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| Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band |
| Before pianist Walter Murphy scored in 1976 with his disco instrumental chartbuster, "A Fifth Of Beethoven," he was an obscure Madison Avenue jingle writer with a crazy idea. A former arranger for Doc Severinson and "The Tonight Show" orchestra, Murphy wanted to fuse classical themes to contemporary rhythms in a way that would stand pop music on it's head.
Born in 1952 in New York and growing up in Manhattan he studied jazz and classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music. As a teen he was bowled over by two rock hits based on music by Johann Sebastian Bach: "A Lover's Concerto" by the Toys in 1965 and "Joy" by Apollo 100 in 1972. Walter wanted to duplicate their Top Ten success by hooking the same concept around the newly evolving 'disco-beat.' The experiment, as Murphy called it was to take a symphonic theme, diametrically opposed to the current pop sound, and make a hit record out of it. To test his theory, Walter made a demo tape of several classical and neo-classical works, which he shipped to every record label in New York City. The response was underwhelming. In fact, the only song that generated even the remotest interest amongst the various labels was a self-produced and arranged rendition of Ludwig Beethoven's "Symphony No. 5 In 'C' Minor," originally composed in 1807. Finally Larry Uttal at Private Stock Records gave Murphy the go-ahead to celebrate the German composer in full-blown disco fashion. Even though Murphy played nearly every instrument on "A Fifth Of Beethoven," his record company cautioned that the record would stand a better chance if it was credited to a group rather than an individual. To Walter's chagrin, they came up with the moniker Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band, only to discover two days after it's release that there was already a Big Apple Band. The name on the label was changed to The Walter Murphy Band and then simply Walter Murphy. Neither Murphy nor Private Stock Records were prepared for the immediate nationwide response to his odd and very catchy music. In fact, he was so excited when he first heard his song played on the car radio, he nearly plowed into a tree. Or so the story goes...... The song entered the Hot 100 at number 80 on May 29,1976 and took 19 weeks to reach number 1, where it only stayed for one week. Early in 1977 it was licensed to RSO Records for inclusion on the soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever." The second single from the album, "Flight '76," based on Rymsky-Korsakov's "Flight Of The Bumble Bee," only reached 44 on the Hot 100. His next release was the 12" single "Rhapsody In Blue" which featured "A Fifth Of Beethoven" on the b-side. Sales were good, but probably because of the b-side. A second 12" single of "Gentle Explosion," failed to make the club or radio charts in 1978. A move to RCA in 1979 produced one more 12" single. "Mostly Mozart" proved that Walter had taken this concept as far as it could (or should) go. His last chart entry was in 1982 with a medley of "Themes From E.T. (The Extra-Terestrial" which climbed to number 47 on the Hot 100. Since then it is presumed that Murphy has gone back to jingle writing and work behind the scenes. Still the mega-success of his quirky idea has earned him a place in disco history and in The DiscoMuseum. |
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