Dubliner George Murphy set for Balor performance

It was 2003 when Phil Coulter looked at George Murphy and said, “You’ve got it nailed kid, that’s it”.

Wearing jeans and a t-shirt, the skinny 17-year-old beamed as Louis Walsh and Linda Martin added their praise following his rendition of Raglan Road.

Little could the young Dubliner have realised then, in RTÉ’s You’re A Star studio, that his life would never be the same again.

Within months Murphy was recording his first album, with Coulter in the producer’s seat. When it went to number one it looked for all the money that stardom and vast riches were his.

For a while they were as his Luke Kelly-esque vocals rang out from radios, venues and pub jukeboxes.

But in the fickle world of showbusiness fame is often fleeting. So it was for George as over the next few years his career rocked and rolled through highs and many lows.

“It wasn’t easy and I went through years where I found it very tough,” said the musician ahead of an appearance in Ballybofey’s Balor Arts Centre this Saturday night.

“By this stage I had a little girl of my own, she’s ten now, and I remember thinking there was no way I was going to fail her. She was my motivation.”

George Murphy’s career began properly in the Cullybackey studio of Phil Coulter where, true to his word, the legendary songwriter produced the teenager’s first album.

“After my performance on You’re a Star Phil told me that regardless of the outcome of the show, we would do an album together. As soon as the programme finished and his commitments were over, he rang me and I still remember it now, he said, ‘Me and you have an album to record’. That’s what we did, Phil produced it, he negotiated my deal with Sony and the album went to number one.”

You’re a Star catapulted George to the big time. But starting at the top meant there was only one way to go.

“When it comes to the music industry, 95 per-cent of acts start at the bottom and work their way up. It was the other way around for me. I didn’t have the gigs in the pubs, I didn’t have the band mates. So things started to go wrong.”

When his fame did begin to wane a potentially lucrative offer did come in. Rather than be pigeon-holed though, he turned it down.

“I was offered big money to put together a Luke Kelly tribute act but it didn’t interest me. The way I looked at it was there only ever one Luke Kelly, Ireland didn’t need another one.”

To shake off the ‘Dublin balladeer’ tag, George began learning guitar and writing his own music.

The bills still had to be paid though and so when The High Kings asked him onboard, he went with it.

“It was good money, great exposure and there was plenty of work. But it wasn’t whetting my appetite so I walked away to set up my own band.”

The Rising Sons came about following a call out on social media to musicians asking them to meet him in his local pub. What he got was far from what he expected.

“The first guy who landed had a bass guitar and was in his 70s. The next guy came in with an electric guitar. I was expecting whistles and bodhráns and I just thought ‘this is going to be a disaster’. But we gave it a go and I knew straightaway we were on to something. I knew right then that I wanted to take it out of the pub and on the road.

“That’s what we’ve done and I genuinely think we are on to a winner. We are a bit rough around the edges, we do make mistakes but we celebrate that. And it works because it is spontaneous and it is live.”

George has already endeared himself to Donegal after penning a song for families caught up in the mica crisis.

“I’ve always done well up in Donegal. I don’t know what it is but they’ve always been really supportive of me and my music.

“I’ve a friend from Buncrana, Sebastian McLaughlin, he’s a great a banjo player and he has a few friends who are affected by the mica crisis.

“I was due to do a show in the Mount Errigal a while back and Sebastian asked if I would show some support for those suffering because of mica. I said I would do better than that so I wrote a song about it.

“It’s to the melody of the Homes of Donegal but with the lyrics changed.”

Looking ahead to Saturday which is shaping up to be a sell out gig at the Balor, George added, “When I had a number one album I felt like it had been given to me, that I hadn’t earned it.

“This feels like I’ve put in the hard yards, that I’ve built it back up to theatres like the Balor.

“It feels like it’s come full circle and I’m really looking forward to getting back to Donegal.”

There are still some tickets for this Saturday night available at www.balorartscentre.com.