkins, Cary Brothers, Juliana Hatfield, Teitur, Inara George, Jesse Malin, Harvey Danger and Abra Moore. Millions of people have downloaded her program.



Samantha’s independently released debut CD, somewhere between starving & stardom, was chosen as a top 10 for Village Voice’s Annual Pazz & Jop Poll by Michael Ross, who calls it “…a perfect pop record.” The album contains an all star band consisting of the rhythm section from Alanis Morissette’s multi-platinum debut Jagged Little Pill and Kanye West’s Cellist.
Performing professionally since she was six years old, Samantha has worked with Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, Five for Fighting, Kylie Minogue and Erikah Badu as well as having appeared on TV shows ranging from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to Australia’s Hey, Hey It’s Saturday.



Samantha’s latest single and video “Days Like This”, Produced by Martin Terefe (Jason Mraz/KT Tunstall/James Morrison), is pre-loaded into RCA’s entire new line of MP3 players and has been shipped to Wal-Marts across the USA and Canada. She is currently in the studio with Ray Kennedy working on her sophomore release.



www.thehighwaygirl.com
sm@thehighwaygirl.com



Check out The Highway Girl
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My photos on Flickr
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My videos on You Tube



SOMEWHERE BETWEEN STARVING AND STARDOM
• Samantha Murphy



In a more perfect world, this music would be inescapable. You would be hearing it on the radio, in commercials, in movies, and of course coming out of your iPod earphones as you worked out. As it is, even an archaeologist of obscure talent such as myself would not be aware of it had not the ultra-talented Ms. Murphy performed at a pickin' party that I attended in Manhattan. (Yes, they have pickin' parties in Manhattan.) Having seen her name on the announcement, and being unfamiliar with her music, I checked out her website, where I was treated to the brilliant, Police-like "I Wanna Go Home." Neither that tune nor her charming and entertaining live performance prepared me for the pop masterpiece that is Somewhere Between Starving & Stardom.



The CD reveals that the Police influence in “I Wanna Go Home” is no isolated fluke. If Aimee Mann references the production elements of the Sixties, Murphy manages to distill the best elements of early-Eighties pop in the aforementioned tune, as well as in the Men-At-Work sounding "At The Laundr-O-Mat"--a tale of a woman who, after spending a fortune on grooming to meet a man, lands one while doing a wash. Still, SBS&S is no more a retro exercise than Mann's records; these classic touches are just spice added to a few tunes, on a record that maintains a thoroughly modern attitude. A sparser sound appropriately couches a song called "Silent & Still," while a love song like "I Am You" mixes banjo and minimal electronics in a manner both current and timeless. The great arrangements and production are themselves flavoring for the excellently crafted songs and Murphy’s voice--a magnificent mix of Mann's wry experience and Dusty Springfield's vulnerable soul.



Somewhere Between Starving & Stardom is an unusual but welcome brew of mature witty wisdom and unshakable optimism. Whether she ends up starving or a star, Samantha Murphy should take pride in knowing that, in a less than perfect world, she has at least created one perfect record.
• Michael Ross for Pure Music



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