Murph Guitars

As if the work involved in producing the many styles of solid and semi-solid guitars wasn't enough to do in the first year of a new company, Murphy Music Industries commenced marketing a full range of amplifiers ..not one or two - but ten!

Initially they were intended to be valve amps ( like the one we found in Los Angeles in the care of Robert Dixon - one of only 2 to surface so far ) but the production versions ended up being solid state
( transistor ) combo units. The amps were custom made by Tom Howard McCormick who ran an electronics company in Phoenix, Arizona and who also made amps under the Howard name plus a few HOWARD brand guitars. Duane Eddy used the Howard for some of his classic recordings.

Below are listed the variants of the 10 models on offer.

Professional

# Model 101 - "Splattertone", Vibrolo, Echo, two 12" speakers
# Model 102 - Vibrolo, Echo, two 12" speakers
# Model 103 - "Splattertone", Tremolo, Echo, two 12" speakers
# Model 104 - Tremolo, Echo, two 12" speakers
# Model 105 - Tremolo, Echo, two 10" speakers
# Model 106 - ( Bass amplifier ) "Splattertone", one 15" speaker
# Model 107 - ( Bass amplifier ) one 15" speaker
# Model 108 - ( Bass amplifier ) four 10" speakers

Semi-professional

# Model 109 - Tremolo, Echo, two 10" speakers

Student

# Model 110 - Tremolo, one 10" speaker

All amps were covered with rich, black naugahyde material and had chrome trim.

No-one seems to know what the mysterious 'splattertone' feature was and it was something that obviously died along with the amplifiers!

A full range of guitars AND amps would be a guitar maker's dream but sadly all was not well in the amplifier field either ..the luck of the Irish was definitely NOT with the company! However, this time rather than facing external pressures by rival manufacturers, the amplifier line was facing a crisis all their own making.

Pat recalled that they had a large number of teething problems with the amplifiers. This was still in the early days of transistor development and apparently while the guitars were made using top quality electronic components, the amplifiers weren't. Apparently the cheaper overseas sources electronic parts kept on breaking down. The ones that WERE sold were being returned for service.This was the same problem that was to bring about the downfall of Bob Crook's STANDEL amplifier company a few years later.

Murphy Music Industries only sold a small amount of units because they were concerned that the credibility of the guitars would be affected by the amplifiers.

It was an area Pat was going to address but time for the company was to soon run out!