Blue Sky Night Thunder cover

Blue Sky Night Thunder

Michael Martin Murphey

Album · 1975 · Epic KE 33290

Blue Sky Night Thunder (Epic KE 33290, 1975) was Michael Murphey’s fourth album, produced by Bob Johnston. It was recorded in Nashville at Ray Stevens Sound Laboratory around October 1974 with a band that included Sam Broussard and Richard Dean on guitars, John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on banjo, Jerry Mills on mandolin, Michael McKinney on bass, Harry Wilkinson on drums, Jae Murphy on keyboards and Tom Scott on saxophone. Tracy Nelson, Jeff Hanna and Jimmy Ibbotson sang background vocals.

“Wildfire,” written by Murphey and Larry Cansler, was the lead single, released in February 1975. Its narrator is a homesteader snowed in by an early winter storm, who tells of a young Nebraska woman said to have died searching for her escaped pony, Wildfire, and who expects to join her. The record reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Easy Listening chart, and ranked thirty-ninth on the 1975 year-end Hot 100. “Carolina in the Pines,” written by Murphey alone, followed as the second single in August 1975. The album itself reached number eighteen on the Billboard 200.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Wildfire alt version 5:29
  2. 2 Carolina in the Pines alt version 3:58
  3. 3 Desert Rat 3:55
  4. 4 Wild Bird 2:25
  5. 5 Blue Sky Riding Song 3:34
  6. 6 Medicine Man 3:52
  7. 7 Secret Mountain Hideout 4:01
  8. 8 Without My Lady There 2:36
  9. 9 Night Thunder 2:48
  10. 10 Rings of Life 3:21

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