Robert Murphy was born in Birmingham, Alabama smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boom. Although he claims his first choice for career path was that of a garbage collector, that soon would change. When Murphy was about eight years old, two things occurred that would prove to be prophetic.
First, he
started listening to the radio - fascinated by the "voices coming
out of the box", and second, his dad took the family on a trip to
Chicago. He developed a
passion for both, and thereafter, his passion changed from waste removal
to radio. As a teenager he
built a radio studio in his bedroom, using old components from his
family's stereo system. While
still in high school, he started his first radio show, at a local
college radio station, WVSU. Before
graduating, he landed a job as announcer for the local NBC television
station, WAPI-TV. Murphy headed
for Tuscaloosa to begin studying at the University of Alabama, and was
soon helping to pay for tuition as a disc jockey on WTBC, the local rock
station. He graduated with a
degree in Broadcasting & Film Communications, and began the
peripatetic lifestyle of a radio personality. First stop - Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was hired by Mooney Broadcasting to host the station's morning show. They apparently liked what they heard, and promoted him to their flagship station, WMAK in Nashville, where program director Scott Shannon added the "in the Morning" moniker to his name. Two years later, Murphy was lured to the top station in Milwaukee, WOKY, where he again took over the reins of the station's morning show. Less than a
year later, Murphy was unable to resist the offer made by Stan and Sis
Kaplan, owners of the legendary Top 40 station, 61 Big WAYS.
Packing his bags and heading back down south, Murphy took over
for the departing morning show host, Jay Thomas, and ushered in what
some call "the golden age of Charlotte radio." But the childhood trip to Chicago still fascinated him, and although he had many offers from radio stations in Chicago (and other cities), none could offer him what it would take to lure him away from his life in Charlotte. But after six years, Murphy knew it was time to go, and accepted an offer from Q101 (WKQX) in Chicago and headed north to fulfill a lifelong dream. He took the station's morning show to top ratings, and spent over a decade behind the microphone there. After a
format flip at Q101, Murphy tried his talents at talk radio, joining WLS-FM
as they started a new talk format. That
station flipped formats again, at which time Murphy accepted an offer to
head "really" south, to heritage station WRMF in Palm Beach,
Florida. Murphy stayed
over three years in Florida, but an offer from a new station in Chicago,
was enough to pry him loose and bring him home, where he worked out his
two year contract at WXXY, the Eighties Channel.
When that station was sold, Murphy returned briefly to Palm Beach
to work for CBS's WMBX, but decided to retire in 2002. Over his
career, Murphy received many honors.
He was named Billboard Magazine's Major Market air personality of
the year, took first place in the New York International Radio festival,
was named one of America's top five disc jockeys by Electronic Media
Magazine, and was voted best radio personality in polls by the Charlotte
Observer and The Palm Beach Post, along with numerous awards from
various industry trade publications. Murphy still
lives in Chicago, though he spends much time at his log cabin in the
Manistee National Forest in Northwestern Michigan, and part of the year
in South Florida He does
occasional voice over work, and donates some of his time to read stories
to children at local schools. He
is an avid reader, a decent guitar player, a collector of vintage cars,
and a big fan of Alabama "Crimson Tide" football.
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