The Billy Murray Story

Today would have been his 149th birthday, and we are marking the occasion by telling the story of Billy Murray — the Denver Nightingale, the Phonograph King, the Irish-American kid from Colorado who talked his way into a New York recording studio in 1903 and never really left. We open with a song he recorded on his own birthday in 1922, a comic gem that catches him at the height of his powers and right on the edge of the upheaval to come. From there we travel back to one of the defining recordings of the acoustic era — a love song to the automobile that became so embedded in American culture it outlasted practically everything around it. And we close with the song that proved he still had it, a Jazz Age novelty that put him back on the charts at 47, even as the industry was quietly pulling the rug out from under the technique that had made him famous. Three songs, three decades, one remarkable career — happy birthday, Billy.