Hi-Fi Choice - May

INTERVIEW
COLLEEN MURPHY
For the love
of music
DJ, record producer, broadcaster, remixer
and Classic Album Sundays innovator,
Colleen Murphy chats vinyl with Rob Lane
Classic Album
Sundays is about
people hearing
an amazing
album on an
amazing system
f you’re a long-time vinyl nut or have recently
welcomed the format back into your life, you’ll
I understand what Classic Album Sundays’
Colleen Murphy means when she talks of the
“warmth”, “tangibility”, “musicality” and “sense of ritual
and interaction” that analogue brings to the listening
experience. And you’ll doubtless also agree when she
opines: “Analogue and digital can coexist quite happily”;
after all we’re in it for the music, not the format, right?
“There is a wider selection of hi-res digital files and great
digital streamers, and much to be said for the convenience
and storage capabilities,” explains Colleen. “Then again, I
do not feel as great an emotional connection looking at
screens, scrolling through a hard drive, pressing buttons as
I do flicking through my record collection, putting a record
on the turntable and reading the album cover... After all,
music is an emotional experience.”
Originally from Massachusetts, Colleen attended New
York University where she became programme director
and DJ for the university radio station, WNYU. Also known
as Cosmo, she went on to co-produce the two-volume
compilation albums David Mancuso Presents The Loft, a
celebration of Mancuso’s invitation-only parties in New
York during the seventies.
She later co-founded the Bitches Brew record label,
records as Wild Rumpus with former Captain Beefheart
guitarist Gary Lucas and has remixed Candi Staton and
many others. In 2010 Colleen founded Classic Album
Sundays, a listening event, and is often heard on radio and
TV championing vinyl.
But it’s perhaps her childhood where the emotions of
music first took root, as her vivid memories of her early
musical experiences attest.
“The first song that stands out in my memory is one I am
both embarrassed and proud of: David Essex’s Rock On. I
was sitting alone in my teenage uncle John’s bedroom, the
ultraviolet light illuminating the glo-paint posters and the
transistor radio playing,” she remembers. “This was at a
time when I still believed there were little people playing
music inside the radio. Suddenly an eerie space-funk
bass-line percolated out
of the speaker, bubbled
into my brain, and
voilà, I had my first
psychedelic experience.”
Family played a big
part in Colleen’s early
experiences of music,
with aunts and uncles
having a huge influence.
“I am from a big
Boston Irish-American
family. My uncle Dennis, the bachelor uncle (everyone
has one), lived down the street from us. This was very
fortunate for both my parents and I as when we got into
an argument, I could leave and go to Dennis’ so we could
all cool off. I could also raid his record collection and once
I had my own turntable, I raided with gusto. Aside from
The Beatles, Crosby Stills & Nash and Fleetwood Mac,
I also ‘borrowed’ an album that quickly became my
favourite: The Moody Blues’ Days Of Future Passed. I still
haven’t given it back.
“From my Aunt Pauline I borrowed The Rolling Stones
and Kate Bush’s Lionheart (she was not very well known
in the States at the time). And finally, when I was looking
after my younger cousin Kevin after school I would flick
through my Uncle Brian’s record collection, and would pop
Led Zeppelin, The Cars and The Tubes onto his turntable.”
But the family connection doesn’t end there, and as a
result Colleen can put together a sizable playlist of LPs
that all have a familial, and emotional connection.
“The first album that was given to me was actually by my
teenage aunt Theresa who gave me Elton John’s Greatest
Hits on my eighth birthday. She was a big fan of Elton and
David Bowie and I thought she was the coolest. I just
wanted to be a teenager.”
On the wheels of steel
By the time she was a freshman in high school, Colleen
had her own radio show on the “10-watt radio station”
attached to the school library. “Luckily I was quick to meet
the only other two people in the school who liked music
other than the top 40 or classic rock, and my musical
subculture tastes were nurtured.”
Colleen’s first step onto the hi-fi ladder was a GE
Trimline record player. “At the age of 12, I now had my
very own turntable in my own room. Too bad there wasn’t
a little hatch in the door for food to be sent through!”
When Colleen moved to London in the early nineties, she
and two friends took out a business loan to purchase audio
118 MAY 2016