Murray the K The Fifth Beatle
New York DJ and self proclaimed 5th Beatle. He accompanied the Mop Tops on their first American tour – Murray the K The Fifth Beatle.
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Radio Show – Mop Tops & The King
Author of the book Rock’n’Roll Unravelled, Derek Shelmerdine, is a fortnightly guest on The Mop Tops & The King. In short, host Steve Chelmsford’s radio show is all about the music and the times of The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Moreover, the show is broadcast on the MTK network of nearly 100 radio stations around the world.
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during the week: 10 to 16 February 2023
Murray the K The Fifth Beatle
Murray Kaufmann was born in New York on 14 February 1922. Although, he is better known as Murray the K, a very popular New York DJ and concert promoter.
The Beatles’ first full-blown American tour kicked off at San Francisco’s Cow Palace on 19 August 1964. It crossed America and took in three Canadian gigs, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, It finished on 20 September, with a charity night, An Evening with the Beatles at New York’s Paramount Theatre.
Elvis’s upright bass-player Bill Black was one of the support acts, with his Bill Black Combo. Other support acts included, The Exciters, The Righteous Brothers and singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon.
Murray the K was one of the first DJs to interview the Beatles. In addition, he heavily promoted the Beatles music on his radio shows. This meant that when the Beatles arrived in America, Murray the K was well-known to them. So much so that he was one of the first media people to be accepted into the Beatles’ inner circle.
As a result of his previous support for the Mop Tops, the Beatles invited Murray the K to accompany them on their tour. During this time, he even persuaded Brian Epstein and his radio station to allow him to transmit his prime-time radio show live from the Beatles’ hotel suite.
Such was his involvement with the group, Murray the K proclaimed himself as “the fifth Beatle”.
Murray the K was also a concert promoter
As well as being a highly successful DJ, Murray the K was also a concert promoter.
On 25 March 1967 Murray the “K”’s Live in Person, Music in the Fifth Dimension package show opened at New York’s RKO Theatre. This was a frenetic affair with five shows a day on nine consecutive days. The first show raised the curtain at 10.15 in the morning.
A host of acts took to the stage including, Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Mitch Ryder and The Blues Project. Murray the “K”’s wife also performed with her dancers as Jackie and the “K” Girls. Each act was very short, just two or three songs.
Two British bands made their American concert debut at the show. Cream and The Who were both billed as “direct from England”. Robert Stigwood negotiated a joint booking fee of $7,500 for Cream and The Who, split 70/30 in the latter’s favour. The Who gave a storming performance. They played 2 songs and gave a crowd-pleasing demolition of their equipment, five times a day.
The shows ended on 2 April. The following day Cream were in Atlantic Records’ New York studios, to begin recording their second album, Disraeli Gears.
