Bobby Murray, the Detroit blues guitarist whose 23-year partnership with Etta James produced some of the most emotionally direct guitar work in modern blues, died on April 30, 2026. He was 72. The Detroit Blues Society, which awarded Murray their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, announced his passing. No cause of death was given.
Born on June 9, 1953, on a U.S. Air Force base in Nagoya, Japan, to a Japanese mother and an Irish father, Murray grew up in a military family and was later raised in Tacoma, Washington. He attended the same high school as Robert Cray, and the two classmates famously recruited Albert Collins to play their graduation party, a detail that says everything about where Murray’s musical compass was already pointing. He built his early career playing blues clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, forming an ensemble that eventually became Robert Cray and the Crayolas, and spent the 1970s and 1980s supplying guitar work for Frankie Lee, Sonny Rhodes, Mark Naftalin, and others while performing regularly alongside Collins, Charlie Musselwhite, Otis Rush, Jimmy Witherspoon, and John Lee Hooker.
In 1988, Murray joined Etta James’ backing ensemble, the Roots Band, and stayed for over two decades. His contributions to her Grammy-winning albums ‘Let’s Roll’ and ‘Blues to the Bone’ were described as sharp, expressive lines that deepened the emotional pull of James’ vocals without crowding them. He also appeared on B.B. King’s Grammy-winning ‘Blues Summit,’ reuniting with Robert Cray on the track “Playing With My Friends.” His guitar work on the Etta James song “Blues is My Business” appeared in an episode of The Sopranos, bringing his playing to an entirely new audience. He performed with the Roots Band on The Tonight Show, Austin City Limits, and Late Night with David Letterman, and played at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona and the inaugural celebration for President Bill Clinton.
Tribute poured in from the Detroit music community. Concert company 2 Stones Events wrote: “In the nearly 25 years we’ve been booking musicians, probably in the thousands by now, we’ve never met a musician as humble, sweet, caring, kind, and talented as Bobby Murray. As classy as it gets. The late Etta James could’ve chose ANY guitarist, but she had Bobby by her side on the road for 23 years.”
Murray released five solo albums, from his 1996 debut ‘The Blues is Now’ through his final record ‘Love Letters From Detroit’ in 2021, the title track of which he wrote with his wife about his years playing alongside Etta James. It earned Outstanding Blues Recording of the Year at the Detroit Music Awards. He also spent two decades as part of the Better Business Bureau, using his platform beyond music to advocate for his community. Murray won multiple Detroit Music Awards and remained a steady presence on the local scene, mentoring younger musicians and helping sustain the city’s blues lineage until the very end.
He was 72. The blues lost one of its most devoted and quietly essential voices.