Thursday, January 05, 2012

Discovered 70s gems 6: Michael Nesmith - Texas Morning

(Part of a continuing series on music I've discovered recently, which I never heard the first time around.)

In 1971, after a couple of significant hits the year before (Joanne and Silver Moon), Michael Nesmith released a single called Texas Morning - to the complete indifference of the record-buying public.

This song is a particularly melancholy one, about someone looking for a runaway girlfriend with no real hope of knowing where she is.

Nesmith has written a number of touching songs in his time but this one, uncharacteristically, was a cover.  It was written by Michael Murphy and Boomer Castleman, who each had their only major hits in 1975: Murphy with Wildfire (similarly mournful, but soppier) and Castleman with Judy Mae.  My feeling is they hit their respective peaks in Nesmith's rendition of this song.



From the album Nevada Fighter (cover above), home of another great Nesmith song, Propinquity.

2 comments:

Lee said...

Michael Murphy didn't write this song . It was written by BW Stevenson

S Simmonds said...

Ah yes, I've seen a bit of that debate going around.

My most authoritative source is my copy of Nesmith's Nevada Fighter album, which says the writers were Murphey and Castleman.
Also see the Stevenson bio from the Texas State History Association.

But I have a lot of respect for Stevenson, and this got me seeking out his version - great to hear it.