Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas

For 30 years, acclaimed singer songwriter Michael Martin Murphey has been celebrating the Christmas season — “Cowboy-style.”

A pioneer of Americana music with a resume that includes hits that have topped the Pop, Country, Bluegrass and Western Music charts, the genre busting Murphey has announced plans to continue celebrating with his multi-city Cowboy Christmas® tour for the 30th straight year.

Seems Murphey never tires of spreading the Christmas cheer. “What I try to do is encourage people to think of the spirit of giving, charity and forgiving, which is the spirit of Christmas,” says Murphey. “It’s about delivering that beautiful message of Christmas to people.”

Michael Martin Murphey’s Cowboy Christmas® was inspired by an event that began in 1885 in Anson, TX, when the local community of cowboys came together to celebrate the season with the very first Cowboy Christmas Ball. The festivities included dancing and merriment that has continued virtually every year since. Along with all of his other Cowboy Christmas show, Murphey will once again return to this year’s ball at the famed Pioneer Hall in Anson on December 15.

“The first time I came to the annual Cowboy Christmas Ball in Anson, I was floored that the community had worked so hard to keep it going,” says Murphey, himself a rancher and farmer. “I fell in love watching the older couples dance and the dances being passed on to the younger people. It re-connected me to the tradition. The Cowboy Christmas Ball is steeped in everything I hold dear of growing up in Texas at Christmas. All the dances were here —the Texas Two-Step the waltzes, the mazurkas, the Paul Jones, the Virginia Reel. Though it’s not required, some of the women make or order their own old-fashioned costumes and clothes and some of the men still wear string ties and frock coats.  It’s like family reunion alongside meeting old and new friends.

Cowboy Christmas® differs from other seasonal presentations in its focus of the “special relationship” of the Christmas story to rural communities, farmers and ranchers. “God first sent an angel to the livestock people — shepherds in the fields. Whether you’re a believer or not, the story emphasizes that the news of the birth of the Savior on Earth was not given to royalty or politicians. The Lord did not alert the politicians.”

“That underscores that Jesus came for all people, all races and all classes,” he continues. “That means that rural people should feel a significant part of the Christmas message because they were chosen to hear the story first. This is my favorite season of the year. We remember our fathers and mothers. We celebrate our families- especially children- and we treasure our friends and the many blessings given by our Lord. It really brings out the very best in all of us.”

The 2022 Tour will be playing in historic venues like Austin City Limits, Oklahoma City’s National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Denver’s Paramount Theater, the Orpheum in Wichita, KS, Texas Trust TU Theatre in Grand Prairie, and many other cities throughout Texas and the American West.