Trish Murphy's songs come from anywhere -- whether she's collaborating with the SWAT-team detective who lives next door (“St. Christopher”), or just reading the newspaper for inspiration (“The Trouble With Trouble”). Her style is undeniably American, reflecting the winding road of her musical influences and life experiences. She has a youthful, fencepost-rusty voice that doesn't do any fancy tricks but can rivet an audience with its capacity to carry emotions wrapped around beguiling melodies. Raised in Houston, Texas, Trish Murphy officially launched her music career by quitting her college job at The Wall Street Journal for a stint of local open-mic nights. Her father, a struggling musician and songwriter, taught his three children to sing background harmonies for him when they were preschoolers. Although he eventually had to take jobs in construction to make a living, the family kept its bohemian values. While she was working her way through school, her dad encouraged her to get gigs to support herself rather than pursue the proverbial something-to-fall-back-on. She received a B.A. in philosophy and soon decided to make music her steady job, starting out in Houston as half of the brother-sister duo Trish and Darin. After two independent CDs in the early ‘90s and relentless performing and traveling around Texas, Trish and her brother disbanded to pursue solo efforts. “The more songs we wrote, the more we realized we were becoming two totally different bands,” Trish recalls. Trish relocated to Austin in 1996 to begin recording a handful of new songs. Crooked Mile was released independently in 1997 to widespread critical raves. National distribution soon followed, along with constant touring throughout the U.S. and Europe. Tour highlights included a week with the 1998 Lilith Fair, spearheaded by Sarah McLachlan, and appearances on NPR’s Mountain Stage and World Cafe. Her follow-up CD, Rubies on the Lawn (Doolittle/Mercury 1999), propelled her further into the spotlight, garnering national press, mainstream radio airplay and more international touring, including a return to the Lilith Fair in its final season. When her record label went through a pivotal overhaul and merger in 2000, Trish opted out of her contract to fly solo once again. Captured, independently released in late 2001, found her returning to her Texas roots in a stripped-down, live acoustic setting, doing what she does best: telling stories and shooting from the hip. Planted firmly between the simple Southern poetry of Crooked Mile and the gritty pop of Rubies, Captured distills the essence of her singer-songwriter heritage and ripens it to pure melodic fullness. Her latest release, Girls Get In Free, showcases fresh and hard-won ground from a career songwriter hitting her creative stride. Trish is actively involved in the Austin community as a volunteer board member of GenAustin, a non-profit educational program for teen girls. She has developed and led workshops for teens in Austin-area schools, and she also headlines an annual benefit concert for Transplants for Children, raising funds to provide care for transplant patients in Texas. For the last two years she has performed with high-school orchestra students in a summer pops concert series, collaborating with band and orchestra music educators in Texas.