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WALTER MURPHY & THE BIG APPLE BAND

“A FIFTH OF BEETHOVEN”

(Arranged by WALTER MURPHY)

Private Stock 45073

No. 1   October 9, 1976

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Walter was born in New York City in 1952.  At the age of four, he was taking piano lessons from Rosa Rio,

an organist for radio soap operas.  By the time he entered the Manhattan School of Music, Murphy was

quite proficient on the keyboards, and was writing arrange­ ments for Doc Severinsen’s “Tonight Show”

orchestra.  After graduation, Walter entered the world of advertis­ing, writing jingles for Lady Arrow,

Korvette’s, Revlon, Woolworth’s, and Viasa Airlines.  After a spell of con­cocting B-grade movie scores for

made-for-TV flicks like “The Savage Bees” (1976) and “The Night They Took Miss Beautiful” (1977),

Murphy approached Major Records with disco-fled Christmas tunes.  A few singles like “DiscoBells” were

issued.

Early in 1976, Murphy acted on what he described to Bob Gilbert and Gary Theroux in The Top Ten as a

“crazy idea to take symphonic music and combine it with contemporary rhythm.”  The idea was not totally

new:  B. Bumble & The Stingers clicked with a rockin’ take on Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite,” Tom

Parker’s APPOLLO 100 had hit paydirt in 1972 with “Joy,” a pseu­do-rock rendition of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of

Man’s Desiring.”  With Walt playing nearly every instrument, a demo tape of some disco-styled classical

works was made. Larry Uttal at Private Stock Records took an interest.  An album’s worth of the stuff was

cooked up­ again with Murphy playing nearly every instrument.  Label men informed him that a group

name was need­ed–ergo, The Big Apple Band; a name already being utilized.  The bouncy Beethoven

number was released as a single, and Walter Murphy had his one moment in the sun.  The album, A Fifth

of Beethoven, peaked at number 15 on the “Top Pop” album charts.  Similar treatments of Gershwin’s

“Rhapsody in Blue” and Rim­sky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumble Bee” (#44, 1976, billed as “Flight ’76”)

met with much less enthusiasm.

When last observed, Walter Murphy was with MCA Records.  His take on the “Theme From E. T. (The

Extra Terrestrial),” featured in the Steven Spielberg flick, charted at number 47 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in

1982.

Financially fortunate is Walt for when his tune peaked in popularity, he signed a seemingly fluff con­ tract

giving the rights to his song being included in the soundtrack to a low-budget disco flick. That flick, Sat­

urday Night Fever (1977), clicked big, with soundtrack sales totaling 25,000,000. Analysts wager that

Murphy need never earn another dollar.