Capture The Art Blog's

Jimmy Murphy is one of the more enigmatic figures to come out of the country/rockabilly scene of the early to mid-'50s. A virtuoso guitar player and a gifted and inspired songwriter, he had a knack for composing and performing quirky, clever songs that hooked into unusual thematic angles -- his first song, "Electricity," equated rural electrification with religious salvation, while the closest he ever got to a real hit, "Sixteen Tons Rock n' Roll," was a satire of the 1956 Tennessee Ernie Ford hit of the Merle Travis song. His music was also strangely archaic in both its form and content, elements that may have doomed his chance for a successful recording career.