Michael Martin Murphey (born March 14, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, author, and rancher best known as a pioneer of "progressive country" and a fierce champion of Western culture.Raised in Texas, Murphey began his career in the 1960s writing hits for artists like The Monkees and Kenny Rogers before returning to Austin in the early 1970s. There, alongside Willie Nelson and Jerry Jeff Walker, he helped birth the "Cosmic Cowboy" and Outlaw Country movements. He achieved massive mainstream crossover success in 1975 with his multi-platinum, haunting pop-country masterpiece "Wildfire" and the hit "Carolina in the Pines."Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, "Murph" topped Country, Pop, Bluegrass, and Western charts, earning multiple Grammy nominations and six gold albums—including his watershed Cowboy Songs series, which revived the traditional Western music genre. A passionate environmentalist, land-conservation activist, and inductee into the Western Music Hall of Fame, Murphey continues to tour and release music that honors the heritage and landscape of the American West.