DAVID LEE MURPHY BACK IN HIS STOMPING GROUNDS

When country music sensation David Lee Murphy crosses the Mississippi and heads for the grandstand stage at the SEMO District Fair Saturday, Sept. 13, it will be like coming home. And it won't be the first time he's taken that bridge into Cape Girardeau.

Growing up just across the river in Herrin, Murphy and his brother would often be loaded in the car by their mother and brought to Cape Girardeau for shopping. His favorite thing to buy was fireworks.

Murphy has created his own fireworks since then, becoming one of the most important new stars in country music.

Sharing the stage with Murphy Sept. 13 will be David Kersh. Other performers at the SEMO District Fair lineup will be The Buffalo Club and Mila Mason on Thursday, Sept. 11, and The Statler Brothers and Sweethearts of the Rodeo on Friday, September 12. The shows begin at 8 p.m.

Murphy's debut album, "Out With A Bang," was released in 1995. It went gold and produced two Top Five hits on the Billboard country chart. One of the songs, "Dust On The Bottle," was No. 1 for two weeks, while the other, "Party Crowd," was the most played song on country radio that year.

His success that year led to a nomination as Top New Male Vocalist of 1996 by the Academy of Country Music.

He released his second album, "Gettin' Out The Good Stuff," in 1996. Two singles from that album, "Every Time I Get Around You" and "The Road You Leave Behind," reached the top five on the charts.

His third album, "We Can't All Be Angels," is scheduled for release Sept. 23. As with his previous albums, Murphy not only sang (including background vocals) and played guitar but also wrote and arranged the music. But unlike the previous albums, Murphy will receive credit this time as an associate producer of the album.

Despite his recent success, it hasn't always been easy for Murphy. Because his music is, as he describes it, "a little different," and because he doesn't do things "in the traditional sense" as far as Nashville is concerned, his rise to prominence has "always been an uphill climb."

It was a climb that began in Southern Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1977, he attended John A. Logan College and played music on weekends in clubs in and around Harrisburg, Marion, Benton, and Carbondale.

He dropped out of school in 1979 and headed to Nashville for the first time, thinking he would get a record deal right away. He managed to produce a few demos, but none led to the recording contract he had anticipated.

A bit discouraged, he returned to Southern Illinois and to school, this time enrolling at SIU-Carbondale, where he majored in speech communication, minored in journalism and worked spinning records and reading news on a local radio station. During his last semester, he was reintroduced to the music industry when he took a class at SIU that made several trips to Nashville as a part of their studies of the music business.

"I found out about the class by accident," he said. "One of the journalism students told me about this class offered by the music department. I still needed three hours of liberal arts credit, so I enrolled. It was really a fluke."

But it was fluke that brought great rewards. During one of the four trips to Nashville, he met Doug Casmus, the man who would eventually become his manager. The class also encouraged him to try once again to make it in country music. Upon graduation, Murphy returned to Nashville in the summer of 1983.

Still, the uphill climb was slow. His first recognition came not as a performer but as a songwriter in 1985, when Reba McEntire recorded "Red Roses (Won't Work Now)," which Murphy co-wrote with Jimbeau Hinson. All the while, he continued playing in local clubs with his band, the Blue Tick Hounds.

Tony Brown, from MCA records, first heard his band in the mid-80s but didn't sign Murphy to a contract until years later. In 1993, shortly after he signed Murphy, Brown sent Murphy's song "Just Once" to Hollywood producers who were looking for music for the film "8 Seconds." The song was used in the film. From that point on, David Lee Murphy's success has been unstoppable.

Like most musicians, Murphy can name the influences on his style of music, pointing especially to Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Lynyrd Skynyrd. But even more, he points to the people of the Southern Illinois-Southeast Missouri region of the country. His song "Dust On The Bottle" was, he admits, based on a man he knew when he lived in this area. "Everything in my music," he stated, "is a reflection of the area's fundamental way of life."