When I was in business for myself and had my own studio location, A very dear friend of mine, who is also one of the most fluent artists I’ve ever known completed a 18 track demonstration with me. The time we spent doing it gives me memories man that I’ll have for life. And he taught me things I’ll keep with me forever. His name was Chris Murphy.

Anyway, after he passed away(motorcycle accident), his group and I spent about a year kind of mourning, while still creating in the same studio. We dropped his protege’s/best friends solo project on Bandcamp.

Murphy’s album was floating around the city as an original demo copy(CD) and all his friends were taking turns borrowing it, listening, probably ripping the songs. There were only 5 songs on the original demo. Many people heard rumors that there were more songs to be released, but only the people who have visited the studio heard them.

Another year passed and I stayed in business, working on Murphy’s album, and doing my best to mix and master it on my own. Me, having strong skills as a producer, didn’t do too well as a mastering engineer or a publishing company and his release disappointed me to the point of discouragement. I began getting heavy into harder drugs while doing the work and found myself in Alice’s wonderland somewhere. I started adding post production stuff that wasn’t needed, I started mixing it with an experimental mindset that I would bounce from pro tools to cassette. I took every piece of vocal I could find and made sure I added it somewhere. I just spun out of control. I was MAD. I was the mad hatter.

I put out the album On SoundCloud on New Year’s Day and got a few local radio spins, but my personal life and bad choices were beginning to catch up. In short, I did a bad job. And feel like I let a lot of people down.

On the bright side, about 6 years has passed and his music is withstanding the test of time. It still sounds new. People still love it, and what it represents.

Now, I’m going to put his album out again. The right way. I’m going to take his original tracks and mixes and just put them out raw the way they were when he was playing them. I’m going to put them out with cdbaby. Meaning they’ll be available of Apple Music and Spotify.

Now. My plan is either to give Chris Murphy 100% royalties or what. If I put out music for an artist who has passed, do we still use his information? I’d like his family and his group to get the streaming money.

Has anyone ever been through a similar situation?



Here’s a link to the SoundCloud described above:

Soundcloud.com/murdamurph