Iconic musician Matt Murphy has sadly passed away at 88

His nephew announced Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy, mainly known as a member of The Blues Brothers and respected in the blues community for his work as a side musician with legends such as Muddy Waters, dead at 88.

Floyd Murphy Jr. fellow musician and nephew of the blues guitar player, who used to play along with his uncle, took to Facebook to share the news of Matt’s passing with an emotional post that celebrated his musical legacy as a performer, reported Deadline.

‘I was just told that my uncle Matt Guitar Murphy passed away last night... I can't feel a freaking thing in my body now but I must stay strong cause he was a strong man that lived a long long fruitful life that poured his heart out in every guitar solo he took,’ wrote Floyd.

‘The master is upstairs now with my father and mother,’ he added, moving on to mention some of the late biggest names of blues music, like B.B. King and Etta James, as his uncle’s playing companions in the afterlife.

Matt performed with the Blues Brothers in the band’s inaugural musical sketch on Saturday Night Live in 1978. Comedians John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd recruited him after they saw him playing at a New York Club.

The musician stuck with the band and he played in some of their albums, as well as appearing in both of the Blues Brothers’ movies, in 1982 and 1998, which gave him mainstream fame.

In the 1982 film, Murphy had the role of a former musician who’s working as a cook with his dominant waitress wife played by soul music icon Aretha Franklin.

When Jake and Elwood, the fictional bandleaders, ask him to rejoin the band to go on tour, a conflict unfolds with his wife, and this results in one of the film’s most famous scenes when Franklin gives her incredible performance of the song Think.

Matt Murphy and his brother Floyd were prominent musicians from the Memphis blues scene since they were teenagers, and Matt built an impressive career playing with the likes of James Cotton and Howlin’ Wolf.

He was born in Sunflower, MS, in 1929. He fronted his own band since 1982. After suffering from a stroke in 2000, Murphy went into semi-retirement. Read more on our Twitter account @amomama_usa