Elliott Murphy Infinity album cover
PARIS – Hard to believe that a year has passed since my 7,500-word portrait of Elliott Murphy appeared in the Village Voice celebrating the 50th anniversary of the musician’s debut album, “Aquashow.” Not so difficult to believe that Murphy today released another album in his epic never-ending (to borrow an idea from Bob Dylan’s concert tour) run of personal opuses. If you did read that big article, you might remember Murphy saying of a singer-songwriter: “If you can’t come up with 10 good songs a year, then what are you doing here?” And guess what? “Infinity” – is it his 51st or 52d album? I’ve lost count – is better than that: 9 wonderful songs.
With the first LP he had critics proclaiming him the next Dylan and his face was plastered all over NYC subways with the statement: “Elliott Murphy is going to be a monster.” While he did end up being a monster, it was not one of the kind that people could have imagined at the time. At 76 this month – and another couple of concerts next week at Paris’s New Morning to celebrate his birthday as usual – he’s still telling his life’s story in rhythm, melody and lyrics as he always has.
You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds
As regular readers of this blog might remember, I stand by Ernest Hemingway’s dictum warning fiction writers not to do book reviews, because “You can’t run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.” While I write, sing, and play songs myself, I would never even feel qualified to critique others in any but an impressionistic manner. So I devised two ways to do album talk on this blog: First, my long-since disused “Morning Exercise Music” column; and, second, my Not Reviews (of music, books, plays, films, everything). So this is a Not Review: It’s about the music I’m listening to these days, and what it made me think and feel.
Aquashow
In fact, while I wanted to talk about it on the blog, my first listen to “Infinity” was supposed to be as casual background music while I worked on something else. That plan went out the window within the first few bars of the first track. I found myself completely drawn in, unable to do anything but listen, and I also called up the lyrics on my screen and began jotting down thoughts and impressions with each song.
The album kicks in with “Granny Takes a Trip,” in which I was blown away by the chess analogies since I play the game daily! The song’s playful, almost Sgt. Pepper’s-like rhythm set the stage for an album that is both energetic and reflective. It’s the kind of track that takes a few listens to fully unravel, but even on first pass, it’s clear that Elliott’s songwriting remains razor-sharp.
“Red Moon Over Paris” had me remembering that blood moon we all saw not long ago, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of this album was born from the isolation of the pandemic (until I later saw otherwise in Elliott’s newsletter!). “Hoping for a change to come… hoping it’s a lucky one,” he sings, making me think that in any case, this album was fed by a lot of the general political situation that we are now facing. That is confirmed by the line he uses paraphrasing John Lennon: “Maniacs are running this world, you know?”
Elliott Murphy as Late W.B. Yeats
A lot of the lyrics also drew to my mind the late poetry of W.B. Yeats, when he had that burst of creativity in his 60s and 70s… and I’m remembering the Yeats lines from “The Second Coming”: “Things fall apart…Darkness drops again….” (Although the poet was in his fifties when he wrote that one.)
As with the chess, I had to smile as I listened to “The Lion in Winter / The End of the Game,” a tribute to the late Peter Beard, the legendary photographer and adventurer. It brought back a memory of both my own 14-month sojourn in Kenya many red moons ago, and a phone call I’ll never forget that I had with Lee Radziwill, Beard’s friend and sister of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. She called the Trib to see if we could send her an article we ran about Beard being crushed by an elephant. Elliott has always had a knack for weaving historical and personal threads together, and this track does it.
Elliott Murphy with Olivier Durand. Photo credit- ©Marc Ginot ( http://www.marcginot.com )
“Fetch Me Water” is the wonderful moment when we get some of Elliott’s higher singing notes I was waiting for, and with slide guitar, and Melissa’s beautiful violin bringing in a touch of Scarlett Rivera-esque magic. There’s another sound to this – a traditional sound. And the backing vocals, nice, probably some Melissa there too…. It’s haunting and melodic, featuring one of his signature non-word vocalizations – his “ba ba ba ba ba ba” floating through the mix like a callback to some of his early work. “Makin’ It Real” injects a necessary jolt of rock ‘n’ roll energy, sounding a bit to me like a cross between Iggy Pop and Frank Zappa. (By the way, Elliott likes to refer to his music not as Folk Rock but as Rock Folk.) And then there’s “Night Surfing,” which has a hypnotic quality, its unique vocal delivery and ukulele rhythm giving it a dreamlike atmosphere. It also has some kind of Springsteen-esque thing about it, but is distinctly Elliott.
The album closes with “Count My Blessings:” a song that felt to me like it was recorded in Elliott’s living room, which I made a note of before I read in the credits that it was recorded on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder, giving it that intimacy that’s rare in today’s polished world of overproduced music. Co-written with longtime guitarist collaborator Olivier Durand, we also find Elliott’s beautiful, understated harmonica, giving another layer of the personal to this the song. Its delivery reminded me a little of early Tom Waits.
“Infinity:” Another Elliott Murphy album all of a piece
One thing that really stood out for me with “Infinity” is its coherence. Every track feels like an essential piece of a larger story, a deliberate construction rather than simply a collection of a bunch of songs at hand. Elliott once raised that point with me about having to eliminate potential songs for an album if they didn’t fit the overall vision of the album, and that approach is evident here. So maybe that’s what happened to that 10th good song….
Again, in the interview that I did with him for that Village Voice article published a year ago, Elliott said that what’s missing from much of today’s pop and was at the center of his and his contemporaries’ songwriting, is personal storytelling. “Infinity” is a lesson in how it’s done. And I cannot end this without mentioning that a big part of the magic of this album, like so many of Elliott’s others in recent years, is that it was produced by, and with some backing instruments played by, Elliott’s son, Gaspard, who is clearly the next step towards the infinite of the Murphy musical story….
Where to get Elliott Murphy’s new CD “Infinity”:
“Infinity” CDs are available at at the Official Elliott Murphy Online Store. He also has a special price for the Infinity CD + the Wonder-Works vinyl. You can also stream “Infinity” on all the usual platforms.