Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band ~ A Fifth Of Beethoven 1976 Disco Purrfection Version

Walter Anthony Murphy Jr was born on December 19, 1952 in New York City. He proved to be a musical prodigy and by the age of four was taking music lessons from Rosa Rio who was an American concert pianist and composer of ad jingles. Murphy ended up starring in television ads for Hammond Organs.

His real estate father was not pleased with young Walter's choice to follow music as a career but he allowed him to enroll at the Manhattan School Of Music in 1970. He also joined an R&B band called WAM in and around New York. He studied classical piano and jazz and he submerged himself in the music, coming up for air in 1972 when he married Laurie Robertson.

He followed Rosa Rio's path and began composing incidental music for use in TV, radio and industrial films that saw release in 1974. By 1975 he had recorded a disco version of Jingle Bells he named "Disco Bells" that was issued as a holiday single, but did not chart. It did point the way to his idea of marrying classical music with the tribal disco beat. He felt that his rock disco revisions would help his young audience to gain an appreciation of classical music by searching out the original.

He recorded four songs and among them was a disco updating of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony he called "A Fifth Of Beethoven. Many labels declined to release it but it finally found a home when Larry Uttal of Private Stock records took an interest and signed him.

Since groups were big sales at the time, Larry suggested that the artist credit should be "Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band" once the album was completed. Two days after the release, Uttal discovered that there was already a Big Apple Band. That band had already decided to change their name to Chic. The first single issued was "A Fifth Of Beethoven" and it was a #1 pop smash!

It's popularity was cemented when the song was licensed to RSO Records for inclusion on the biggest selling disco soundtrack ever, Saturday Night Fever. An edit of the song was heard in the movie, but it was not until 2001 when Murphy released a Best Of CD that it was made available.

He continued to release disco versions of other classically based songs like "Flight '76" a re-imagining of Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight Of The Bumblebee" and George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue", but the record buying public was not as receptive.

In 1979, he joined brothers Eddie and Frank Dillard forming a funk and soul band called Uncle Louie and released one album that spawned three singles, "Full Tilt Boogie", "Sky High" and "I Like Funky Music". He did record a few one off disco singles but then fell back on to writing jingles. It wasn't until 1999 that he became relevant again when he became the main composer of music for an animated adult cartoon called "Family Guy" that led to his collaborations with Seth MacFarlane.

His biggest achievement was scoring MacFarlane's 2012 movie "Ted" where he won a Grammy for "Best Original Song" he co wrote with MacFarlane named "Everybody Needs A Best Friend". They still are collaborating to this day.