Bio

Singing Woody Guthrie songs in the car, Mom playing a spinet in the living room, and Dad building dulcimers in the basement was where the music began for Mindy Murray.

She taught herself some chords on a Silvertone she picked up at a flea market when she was 11 and started writing music and playing standard folk covers. Mindy played the 70s folk scene –coffee houses, bars, festivals and college radio stations– with her band Heartwood.

Two bluegrass-playing doctors interviewed Mindy for medical school in West Virginia, where she spent the next four years cocooned in Appalachia in a blur of music and medicine. Next came three babies and a practice to run, but the music was always playing in the background.

For their 25th anniversary, her husband gave her a Martin and some recording software. Daughter Meg and Mindy started playing music together somewhere along the way forming the band Port Murray.  Not long after, Mindy and Meagan hooked up with Kevin McCloskey, a classmate of Meagan’s and Marian Moran, Mindy’s old college roommate.  The four became River Drivers – a high-energy rootsy Celtic Americana band that is still a force at regional and international folk festivals.

Mindy has also forged a very successful solo career as a singer-songwriter weaving tales from all of the places she has lived and the people she has met. Mindy has played both solo and with her band at the Philly Folk Festival, the NJ Folk Festival, The Northern Appalachian Folk Festival, The Central PA Festival of the Arts, The Cup of Tae (Donegal, Ireland) and Musikfest among many others. She has also performed at many concert halls including Albert Music Hall, The Bucks County Playhouse, Carnegie Hall WV, and SteelStacks.

You can catch Mindy either playing solo or along with her band, River Drivers, at festivals and concert halls throughout the US and abroad.

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Influences and recognition

Mindy draws from her life experiences and oral histories to create edgy rootsy songs — born out of a desire to have her music mean something, while telling the stories of hard working women and men. Many reflect life in Bucks County in the 30’s and 40’s and from the West Virginia coal fields. She sings them with passion and intensity – palpable, like deep grooves in old records or the lines on the faces of the people she sings about. Her songs have received rave reviews from major music journals and reviewers including fRoots, No Depression, Americana UK and Irish Music Magazine.

Mindy’s latest release “Striking at King’s” was just awarded a first prize from the International Songwriter’s Organization and a second place as an international Women’s Freedom Song for 2026. Another of Mindy’s many labor movement songs “Blair Mountain” was recognized by the United Mine Workers of America and placed in their 2016 Annual Members Report and her second album recorded with her band is still featured on the media page of the United Mine Workers Website.

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AWARDS and Accolades

2026 – International Songwriters Day – First Place Lyric/Poetry for “Striking at Kings”

2026 –Women’s Freedom Song – Second Place for “Striking at Kings” Lyrics

2025 – International Songwriters Day – First Place winner Lyric/Poetry for “Sí Se Puede”

2024 – International Women’s Freedom Song – Honourable Mention for “Mary Green”

2023 – Winner, Lyric/Poem for “The Children’s March” – Women’s Freedom Song Contest

2023 – Artist in Residence, Folk Music Notebook

2020 – Honorable Mention, “Did You Vote?” – Women’s Freedom Song Contest