‘One Week of Days’ are husband and wife duo Bob and Jan Murphy. They are based in Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland. Bob and Jan are both prolific songwriters and they have worked together on various musical projects, most notably ‘Kaydee’ (1994-1997)
Bob and Jan met back in 1988 when they were in a school musical together. It wasn’t long however before they ended up performing in the same group in their home town, Kilkenny. One group followed another until the group they were in at the time ‘Kaydee’ ended up signing a recording contract with EMI records in 1994.
They finished up with ‘Kaydee’ in 1997 and Bob went on to record some solo material while Jan took a break from writing and recording.
In April 2000 they got married and later the same year they decided to work together again on a new project “One Week of Days”, a play on “One Week of Years” from the book of Daniel from the Bible.
“One Week of Days” would be primarily focused around recording and would feature the singing and songwriting of both; with Bob playing the majority of the instruments on their recordings.
In early 2002 One Week of Days released their first album. ‘Who you really Are’ was recorded in their home studio in Kilkenny city. The album took 18 months to complete and contains 11 tracks. Songwriting provides a dominant element and the music is rock based with strong flavours of folk, roots, and electronica. The title track was written by Jan and portrays a God full of grace and love, distinct from many modern notions about the God of the bible.
“… a shining reviving exuberant God in my heart,
I’ll tell everybody who you really are.”
Between 2003 and 2004 the Murphys put together a band to gig the new material and also recorded some new versions of 3 of the tracks from “Who You Really Are”. In 2007 work began on a second album. The eponymously titled “One Week of Days” was to be a collection of 7 songs, and the plan was to release most of them as singles before the final collection would be released as a whole. The first single from this “Bad History” was released in September 2008.
While playing an acoustic gig which contained some new songs an unusual decision was made to put the second album on hold and begin recording a 3rd album which would be mainly acoustic and contain some of the new material from the recent gig.
This new album, titled “My Servant, The King” is being recorded at present; the first track “You Light Up My Day” was pre-released in December 2009 and the second, “Shepherd King” was released in May 2010. More tracks are due out for pre-release during 2010 and the full album is due to be completed by late 2010.
“Jan and Bob Murphy use an Indie rock foundation on which to erect tracks offering hints of jazz, gospel, folk and pop, plus Jan’s bewitching voice, to create something at times mesmerising.”
Jackie Hayden, Hotpress
“Imagine a male voice that for all the world sounds like Chris Rea, female vocals that .. are like Dido, excellent musicianship, well-crafted songs with catchy melodic hooks, with definite influences of U2 in there too. Put all that together and what have you got ?? .. One Week of Days”
Ann Trainor, Worshiplinks
“They land in a space quite comfortably not praise and worship, not rock, not quite pop, not really contemporary, yet a blend of all of these which is their own.”
Alex Klages, The Phantom Toolbooth