Gary Roller

The idea of enriching lives through the visual and entertainment arts provides the vital pool of inspiration from which Gary Roller draws his dynamic creative energies. Like the various spokes of a wheel, reaching in all directions from its hub, Roller expresses that energy through a variety of creative mediums which touch the lives of people throughout the world. Roller believes that the goal of art should be to touch the viewer. "Successful art imparts deep personal insights, awakens love, and gives a deeper understanding of life," he says.

Drawing upon the realistic and inspirational backdrops of the New Mexico, Roller blends heartfelt vision with the skill of the sculptor to model images that enrich the lives of people worldwide Best known for depicting the various cultures of the rugged southwestern landscape, he often focuses on the spiritual life of the Native American as a powerful symbol which expresses universally understood life experiences.

Roller's love for music, and his belief in the power of music as an art form, keeps him involved in that aspect of the arts as well. Though he performs in a variety of musical configurations, he is probably best known for his longtime association with Michael Martin Murphey's Wildfire Productions. Through his appearances with Murphey in numerous performance settings, including symphony concerts and acoustic shows, Roller has devoted tremendous amounts of musical energy toward keeping country and western music traditions in front of the American public. These efforts with Murphey have been a key element in the renewed interest in Western music and culture, and have spawned national magazines, best-selling books and movies, and the advent of the Warner Western label, a division of Warner Bros. Records/Nashville. It is through some 3,500 concert performances and appearances in videos, movies and on television that Roller has developed a nationwide musical family of friends and fans, who enjoy both his music and his art. His drawings, paintings and sculptures are collected by celebrities including Dan Fogelberg, George Strait, R. C. Gorman, Holly Dunn, Susy Boggus, Amado Peña, The Judds, and Michael Martin, but Roller is equally proud for his art to be found in the collections of fans and friends from every walk of life.

Because of his ability to portray recognizable figures with intensity and emotion, Roller is often called upon to create tributes to well known and beloved personalities. His tribute to John Wayne was chosen by Texas Governor Bill Clements to be the official memorial from all the citizens of Texas. The bronze bust was presented to the actor's family on behalf of the State of Texas. A bust of Walt Disney , another of Roller's influences, is on display at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and serves as an attraction which celebrates Disney’s creative genius. Roller's tributes to outstanding authors and world teachers can be found throughout the global community. It is his hope that the images will encourage people to open to greater possibilities and offer light on their path of personal development. His work serves as focal points in schools, churches, community centers, businesses, parks and even entire communities.

Gary was honored by his hometown high school, Tascosa, which voted him into its Rebel Hall of Fame for encouraging young people to develop their potential and realize their dreams. One of his bronzes is on display at Tascosa High.

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Michael Martin Murphey, "singing cowboy poet", is not only the number one, best-selling singer/ songwriter of American Cowboy Music, he's one of the world's most respected singer/ songwriters in the Pop and Country-Western field. But he's a man apart, a man who rides his own trail so resolutely , that the word "rebel" doesn't begin to describe his stance. Though he's remained a lifetime resident and loyal son of Texas, he's a man on mystical, spiritual quest to try capture the soul of the deserts, plains and mountains in the soul of America- from the Carolinas to California, from the Great Plains to the Deep South to the Wild North Country. Artistically, he's more tied to landscape-driven than any other contemporary or past musicians - his heroes are painters like Charlie Russell, Remington, Buck Dunton, Ernest Blumenshien, Georgia O'Keefe, and Maynard Dixon. Murphey's close friends have always been contemporary artists, like William C. Matthews, Amado Pena, Gary Roller, and Jerry Riness. In philosophy, his heroes are Christian thinkers like Albert Schweitzer, Thomas Merton, and C.S. Lewis.

As you listen to his music, be prepared to take a ride with a Wandering Cowboy poet("Murph" as his friends and fans call him) into the great outdoors, where nature is free and impartial, and the rules for its beings are the same. Murphey is the world's most prominent musical representative of the Western horseman (Richard Farnsworth, legendary Hollywood stunt man and Western actor once called him a "master horseman"), the horse rancher, cattle rancher, and cowboy. He's also a lover of the outdoors, with a strong commitment to issues regarding farmers and ranchers, open space, and management of natural resources. For this reason, Murphey can be found spending time in the wild and wide open places- a log cabin in New Mexico, a remote mountain ranch in Colorado, a prairie ranch in Kansas, a north woods ranch in Wisconsin. An important part of his life has been dedicated to camping and trail-riding in places like Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, the Colorado Rockies (where Murph organized a 500-mile ride over the Colorado Trail), the Sonora Desert in Arizona, Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon in Utah, Monument Valley on the Navajo Reservation, the Dolly Sods of West Virginia, and many more spectacular locations. When it comes to the wild places of the Americas

Although Murphey did have some love song-related hits, most of them were penned by other writers such as Rafe VanHoy’s "What’s Forever For?", Jesse Winchester’s "I’m Gonna Miss You, Girl" and the Overstreet/Schuyler composition "A Long Line Of Love", most of his own work involves nature and his respect for all things living and the universe at large - the voices in the wind, the scent of the pines, the brown of the earth, the blue of the enormous skies, he flowing rivers and the majestic sunrises and sunsets - while all of earth’s creatures and forces move in complex harmony. He might just have been the first musical nature writer of our time. Even his early album covers were the physical manifestations of his musical mood and philosophies. Murphey was photographed against the orange of the setting sun on the front of his critically acclaimed 1975 album Blue Sky / Night Thunder.The ethereal flight of swans against a blue sky adorned the cover of Swans Against The Sun. An ancient Anasazi Indian rock art painting of a horse symbolically dominates the front and back covers of his 1976 album Flowing Free Forever, on which "Cherokee Fiddle" was first released. And let’s not forget that his biggest hit, "Wildfire", was about a mysterious dream horse on the vast American heartland prairie. While others sang about the urban street life and hip discos, Murphey was singing about the stark beauty of the "dark, flat land" of Nebraska.

"For many millenniums, people depended on horses, and horses were an integral part of our existence," explains Murphey. "Horses were our main transportation which meant they were essential for communication, exploration, trading, war, and the migration of large groups of people to new territories. Humans have always paid tribute to horses. Cavemen painted horses on cave walls, Pegasus was part of Greek mythology, the tales of A Thousand And One Nights and The Nights of the Round Table both included horses, and every great emperor or military hero tended to have a horse associated with him.

"When people see a horse running, it fires up their imagination," Murphey continues. "A horse is a symbol of freedom. For the past two hundred years in America, we have used horses to herd cattle and that’s how the cowboy was born. Now, of course, cowboys and horses are intrinsically linked, and are both a big part of the Western experience representing much of what is best about the culture of the West - open space, personal freedom, hard work and a closeness to nature."

While his musical influences and associations are varied, ranging from the records of the ‘20s artists his uncle shared with him - Vernon Dalhart, Carson Robinson and the earliest singing cowboys, Carl T. Sprague and Jules Verne Allen - to his artist friends who recorded his songs, such as John Denver and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, his lyrics are steeped in the plainspoken tradition of Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, and Walt Whitman, displaying purpose and intent. His social awareness and concern is apparent as he addresses such issues as the attempt to destroy the American Indian culture, the extinction of the cowboy life, wildlife freedom and the conservation of healthy environment as a personal challenge to responsibility.

His love for the outdoors began at an early age. Born in Dallas, Texas, Murphey began riding horses on his grandfather’s and uncle’s ranches when he was six years old. He recalls sleeping on the screened-in porch under the stars while listening to stories, and hearing cowboy songs hummed and sung by the men who loved their land. He couldn’t help but begin to write stories and poetry himself. Between those memorable times and the summers he spent, first as a camper, and later, a counselor, at Sky Ranch is Lewisville, Texas, he fell in love with the entire lifestyle. It wasn’t long before he found himself singing cowboy tunes around the campfires against the dark evening skies, and it set the course for his lifelong dreams and work. In junior high he began to perform wherever he could, finally graduating to the Texas Coffeehouse scene, where original material was accepted. In his high school years he formed "The Lost River Trio" with Owens "Boomer" Castleman and Bob Jacobs. He went solo in his senior year, and had his own television show in Dallas at age 18.

After briefly attending North Texas State College, Murphey moved to California to go to UClLA, where he studied classical literature, medieval and renaissance history and literature, with an emphasis on poetry and creative writing. He remained almost completely self-taught as a musician, and by 1964, he had not only become a folk club favorite in California, he had signed a songwriting contract with Sparrow Music. It was around that time when Murphey and pal Castleman(also now a California college student) hooked up with other musicians they had known in Texas - John London (bass player for James Taylor's first album), and Michael Nesmith. They formed a band called the New Survivors. They recorded one album that never saw the light of day, but the association with Michael Nesmith proved to be fortunate when Nesmith became one of the hugely successful Monkees and recorded one of Murphey’s songs, "What Am I Doing Hangin’ Around?". This led to a lifelong career as a songwriter whose songs are recorded by others, from the Monkees to John Denver to Lyle Lovett.

Next came a short-lived duo with Owen "Boomer" Castleman known and Travis & Boomer (Murphey went by the name Travis Lewis for that period of time), which evolved into the Texas Twosome, backed up by banjo master, John McEuen. By 1967, Murphey, along with Castleman, formed The Lewis & Clarke Expedition. Just like the explorers of the early West whose names they adopted, they were musically blazing new trails by combining country, pop and folk with a western flair. They made one self-titled album on Colgems (coincidentally, the same label as the Monkees) from which comes "I Feel Good (I Feel Bad)," the earliest cut on this collection. In 1972, Kenny Rogers and the First Edition recorded Murphey’s idea for a concept album revolving around a ghost town in the Mojave Desert. Consisting of 19 tracks that he wrote with Larry Cansler(co-writer of the essential Murphey classic, "Wildfire"), the album, entitled The Ballad Of Calico, was critically acclaimed and won Murphey some notice. Murphey had married former personal secretary of the Beatles manager, Diana Palmer, and the two had moved into the mountains above the Mojave Desert to a small bugalow surrounded by towering pine trees that reminded Murphey of his childhood days spent in the deep woods of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and East Texas.

In 1970, he moved back to Texas, this time settling in Austin, where he founded a "Texas music scene" that became world famous. Though others like Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker followed in his footsteps, Murphey was the first singer/songwriter of this Austin scene to be signed to major record label while operating out of Austin, Texas. Others couldn't help but take notice. When Willie Nelson visited one of Murphey's performances in Austin, he got rid of his suit and tie, grew long hair and a beard like Murphey's, and played the Armadillo World Headquarters as Murphey's opening act. In fact, Murphey inspired many more Texas-based musicians to stick to their home state while playing to the world. As Lyle Lovett put it, "Michael Martin Murphey is one the main influences on my career. He is among America's best songwriters".

For a complete biography of Michael Martin Murphey, please visit his website at http://www.michaelmartinmurphey.com/