Matt "Guitar" Murphy
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Matt "Guitar" Murphy (born 27 December 1929 in Sunflower, Mississippi) is an American blues guitarist. Matt Murphy was already a legend among serious guitarists by the 1960's, famed for the incredibly fast and intricate blues riffs that would soon change rock and roll. While white rock and rollers were still playing the slow melodic riffs of Love One Another or the slow fuzzy riffs of Wiid Thing, a few, like Eric Clapton, Ric Derringer and Jeff Beck were listening to the flying fingers of BB King and Matt Murphy and trying to emulate them. In a 1990's BBC interview, Clapton talked about listening to an "old" Matt Murphy recording in 1966 and thinking "That's what I want to learn to play."
Murphy didn't have a band of his own until 1982, but played with many famous bands. Among them (more or less chronologically):
- Howling Wolf
- Little Junior Parker
- Ike Turner
- Memphis Slim
- James Cotton
- Otis Rush
- Etta James
- Sonny Boy Williamson II
- Chuck Berry
- Joe Louis Walker
- Blues Brothers
Some of these took a lot of his lifetime (for example, he played with Memphis Slim for 20 years in a row), some were just sessions during his work at the Chess Records (obviously, Otis Rush did not need a full-time guitarist, he could play well himself, unlike piano-player Memphis Slim).
He can be seen in The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000 movies..
Murphy's signature model guitar is manufactured by Cort Guitars.