"Scott Murray sings
like a bird." Townes van Zandt
Scott Christopher
Murray is an accomplished singer/songwriter and a veteran
of the acoustic music scene. Raised in the heart of the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Scott grew up absorbing
its rich story-telling tradition and Appalachian music
legacy. His first album "The Old Man Dreams," a
collection of original material, was a regional success.
Scott moved to Nashville in the
early 1990's. While there, he opened for Emmylou Harris,
Bruan Bowers, Goose Creek Symphony and Suzy Bogguss. He
also shared the state with Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett,
Shelby Lynn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea and
Henry Gross. Scott was named Grand Prize winner at the
Gumtree Folk Festival, and was a regular performer at
Townes Van Zandt's bar in Nashville.
Before leaving Nashville
and returning home to Virginia, Scott wrote and produced
the songs on his second album, "Short Stories."
Two of these songs were selected by Virginia-based DCD
Records in 1998 to appear on a compilation of Shenandoah
artists. Shortly after the release of this compilation,
"In the Shadow of the Blue Ridge," the Canadian
Games Commission and the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation accepted one song for consideration for the
1999 Pan American Games. The song, "Manitoba, "
was written by Canadian Dean Sayln and sung by Scott
Christopher Murray.
In 1999, DCD Records
released "Short Stories". Since that time,
Scott has opened for 10,000 Maniacs, Dave Mason and David
Wilcox. He has received two awards from ASCAP for song
writing and performance. In 2000 "Short Stories"
was nominated for best contemporary folk album of the
year.
Scott
Murray and Diane Schwalbach opened a private diagnosis
and treatment center in Harrisonburg Virginia
Scott Christopher Murray,
one of the Shenandoah Valley's most talented singer/songwriters
has been living a double life. He is also one of the
Valley's most well known faces in the field of Audiology.
Scott has a Master's Degree in the science of
hearing loss. He and Dr. Diane Schwalbach are
opening a private practice in Harrisonburg, specializing
in the diagnosis and treatment of hearing loss and
it's associated disorders. For example, tinnitus or
ringing in the ears. Dr. Schwalbach specializes in
hearing loss in children and central auditory processing
testing. Scott specializes in the fitting of
hearing aids with an expertise in the most advanced
technologies available today. (Scott says "not
all help for the ear has to cost an arm and a leg! If
your concerned about your hearing, or the hearing of your
loved one, take the time to find out more about hearing
loss, and what you can do about it.) The name of
their practice is Better Hearing Care and Audiology
Associates of Harrisonburg. They will be up and running
on July 1st of this year. Audiology Associates of
Harrisonburg VA
Check
out the Story on Scott Murray in the New
Issue of "Americana Rhythm"
Shenandoah Valley native
Scott Christopher Murray has shared the stage with the
artists like Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Shelby Lynn,
Kathy Mattea, and Henry Gross. And he “once shared a
table (no dinner, just drinks) with Johnny Cash, his
lovely daughter Roseanne, her husband Rodney Crowell, and
John Prine.” He says he spent several hours trapped
in an elevator with Kenny Rogers, hung out one morning
with Seals and Crofts, had dinner with Waylon, Willie and
the boys, and was “once totally disrespected by
Wynona Judd.” In 2000 his CD, Short Stories, was a
Grammy contender for Contemporary Folk Album of the year.
All of this from a kid whom most probably thought would
struggle to finish school. From the time Scott could talk
until late in his senior year of high school, he spent
many hours in speech therapy for a severe stuttering
disorder.
Study Or Play
At 12, the very shy, introverted Murray opted for guitar
lessons instead of a study hall because “it sounded
a little more fun.” That lead to his first guitar, a
Suzuki, that he got from a little store in Harrisonburg
called Blue Ridge Music Emporium. Scott would hold up in
his room for hours playing with his new guitar and
experimenting with the three chords he learned in guitar
class. “I learned every song John Denver ever wrote,”
he said. But because he was so shy, he kept most of his
music to himself. “Being that kind of an introverted
personality really played well into spending time on the
guitar and writing. I was using my imagination and
finding different ways to communicate. But my parents
didn’t even hear me sing until I was about 24,”
he said.
Scott’s room couldn’t hold him forever though.
“I got tricked once by my brother into going to an
open stage night in downtown Harrisonburg. Someone put my
guitar up on stage and told me I better come down there
and get it.” Scott wandered unassumingly to the
stage and was subsequently cajoled into playing a song
while he was up there. That experience got him out of his
shell enough that he became a regular at open stage
nights and eventually began playing out on his own.
Time To Move On
When Scott graduated from high school he set out for
college and an education in medicine. “My math
skills were so bad that I couldn’t get past the
organic and inorganic chemistry classes,” he said.
“I ended up at Elon College for a couple of years. I
kept switching majors, never really ending up on any
particular interest. I finally transferred to JMU.”
Scott spent five years at JMU, the early part of it still
trying to determine what he really wanted to do.
Eventually Speech Pathology surfaced as an interesting
direction having spent so much time around it in his
earlier years. That interest eventually lead to a career
in Audiology, but not before a trip to Nashville to
pursue his love of music and writing songs. “I quit
graduate school during my first semester because
something was missing and I knew I needed to follow
what was drawing me. So I spent 10 years focused on my
music in Nashville and traveling around playing and
writing songs.”
Scott said he landed in Nashville on his way out to
Austin Texas and lived out of his suitcase for a year and
a half. “I was always going to be heading out that
next weekend but never really ever made it. I wound up
staying in Nashville for almost seven years.”
Somewhere Else
Of course, like any artist, for Scott, performing his own
music is what really drives him. His girlfriend Jenny
said that she sees something different on Scotts face
when he’s up there on stage. “He goes somewhere
else,” she remarked. “It just becomes,”
Scott said. “I don’t have to call it up.
I’m Scott Murray up until that moment of the first
guitar chord, then there’s that other something else
that just kind of takes over. It’s not like being
taken over, possessed if you will, “It just …
happens,” he said. “It’s a very safe place.”
“Is the audience really out there when you’re
in that moment” I wondered? “Oh yeah,
they’re out there,” Scott said. “You feel
the presence, even if there’s not good lighting. I
like being able to look out there and see them because
there’s that connection for me there. It’s
difficult making eye contact sometimes because I do feel
that natural need to pull back, but you want to look out
there and see if you’re reaching someone. And
that’s what you’re looking for. I look for the
foot that moves, or the nod, or when someone leans over
and whispers, or grabs a hand. I try to write about
moments in life, and they wind up being meaningful.
They’re meaningful to me and that’s what I try
to put out.”
“You look out there and see a tear, that’s the
most incredible form of a compliment when you reach
someone that much. It is a give and take. There’s
this flow that goes on between me and the audience.
It’s wonderful to be in, so much to the point that
when I get off stage I ask Jenny, ‘how was it?’
It’s like I don’t remember. My songs wind up
being such a beautiful, sweet, sadness, melancholy kind
of thing; it’s almost like a baptism as I come out
of that song. I want to talk about it. Not so much about
the next song, but leading into that next song. I’ll
just bring up a small story and try to get the levy,
watching them lean back and laugh. And then take them
down into a song like “In June.” And after you
immerse them into that kind of emotion, you need to dry
them off a bit. So the show gets to be a real neat ride
for me. Everything I’ve ever put into a song, its
right there in my face again. Sometimes I sence that
‘I can’t do that song yet,’ I’ve got
to prepare for it and build up to being ready to do it.”
Staying On Track
Scott says he usually prepares a set list, “just to
kind of keep myself on track,” but feeling every
moment with the audience, he’s often lead to deviate
from that list into directions that the interaction
between he and the audience dictate. “It’s
definitely a momentary flow. The show can change at the
drop of a hat just because of where you see them being,
and then where you want to take it.”
“I’ve started writing some blues tunes. And in
the middle of the show I’ll drop one of those in.
And it’s so neat because it takes the audience so
out of the realm of where they are, and then I put them
back in there again. It’s such a journey to take
them on. It starts the moment I open my mouth, I begin
telling the story. It’s a way of weaving magic, so
by the time you get to the song, you haven’t told
them the whole story. It’s like, ‘now
let’s step into this.’ So you kind of set the
stage, and while the whole journey flows together, each
song becomes its own presentation.”
“I talked to an old Shakespearian actor one time and
he was telling me how the best moments are when you get
off stage and think ‘I have no recollection of the
performance.’ You were in such that moment. And
that’s what it is; you fall into the moment with the
people you’re with. And it’s being able to have
the command enough to know where you need to put them and
where to take them and where you’re leaving them,
especially if you’re opening for someone. You know,
maybe they haven’t come to really see me, but I want
to leave an impression and also leave them in a place
where they can easily be scooped up.”
It’s more about the music than the musician.
“It’s kind of like being egoless about the
whole thing,” he said. “Part of not having a
total memory of the performance is that it doesn’t
build up this immense self importance.” While Scott
certainly appreciates the opportunity to make money
playing music, he says it’s so much more than that.
“I do this because I have to do it. I need to be
that expressive. The songs are so amazing to me. They
kind of come through you. Any song I’ve ever done, I
look at like, ‘oh my gosh.’ I can take an
objective view. But I’m so hard on myself and my
performances, so it helps to know if you made an impact
on someone’s life.”
Because of how Scott performs his show, “I never
really play the same song the same way twice. I like
playing solo because of that. I can approach each song
the way I feel the flow going. That let’s me be
totally fluid. It let’s me come at songs in an angle
that I might never have before. And then sometimes I step
back and wonder how I did it.”
He Writes The Songs
Scott started writing songs when he was sixteen.
“You know, that broken heart that causes everyone to
write something down.” But rhythm alone sometimes is
the inspiration for his songwriting. “I’ll be
goofing around on the guitar and think, ‘I like that,’
and take that rhythm and build a song around it.
Sometimes an idea comes for me in a sentence. I’ve
got this song with the line, “I never heard the call
to arms and now the general’s gone.” It’s
an acapella Civil War tune. I’ve got one on my new
album with the line, “All my faith is gone, my
church is just a building now.” It’s just those
lines that grab you. These huge long sentences will come
to me, and then I’ll craft a tune around the
sentence.”
“All my songs have been emotionally successful for
me, and that’s really the end all in this,” he
said. “You hope you can write commercially
successful songs, but emotional success is the key. They
tell such a complete tale for me that it’s easy for
me to fall back into the songs when I perform them.
I’m amazed at my gift, it’s quite humbling. If
I can look back and think, ‘I’m so glad I wrote
that song,’ that’s satisfying.”
I’m 45, and this is a great age to be. It’s
like being able to understand what I want to say and not
stumbling as much over trying to find ways to say it.
Writing a song now is just as meaningful as it was when I
was a late teenager trying to write that love song.
It’s comforting to me to incorporate my music with
my day job as an audiologist because I know I’m
getting paid, and I can focus on my music without the
pressure to produce income from it.
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