*Samantha Murphy*

-Michael Ross chose Samantha's debut album "somewhere between starving & stardom" as one of his top 10 for this year's Village Voice Annual Pazz & Jop poll.
"With SMtv, Samantha Murphy does the legwork for you, trudging through the jungle of independent music to find the very best artists to feature on her exceptional show. A must-listen for those who like to hear it first and tell everyone about their favorite new band."
-Abby White, Music Editor Performing Songwriter Magazine
“…she’s a motivational speaker with a guitar.”
-Chris Kocher, pressconnects.com
About Samantha Murphy and SMtv
Google singer songwriter and the first name you’ll find is Samantha Murphy. For the past three years, Samantha has been establishing herself as not only a singer songwriter, but the place to go to hear other great singer songwriters. With her popular Podcast SMtv, Samantha features a different artist from a different city and venue each week as she tours. Over 275,000 people have downloaded her program.
Expanding on the success of SMtv, Samantha has built SMtvMusic.com, a royalty-free music network and legal P2P for college students. SMtvMusic.com has recently partnered with the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System to deliver royalty free music to their network of 1,000 college stations and Samantha offers the entire catalog to college DJ’s and non-commercial webcasters royalty-free.
Samantha is in demand as a speaker and has moderated and been asked to speak at many music conferences such as Digital Music Forum West, the Future of Music Coalition Summit, Podcast Hotel, the DIY Convention and MEISA’s International Conference.
Samantha’s independently released debut CD, somewhere between starving & stardom, contains an all star band consisting of the rhythm section from Alanis Morissette’s multi-platinum debut Jagged Little Pill, Kanye West’s Cellist and an award winning mix engineer (Christina Aguilera/Usher/Pink). The album was chosen as a top 10 for Village Voice’s Annual Pazz & Jop Poll by Michael Ross, who calls it “…a perfect pop record.”
Performing professionally since she was six years old, Samantha has worked with Willie Nelson, Michael McDonald, Five for Fighting, Kylie Minogue and Erikah Badu as well as having appeared on TV shows ranging from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to Australia’s Hey, Hey It’s Saturday.
Samantha is blazing a trail as an independent artist and innovator and is living proof of what’s possible for artists in the digital age.
Check out SMtv
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My photos on Flickr
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My videos on You Tube
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN STARVING AND STARDOM
• Samantha Murphy
In a more perfect world, this music would be inescapable. You would be hearing it on the radio, in commercials, in movies, and of course coming out of your iPod earphones as you worked out. As it is, even an archaeologist of obscure talent such as myself would not be aware of it had not the ultra-talented Ms. Murphy performed at a pickin' party that I attended in Manhattan. (Yes, they have pickin' parties in Manhattan.) Having seen her name on the announcement, and being unfamiliar with her music, I checked out her website, where I was treated to the brilliant, Police-like "I Wanna Go Home." Neither that tune nor her charming and entertaining live performance prepared me for the pop masterpiece that is Somewhere Between Starving & Stardom.
The CD reveals that the Police influence in “I Wanna Go Home” is no isolated fluke. If Aimee Mann references the production elements of the Sixties, Murphy manages to distill the best elements of early-Eighties pop in the aforementioned tune, as well as in the Men-At-Work sounding "At The Laundr-O-Mat"--a tale of a woman who, after spending a fortune on grooming to meet a man, lands one while doing a wash. Still, SBS&S is no more a retro exercise than Mann's records; these classic touches are just spice added to a few tunes, on a record that maintains a thoroughly modern attitude. A sparser sound appropriately couches a song called "Silent & Still," while a love song like "I Am You" mixes banjo and minimal electronics in a manner both current and timeless. The great arrangements and production are themselves flavoring for the excellently crafted songs and Murphy’s voice--a magnificent mix of Mann's wry experience and Dusty Springfield's vulnerable soul.
Somewhere Between Starving & Stardom is an unusual but welcome brew of mature witty wisdom and unshakable optimism. Whether she ends up starving or a star, Samantha Murphy should take pride in knowing that, in a less than perfect world, she has at least created one perfect record.
• Michael Ross for Pure Music