ELLIOTT MURPHY : INFINITY

 

  1. Granny Takes A Trip
  2. Red Moon Over Paris
  3. Baby Boomers Lament
  4. The Lion In Winter / The End Of The Game
  5. Fetch Me Water
  6. Three Shadows
  7. Makin' It Real
  8. Night Surfing
  9. Count My Blessings

Label : Murphyland

Release Date : March 7, 2025

Length : 30:19

Review (Americana Highways) : I like the Elliott Murphy look. From a once extremely young projection of a singer-songwriter with Peter Frampton boyish good looks to a sophisticated seasoned face of experience today — part Tom Petty, Eric Andersen & Kinky Friedman. But the mature look maintains a genuine rock veteran muscle. A superior New York artist who is about to cast out his 52nd album in a 52-year career. Elliott Murphy The 9 originals that grace Infinity (Dropped March 7/Murphyland/30:19) were produced & arranged by Elliott’s son Gaspard Murphy (electric guitar/bass/keys/percussion/programming). Recorded in Paris with a look into the future, there is an aim, a theme, a focus & not just a set of random songs to fill a new album. This has been in some ways Elliott’s concentration through his work since his first album in 1973. This collection not only has good songs, but the production skills are obvious from the first song. “Granny Takes a Trip” is a steady-moving story song with elements of nostalgia in its treads, but as it travels, it also embodies all the qualities of excellent songwriting & performance turns. But then, Elliott Murphy is a veteran artist. He knows the ropes, the trap doors, knows when to throw jabs & when to toss an uppercut. I’m not entirely certain if every song Murphy writes has to do with anything that happened for real in his life. But the story songs are like novellas. Sometimes Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald with little stabs at Kerouac. “Red Moon Over Paris” is one such excursion. It has a Euro feel on the chorus of singers, but Elliott’s voice is still the road-weary troubadour who may be in Paris, but he has desert sand in his boots. Several tunes hover over nostalgia but never dive too deeply into that mindset. “Baby Boomers Lament” is a cool, yet stinging look back at what we once believed until reality stepped in — “…you say you want a revolution, at least that’s what you said.” Powerful & brave lyrics. The sole rocker is “Makin’ It Real” with its clusters to remind us why we loved our rock music so much the way the Big Band kids recalled their dancing. The LP is a serious document & the music will remind us that time is at a premium. With John Prine, Kris Kristofferson & most recently Kinky Friedman, who departed this mortal coil & let Elliott Murphy step up to keep that baby boomer stage light lit for a little while longer. And still is. Highlights – “Granny Takes a Trip,” “Red Moon Over Paris,” “Baby Boomers Lament,” “Makin’ It Real,” & “Night Surfing.” Musicians – Elliott Murphy (vocals/acoustic & electric guitars/ukulele/programming), Olivier Durand (acoustic & electric guitars/Mandola/dulcimer/chorus), Alan Fatras (cajon/percussion), Melissa Cox (violin/chorus) & Gerard McFadden (standup bass).

Review (The Alternate Root) : With an album release schedule that began mid-1970’s, Elliott Murphy has delivered a steady set of new music releases via albums since his 1975 debut, Lost Generation. On his recent release, Infinity, Elliott Murphy continues with a branded style of song that features literary words to match the Rock’n’Roll stride of his arrangements. He opens Infinity with a lyrical flow that provides a vision of both present and past moments in the storyline of “Granny Takes a Trip”. A fiddle adds a gypsy tone to the determined groove that carries “Three Shadows” while island breezes define the rhythmic movement of “Night Surfing”. Infinity makes a request courtesy of the bass thump in “Fetch Me Water” and follows a runaway Rock’n’Roll rhythm that holds a personal history with “Makin’ It Real”. Providing an audio travelogue, Elliott Murphy takes a trip to the Serengeti plains and crosses the Rubicon to introduce “The Lion in Winter” while he spies a “Red Moon Over Paris” on a rumble of rhythm. Supporting his album-a-year model, Infinity is the 52nd release from Elliott Murphy, his music representing each musical era with only slight variation on the Singer/Songwriter Rock’n’Roll via Folk music style. The only hint at aging comes when Elliott Murphy offers the tale of in “Baby Boomers Lament” while plucked acoustics and a lonesome harmonica help Infinity make an exit with “Count My Blessings”.

Review (Let It Rock) : Fifty years after “Lost Generation” found Elliott Murphy marry his romantic view of America to criticism of the States’ contemporary ways, the veteran is still refusing to sail off into the silent sunset with as little creative storm as possible, preferring to soldier on “searching for beauty in brutal world” – and if his first post-pandemic album, “Wonder” from 2022, traded scathing attack on social issues for life-affirming vignettes, its follow-up sees this musician unsheathe poetic pen and melodic wit afresh. “Keeping the faith with rhythm and rhyme” as he puts it, Murphy takes pristine snapshots of sights and sounds that surround us and, as usual, drops a plethora of names and cultural quotes to tie eternal values to momentary pleasures. “I’m not painting it black, I’m just making it real,” intones Elliott, and the palpable truths of “Infinity” are bound to rivet and entertain the listener in equal measure on the half-hour, if eventful, affair where glory and pity blend to lead everybody to the edge of abyss. The audience would deem it difficult, however, to not delve with a lot of delight into the detailed diorama of opener “Granny Takes A Trip” which goes much farther than simply depicting the London scene of the Sixties and applies scintillating country rock to effervescent psychedelia, while Murphy’s words weave a rich tapestry of aural images that help the chanteur in fathoming his own mortality. Of course, the venerated performer may allow himself to allude to a Neil Diamond riff and Leonard Cohen’s vocal arrangement on, respectively, “The Lion In Winter / The End Of The Game” and “Red Moon Over Paris” – the former a violin-tinged glance over his shoulder, the latter a velveteen twang-wielding look into cosmos – but then, Elliott shoulders acerbic compassion into “Baby Boomers Lament” and shines a warm light into “Fetch Me Water” which are assuredly his own. With son Gaspard sharing Murphy’s bass and keyboard duties and his long-serving six-string lieutenant Olivier Durand adding exquisite acoustic and slick electric passages to the nine tunes on offer, the New York-born bard’s reveries, such as “Three Shadows” which decries the cheapening of art through attaching a price tag to it, possess a demonic allure. Once intimate cuts like this lull one into false serenity, Elliott’s vocals begin to boom to assault the dreamers via the rockabilly of “Makin’ It Real” that’s muscular and groovy – and sobering, too – only to dissolve the wake-up call in the calm-after-storm of “Night Surfing” to serve up the album’s most touching, lyrical apex. And when the harmonica-oiled blues of “Count My Blessings” delivers a coup de grâce, the veteran’s contradictory defiance of his age and unwillingness to fight the tides of time become arrestingly apparent. “A longhair till the end” by his own admission, Elliott Murphy is reluctant to proceed “gently into that dark night” – and the songs of “Infinity” render his acceptance of fate magnificent.