Toronto is celebrating the life of Ralph Murphy on Thursday, July 11, 2019, at Louis Cifer Brew Works, at 417 Danforth Avenue. Hosted by Beverly Mahood, and running from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m., the evening will include performances by Jamie Warren, Patricia Conroy (a member of SOCAN’s Board of Directors), and more. Donations to the Unison Benevolent Fund will be accepted at the door, in celebration of Murphy’s life. All are welcome.
Murphy, one of the SOCAN family’s greatest friends, passed away in May of 2019 at the age of 75. He’d been writing songs, as he described it in a 2017 SOCAN Words & Music online magazine article, “since God wore short pants.” At the 2019 SOCAN Awards on April 1, we honoured Ralph with the Special Achievement Award for his generosity as a mentor to countless Canadian songwriters and music publishers.
The Nashville-based Murphy was a 2012 Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame inductee. He penned the No. 2 Jeannie C. Riley hit “Good Enough to Be Your Wife”; co-wrote the Crystal Gayle chart-topper “Half the Way”; co-wrote the Ronnie Milsap No. 1 hit “He Got You”; and enjoyed a No. 2 U.K. hit via Sir Cliff Richard, “21st Century Christmas.” He also had his tunes covered by Randy Travis, the late Don Williams, Ray Price, Shania Twain, Kathy Mattea, Little Texas, Brotherhood of Man, and Vanity Fare. His book, Murphy’s Laws of Songwriting: How to Write a Hit Song, has been endorsed by some of the art form’s most celebrated tunesmiths.