Cowboy songwriter and troubadour Michael Martin Murphy plays three Montana concerts.
Michael Martin Murphey will be making up his postponed November concerts on April 2-3 in Bigfork, and head to Choteau April 4 for an intimate dinner concert. All three shows also include Montana favorites Rob and Halladay Quist and rising talent Alea Leilani.
Best known for a genre-busting career that includes topping the pop, country, bluegrass and western music charts, Murphey is a multiple Grammy nominee and an inductee into Country Music halls of fame in three states. The songwriter and performer has tallied six gold albums, including Cowboy Songs, the first album of cowboy music to achieve gold status since Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs by Marty Robbins in 1959.
His abundant hit singles include “Wildfire,” “Carolina in the Pines,” “What’s Forever For,” “A Long Line of Love” and “Maybe this Time.” Murphey is also the author of New Mexico’s state ballad, “The Land of Enchantment.”
His latest album, High Stakes (2016) reflects his longstanding commitment to caring for land and water. “It may sound like an oxymoron, but ‘Cowboy Culture’ is real and relevant,” Murphey says. “I celebrate men and women who love dirt, grass and water.”
“Truth is, cowboys and cowgirls can save the planet,” he adds.
Cut Bank native Rob Quist and his talented daughter, Halladay, lend their harmonies to the concert. Quist’s songs have been recorded by Murphey and Loretta Lynn, among others. Considered one of Montana’s musical and cultural ambassadors, he has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Japan with the famed Mission Mountain Wood Band.
Alea Leilani, a 15-year-old singer/songwriter from the Flathead Valley, won the Texaco Country Showdown for Northwestern Montana in 2015 and received a Crown Guitar Workshop scholarship, where she worked with legendary artist John Oates of famed Hall and Oates.
She later traveled to Nashville to hone her songwriting talents with Bob Regan, former president of the Nashville Songwriters Association; she also wrote and recorded with the late, great A.J. Masters, worked with Buddy Owens and Gord Bamford of Ole Publishing and performed at the renowned Bluebird Café in Nashville.
Michael Martin Murphey in Bigfork: 7 p.m. Monday, April 2, and Tuesday, April 3. Tickets purchased for the Monday, Nov. 6, show will be honored on Monday, April 2, and tickets purchased for the Tuesday, Nov. 7, show will be honored on Tuesday, April 3. There are no exchanges or refunds available for tickets already purchased.
Reserved seating tickets are also available for $51 prior to March 31; and $63 after March 31. For more information, call 406-858-0204, email [email protected] or order online.
MMM in Choteau: The same crew of Michael Martin Murphey, with Rob and Halladay Quist and Alea Leilani, performs April 4 at the Stage Stop Inn in Choteau. Doors open at 6 p.m. dinner is served at 6:45 p.m. and music starts at 8 p.m. For tickets and information on room packages, call 406-466-5900 or visit stagestopinn.com.