John Murphy: The Air Force contractor who inspired Kim Deal
It’s remarkable how Kim Deal has managed to have the career she has worked hard for and to still be regarded as underrated. She’s not only an accomplished bassist and guitarist but a brilliant vocalist with a pure talent for songwriting in a variety of styles. Calling Deal underrated is nothing but a disservice to one of rock’s most important figures of the last 40 years.
As a co-founder of Pixies alongside Black Francis, David Lovering and Joey Santiago, her contributions to the first four albums and the Come on Pilgrim EP are more than just as bassist and occasional backing vocalist. Deal was a driving force behind the band’s sound, and while Francis often gets the majority of the credit for most of the creative direction in the Boston group, you only have to look at how comparatively inert their sound became after her departure in 2013. It isn’t a criticism of the abilities of the other three founders but an indicator that Deal was so integral to the band.
The fact that in between Pixies records – and during their initial hiatus – Deal formed and fronted The Breeders and gave herself the opportunity to flex her songwriting talents to a greater extent should be an even better indicator of how far her talents stretched. On their first two albums, Pod and Last Splash, Deal demonstrated an unmatchable verve for writing odd and warped alternative rock and managed to push her own project to similar heights as her previous band with the success of songs like ‘Cannonball’ and ‘Divine Hammer’.
However, despite being an incredible talent in her own right, her influences came from what many might consider to be an unlikely place. It wasn’t when she met a man who worked with her brother, Kevin, as an Air Force contractor in Boston that she would be dealt the exposure to the music scene that she craved. Deal formed a quick bond with John Murphy over his record collection, which contained many cult Bostonian groups such as the Del Fuegos and Human Sexual Response, and would soon relocate from her hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to Boston and was immediately swept up by all of the musical happenings in the city.
Deal and Murphy’s relationship quickly turned into a marriage just one year after they first met, and while she was actively searching local newspapers for a way to become further ingrained in Boston’s music scene, she stumbled across an advertisement in The Boston Phoenix from Charles Thompson, who asked: “Band seeks bassist into Hüsker Dü and Peter, Paul and Mary. Please – no chops.” Deal felt as though she had found her true calling in her new home.
Thompson would go on to become known as Black Francis, and thus the Pixies were born when she introduced Lovering to the group, but if it hadn’t been for the whirlwind romance between her and Murphy, the band as we know it might never have taken off or come to anything. Deal’s credit to Murphy would continue into the early career of the band, as she chose to label herself Mrs John Murphy in the liner notes for both Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa, though she would drop this moniker when they divorced and became known by her birth name from Doolittle onwards.
It would be unfair to give Murphy complete credit for having played a part in Pixies coming to fruition, but his education of Deal on the bands of the Boston scene, as well as bringing her to the city in the first place, is the sort of incident that if it weren’t for his involvement, so much of the music we were blessed with may not have ever existed.
