Rose Murphy
b. 1913, Xenia, Ohio, USA, d. 16 November 1989, Queens, New York, USA. Murphy was a singer and pianist with a high-pitched squeaky voice, a bubbly, infectious personality and a keyboard style that fully complemented her singing. She also provided her own percussion by stamping her feet on the floor. When she moved upmarket to venues that were carpeted she used a wooden board on which to pound out her foot stomps. Murphy established a considerable reputation on the New York club circuit in the mid/late '40s, entering the US Top 20 with a version of I Can't Give You Anything But Love in 1947. Known as the Chee Chee girl, due to her use of that particular expression, and several other chirrups and twitterings to punctuate her vocals, she became popular in the UK during 1948 after frequent playings of her single Busy Line by then-disc jockey Richard Attenborough. This record introduced the telephone signal, Brruup, Brruup, as yet another of her sound effects. Other UK hits included Me And My Shadow and Girls Were Made To Take Care Of Boys. In 1950 she played the London Palladium and thereafter continued to tour Europe occasionally through to the '80s. During the '60s she performed regularly at the Cookery in New York. She died in 1989 but received further press attention the following year when UK mobile telephone company Cellnet used Busy Line as a television commercial theme, prompting RCA to reissue Murphy's original recording.