The 4 Of Us

Two brothers from Newry

The 4 Of Us formed in Newry, County Down, in 1988, started by the brothers Brendan and Declan Murphy, the only two of the four founders who have stayed throughout. Their own site describes the band as two brothers from Ireland with two acoustic guitars telling stories in song. We could not verify a line-up history with years and instruments.

The debut album Songs for the Tempted came out on CBS in 1989, with the singles "I Just Can't Get Enough" (January), "Drag My Bad Name Down" (March), "Mary" (June) and "Washington Down" and "Possessed" (November). Remixes of "Drag My Bad Name Down" reached 6 in Ireland, 79 in the UK and 77 in the US in 1990. Man Alive (1992, Sony and Columbia) was their first UK album chart entry, at 64, and "She Hits Me" reached 35 in the UK; Q named the album among its top 50 of 1992. A planned third album, Amplifier, was scrapped in the late 1990s and released as a free download in December 2011.

Later records include Classified Personal (1999, Future Inc.), Off the Record (2000, EMI, re-recordings), Heaven and Earth (2004), Fingerprints (2006), Live at Vicar Street (2009), Sugar Island (2015) and Crescent Nights (October 25, 2024, Future Records). Brendan Murphy released a solo album, Walk with Me, in 2010. Sugar Island is autobiographical, about growing up in Newry in the worst years of the Troubles, and was written with the Nashville songwriter Sharon Vaughn and recorded without drums. Crescent Nights was produced by the brothers and Enda Walsh, recorded at Amberville Studio and The Cave, and mastered at Sterling Sound by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone. Setlist.fm lists 106 shows, most of them in Ireland and the UK.