Pauline Murray

Born in the small northeast England university town of Durham on March 8, 1958, Pauline Murray was exactly the right age and in exactly the right place to get caught up in the first flush of punk, circa 1976. Along with her hometown friends Neal Floyd (guitar), Robert Blamire (bass), Fred Purser (guitar and keyboards), and Gary Smallman (drums), Murray formed Penetration in early 1977, and by the end of the year, the group had signed with Virgin Records and released one of the great punk singles of the era, "Don't Dictate." The usual difficulties of being a young and inexperienced band intervened, and Penetration's debut album, Moving Targets, didn't come out until nearly a year later. In another sadly typical punk scenario, Penetration's second album, 1979's Coming Up for Air, was an over-produced (by Steve Lillywhite), underwritten mess with little of the debut's energy, and with the release of an officially sanctioned live-and-demos bootleg, Race Against Time, Penetration split up in late 1979. In most cases, that would be that, discounting the possibility of '90s punk nostalgia reunion tour, but Pauline Murray was just getting started. Moving from Newcastle to the more artistically friendly climate of Manchester, Murray hooked up with producer Martin Hannett and began a solo career. Hannett matched Murray up with his own group, the Invisible Girls, which had previously backed Mancunian poet John Cooper Clarke. With Hannett on guitar and bass, Vini Reilly (who was pursuing a concurrent solo career as the Durutti Column) and Dave Rowbotham on guitar, Murray's ex-Penetration bandmate Blamire on bass, Steve Hopkins on keyboards, and Buzzcock John Maher on drums, Murray moved 180 degrees from Penetration's buzz saw punk roots. Under Hannett's direction, Pauline Murray...