In the mid-to-late ’70s and early ’80s, you could earn a living playing rock ’n’ roll in Phoenix, but you had to play covers, perform four 45-minute sets nightly, four or five nights a week. In that milieu, the young husband-and-wife musical duo of guitarist D.R. Wilke (RIP) and Peggy “Murph” Murphy (now Murphy Payne) formed Blue Shoes. (The pair had toiled five nights a week in Midwestern dives in a cover band called Chop.) Blue Shoes featured D.R.’s childhood chum, guitarist Rick Janzen, groove-merchant drummer Jim Allen, and rotating bassists Alan Bews and Roger Brewer. The earliest Blue Shoes boasted young guitarist Bruce Connole before Billy Clone and the Same and The Jetzons.
The quintet sported classic power-pop menswear irony, the blazers and thin ties, the Chucks and quirks, humor under the surface. You could twist and shout your influences all night in murky bars beneath cigarette- and beer-stained ceilings. Blue Shoes setlists mixed Beatles, early Kinks and Left Banke with Blondie, Police, and Pretenders, and other fuzzies. It was play to survive, but Blue Shoes tested their own songs between the hits, which gave their tunes with heart, self-assurance and a deviously smart simplicity. The grind earned them a huge Arizona following.
Sprightly, big-voiced lead singer and keyboardist Peggy—often wearing suits and ties made by her grandmother—remembers being a woman in those days singing Cars or Stones was a mold-breaker. She’d hear things like, “No chick can sing the Stones, man,” and other sexist tripe. A biker or two at East Tempe bar Friar Tucks would stand guard while the band played, for her safety.
Fact is, their own songs, all but one penned by D.R. and Peggy, often dwarfed the covers. Chugging guitars, Beatle-y melodies and a lovely sighing chorus, 1980’s “Better”—the band’s signature song—was written after a Cheap Trick show.”
DJ John “Johnny D” Dixon on Tempe’s kick-ass alt trailblazer K-15 was first to air it. “Better” soon lit up listener request lines and landed heavy-rotation slots on regional AOR powerhouses, including the “world-famous” KROQ in L.A. Should’ve exploded nationwide. Blue Shoes had no label push behind them, yet the word around Phoenix was their future now included the world—the Knack had already kicked open lanes for power-pop—but it didn’t happen, and Peggy has no idea why. She says she has no regrets. “It was for the music,” Peggy says. “Not the scene. We worked really hard. My college life was Blue Shoes.” In less than three years, the band released (on their own label) three 7-inch singles, and one eight-song mini-LP. No stinkers, tight running times, beautiful execution. Area records stores sold insane numbers, into five figures. They supported Ian Hunter, 20/20, Talking Heads, Ramones and others. Guested on TV’s The Wallace and Ladmo Show, a 35-year Phoenix institution for kids and adults.
Blue Shoes foreshadowed bands like Weezer and Fountains of Wayne years down the road. Their songs remain a wonder for their piquant mix of pure pop bliss (“Tonight,” “It’s You and Me”), fist-jacks (“I’m Right,” “Startin’ the Day With a Song”) and sardonic manifestos (“We’re Not Punks”).
After Blue Shoes, Peggy, hubby D.R. and Janzen morphed into Red Alert.
– Liner notes by Brian Jabas Smith
