Willie Murphy is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, singer, producer, and songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

. He is best known as a singer and pianist for the blues band Willie and the Bees and his work with Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

 and John Koerner.

Biography

Murphy grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

 in an Irish-Catholic working-class family. He began piano lessons at the age of 4. His early musical influences were Little Richard

Little Richard

Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...

, Fats Domino

Fats Domino

Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....

, Carl Perkins

Carl Perkins

Carl Lee Perkins was an American rockabilly musician who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning during 1954...

, Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis

Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...

, and Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

.

Murphy played on the folk circuit with John Koerner and the duo recorded Running, Jumping, Standing Still

Running, Jumping, Standing Still

Running, Jumping, Standing Still is an album by blues artists "Spider" John Koerner and Willie Murphy, released in 1967. The album is often credited in Koerner's solo discography.-History:...

in 1967. The album received positive reviews, Crawdaddy!

Crawdaddy!

Crawdaddy! was the first U.S. magazine of rock and roll music criticism. Created in 1966 by college student Paul Williams in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music, Crawdaddy! was self-described as "the first magazine to take rock and roll...

calling it "one of the most unique and underrated albums of the folk boom, perhaps the only psychedelic ragtime blues album ever made." The duo eventually split up and Koerner pursued an unsuccessful career in film-making, temporarily retiring from the music business and moving to Copenhagen, Denmark. Murphy was offered a full-time job with Elektra Records as an in-house producer but declined, choosing to remain in the Minneapolis area.

He produced Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

's 1971 debut album

Bonnie Raitt (album)

Bonnie Raitt is the self-titled debut album by Bonnie Raitt, released in 1971 . A straight-blues affair, it was recorded at an empty summer camp on Enchanted Island, about 30 miles west of Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka...

 for Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Murphy led the R&B, blues and rock group Willie and the Bees.

Murphy performed on piano, bass, guitar and various other instruments as a session musician for Raitt, Koerner, Greg Brown, Prudence Johnson

Prudence Johnson

Prudence Johnson is an American jazz and folk vocalist.-Biography:Prudence Johnson grew up in a musical family in Moose Lake, Minnesota. In the early 1970s, Prudence was a co-founder with Tim Sparks of the vocal jazz group Rio Nido...

, Little Milton

Little Milton

James Milton Campbell, Jr. , better known as Little Milton, was an American electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul singer and guitarist, best known for his hit records "Grits Ain't Groceries" and "We're Gonna Make It."-Biography:Milton was born James Milton Campbell, Jr., in the Mississippi...

, as well as many others. He formed the Atomic Theory Records label in 1985 and released albums by himself, Phil Heywood

Phil Heywood

Phil Heywood is an American fingerstyle acoustic guitar player, singer and composer.- Biography:Raised in Iowa, Heywood has been based in the Minneapolis area since the mid 1980's....

, Boiled in Lead

Boiled in Lead

Boiled in Lead is a world music band from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They formed in 1983, going through a number of membership changes over the years...

, Larry Long, and a variety of world music artists.

The Minnesota Music Hall of Fame inducted Murphy along with Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

 and Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

 in its charter class in 1990. In 2008, Murphy was inducted into the Minnesota Blues Hall of Fame.

In 2010, St. Paul, Minnesota mayor Chris Coleman

Chris Coleman (politician)

Christopher "Chris" B. Coleman is a Minnesota politician and the mayor of St. Paul. He defeated incumbent mayor Randy Kelly in 2005 and took office on January 3, 2006.- Family and early career :...

 declared July 2 "Willie Murphy Day".

Murphy's double-CD release A Shot of Love in a Time of Need/Autobiographical Notes reached number 14 in Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart in 2010.

Discography

• with John Koerner
  • Running, Jumping, Standing Still
    Running, Jumping, Standing Still
    Running, Jumping, Standing Still is an album by blues artists "Spider" John Koerner and Willie Murphy, released in 1967. The album is often credited in Koerner's solo discography.-History:...
    
    (1967)
  • Music is Just a Bunch of Notes
    Music is Just a Bunch of Notes
    Music Is Just a Bunch of Notes is an album by blues artists "Spider" John Koerner and Willie and the Bumblebees, released in 1972. It was reissued in 2010 by Nero's Neptune Records along with a movie Koerner made titled The Secret of Sleep....
    
    (1972)

• Solo
  • Mister Mature (1988)
  • Monkey in the Zoo (1997)
  • Hustlin' Man Blues (1998)
  • I Got a Secret (2003)
  • A Shot of Love in a Time of Need/Autobiographical Notes (2009)