to play some of his arrangements when he found Rosengarden to be absent. Looking back on the situation, he stated "I still can't believe I did it. I'm not a very forward person." Since the band "wasn't very busy," they performed his arrangements live and enjoyed them, convincing Murphy to write more. In April 1972, a fellow student from the Manhattan School of Music introduced Murphy to Doc Severinsen, musical director of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Murphy presented his arrangements to Severinsen, who liked them enough to have The Tonight Show Band play them live. However, The Tonight Show moved production to Burbank, California a month later, and a final year of college prevented Murphy from joining them. In 1974, Murphy joined Thomas J. Valentino's company Valentino, Inc., composing much of their library music for film and television over the years. In 1976, Murphy played piano on Peter Lemongello's second album Do I Love You. 1976–1979: Private Stock years, breakthrough In college, Murphy's interests had included rock music, particularly that which was adapted from classical music, such as "Joy" by Apollo 100 and "A Lover's Concerto" by The Toys. Later, in 1976, he was writing a disco song for a commercial, when a producer gave him the idea of "updating classical music," which "nobody had done lately." He then recorded a demo tape of four songs—three were ordinary pop songs, while the fourth was a disco rendition of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony titled "A Fifth of Beethoven"—and mailed it to various record labels in New York City. Response was generally unimpressive, but "Fifth" caught the interest of Private Stock Records owner Larry Uttal. Murphy signed on to Private Stock and recorded the album A Fifth of Beethoven. The first single and title track, "A Fifth of Beethoven", was released on May 29, 1976. It was a hit, starting out at number 80 on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually reaching number 1 within 19 weeks, where it stayed for one week. The single sold two million copies, while the album sold about 750,000 copies. The second single, a rendition of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" titled "Flight '76", was less successful, reaching only number 44 on the Hot 100. The single was initially credited to "Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band" upon encouragement from Private Stock, who believed it would become a hit if credited to a