Michael Martin Murphey closed out a successful decade of recording with the album "Land of Enchantment", which contained "Never Givin' Up on Love", "Got to Pay the Fiddler", "Route 66", and "Land of Enchantment", which became New Mexico's state ballad. Despite the impressive critical and commercial success he achieved throughout the 1980s, Michael Martin Murphey's creative heart and spirit began to focus on the Western music that first captured his imagination as a boy growing up in Texas. As early as 1985, Murphey performed with the New Mexico Symphony in a show called "A Night in the American West", which led to many
The Land Is Bright patriotic action in the face of the rising Nazi Germany. "The Land Is Bright" is one of Kaufman's few dramas, as he mostly wrote comedies, satire, and musicals. Kaufman and Ferber had earlier collaborated on "Minick", "The Royal Family", "Dinner at Eight", and "Stage Door", and would again on "Bravo!". "The Land Is Bright" opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre on October 28, 1941. Players included Leon Ames and Diana Barrymore as Grant and Linda Kincaid; other players included Walter Beck, Constance Brigham, Grover Burgess, and Ruth Findlay who came out retirement to play her last Broadway role.