Originally a drummer, who started playing bass in 1967, Murray formed his first band with school friends in 1967 (Slap Happy and the Dum-Dums) and his musical tastes were heavily influenced by the mid-1960s 'blues boom' bands and musicians, especially Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce,[3] and later by Motown legend James Jamerson and Tim Bogert of Vanilla Fudge, Cactus and Beck, Bogert & Appi