...On a pony she named Wildfire...
'Wildfire'
1975
Michael Martin Murphy
For my first bit of proof that 70s music kicked today's music's butt..Michael Martin Murphey recorded 'Wildfire' in 1975. The song was released as the first single from his album 'Blue Sky-Night Thunder' and was his biggest hit in the US, spending two weeks at # 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. I can tell ya for a fact that it was played constantly by Richmond, Va's upstart new FM top 40 station, WRVQ (Then as now, 'Q-94').
On the day we graduated in early June, 1975, Thomas Dale High School's much beloved long time principal, J Wilson Crump, grabbed several of us and dispatched us to his house, just off of Harrowgate Rd in Chester, for extra folding chairs for the football stadium. (This was back when graduations were still held outside). After an inevitable and absolutely necessary stop at Mr. Swiss for the best milkshakes in the Richmond area, we headed down Harrowgate to the huge, old, and immaculately kept Victorian house that J. Wilson called home, and loaded down a pickup truck with chairs. When I say 'Loaded Down, I mean 'as in stacked up over the cab'...with a couple of us sitting on top of this precarious load to keep it from ending up in the middle of Va. State Rt 10. (I think luck rather than our presence had a lot to do with that not happening). It was a typical early June Virginia day...hot and humid, and the windows were down with Q94 blasting. As we sat at the light at Chester Rd and Route 10 us 'Load Riders' were giving all in earshot a concert as we warbled 'She ran calling WIIIIIIIIIIILD fire!' in our best voices, which I might add, were none too good. One of those little memories I'll keep until I die.
So Enjoy. This version's the version we usually heard on the radio, the one we were singing along to, and I think most everyone’s' favorite version..
This is a slightly different version of 'Wildfire', but I included it because the graphics for this video are just beautiful.
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