David Lee Murphy

One Liner: The "Dust on the Bottle" guy.

Wikipedia Genre: Country

Home: Nashville (but originally from Herrin, Illinois)

Poster Position: small Type 
Saturday.

Thoughts:  Hell yeah, I love that song!  Would never have been able to tell you, before just now, that someone named David Lee Murphy is the one who sang "Dust on the Bottle," but that song rules.  153.7 million streams, and by far his biggest tune.

Love it.  I also enjoy that he is asking for love advice from the hermit down the road who makes bathtub wine.  My man's hair is freaking awful.  Reminds me of Sally Field's hairdo in Steel Magnolias, except with sideburns added in.  A cousin to the mullet, but with way too much body and side presence.  

This is from his debut album, 1994's Out With a Bang.  But other than that one song, nothing in this entire catalog sounds familiar to me.  Which is a little odd, so far these different artists have had more than one that rings a bell.  "Party Crowd," from this same album, has 22.5 million streams, but I don't remember it.  

David Lee Murphy is from Illinois, but he moved to Nashville at 24 to seek a country music career.  He was spotted by a producer at a club, and got some writing work, but he wasn't signed to an actual record deal until he was 34.  He has co-written for lots of big name people - Reba McIntire, Doug Stone, Jason Aldean, Aaron Tippin, Blake Shelton, Kenny Chesney, Keith Anderson, Blackberry Smoke, and others - and his first single ended up on the soundtrack for 8 Seconds before he ever put out an album.

Sophomore album Gettin' Out the Good Stuff was released in 1996, but none of the songs have much in the way of streaming numbers.  Similar story for 1997's We Can't All Be Angels and 2004's Tryin' To Get There.  2018's comeback - No Zip Code - has a track with Kenny Chesney that popped - 82.1 million streams for that one.  "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" is a bad song.

Gone is the pure sounds of a guy and his guitar making country music, replaced with generically terrible drum machines and terrible lyrics.  Which is probably what the label told him he needed to do to find popularity again, but it also kind of sucks to hear that milquetoast BS right after you hear "Dust on the Bottle."  

Hopefully he sticks to the classics next Spring, although I'd readily say that his back catalog doesn't grab me the same way that some of these other folks on the poster did.  Not terrible, just formula stuff plodding along.