Murph Guitars

[brutus]

http://www.murphguitars.com/Murph_Gallery.html
Anyone know about these? Seems to be a contemporary of Mosrite. Made in California also.

[Sarah93003]

The blue ones are called Smurphs.

[Veenture]

A very clever 12-string headstock configuration with the pegs placed in such a way. Have a look, I certainly haven't seen that before on any 12

[jfine]

Those were made in Southern California in the 60's by (I think his name was Pat) Murphy. There was a good article on them in Vintage Guitar magazine a while back. In 1977 I was playing with a country singer who had a booth at FanFair in Nashville (now known as CMA FanFest) that year, and right next to our booth was Jimmy Bryant's booth. Wow! As Jimmy was (and still is, although he's gone now) one of my favorite players, you can imagine that I was really looking forward to meeting him. He never came by the booth (I guess he was having some health problems), but running the booth was his wife, Pat, who turned out to be the daughter of the aforementioned Mr. Murphy who built Murph guitars. A very nice lady, and she was tickled to find out that I actually knew about Murph guitars--one of the stores in San Francisco got one when I was a teenager in the '60's, so I'd actually tried one. Pat said that she and her siblings had a family band, and that her dad started out making guitars for them.

[Sarah93003]

After reading the History page it's quite interesting to see the similarities between the Murph and Mosrite companies. Surprisingly the Murph company made a lot of different models. Our own Deke Dickerson owned at least one of them for a while. It would be very interesting to know how these play and sound compared to Mosrite. I wonder if Fender was the "giant" that put the pressure on the company.

They are pretty neat guitars all in all. I've never heard of them before.

[brutus]

I find them appealing in the same way as Mosrite, although I don't think Murph had the quite the talent of Semi I can appreciate his little guy verses the giant story line.
They look cool would love to get a hands on review. Plus they made amps!
Hey Veenture i think that 12 string head is a Ricky idea (The Byrds )

[Veenture]

Hey Veenture i think that 12 string head is a Ricky idea (The Byrds )

Ah, yes Brutus, good to know!

.....................................
Here he is, Roger McGuinn with his trusty ol' 'jangling machine'

"For many who hear the name Roger McGuinn, the first thing that comes to mind is that unmistakable Rickenbacker 12-string guitar. Roger has been associated with that guitar since his earliest days as a member of The Byrds, a group that was influenced by George Harrison and another groundbreaking British band, the Searchers. Although McGuinn has played other electric guitars over the years, and is also known as an acoustic folk artist of considerable magnitude, he still remains the undisputed king of the Rick 12"

[Dennisthe Menace]

Nice find Brutus!! I never knew that Murph had that many guitar and bass models available not to mention
the 9 or 10 amps that were available. And for Deke to find ANOTHER one, this time a 12 string 'Satellite' complete
with the special built guitar stand and brochures,,,,well Deke, you hit another home run!!
Sarah I think you are right about the offset body thing with Fender. But what I would like to find out is this.........
It's mentioned that 'No other guitar design influences are apparent in the heart shaped instrument-so how DID the
design come into being?' And they mentioned that they were pretty sure that the Satellite was designed by Murphy himself.
My question is did Murphy really design that shape himself, or could it be possible that he subblimally thought he
designed an original after seeing the 'Hallmark Swept Wing??'

[rynaro]

WOW they are cool guitarz
i have a Murph trem on my Tym Guitar... Tim said he bought 20 NOS Murph trems years ago (when i got the sweptwing) i never knew who murph was until now.
-Ryan

[TerryTNM]

Deke and Murph (on the right) came by my shop back in 2002 for a visit. The guy in the middle, I'm sorry to say I can't remember his name, came over from Australia for the most part to meet Deke and Murph. He is an historian of the Murph guitars and wanted to meet Murph first hand. I've tried to connect with him a couple of times but with no luck. Haven't had any contact with Murph since then either. Maybe Deke can fill in more information about this photo.

I put the year at 2002 because that's was the date generated by the photo properties but it might be later than that.