‘America’s Got Talent’ winner was in St. Helena Friday. Here’s what he told students
Jazz singer Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. won the popular NBC show “America’s Got Talent” in 2011 with powerful covers of American classics such as Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.”
But on Friday, when he spoke at St. Helena Island Elementary, Murphy was singing a different tune. He advised a group of 9- and 10-year olds not to do it his way by dropping out of high school.
“It hurt me for a long time in my young adult life,” Murphy told an audience of kids seated on a gymnasium floor.
These days, the 51-year crooner continues to perform the covers by Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and others that put him on the map. But Murphy also records and sings his own songs. By making five albums and touring the world consistently for the past 15 years, he’s proven he was no flash in the pan.
Murphy continues to turn to the Great American Songbook, the canon of popular American music, during his performances.
“It ties everybody from all walks of life together, and that’s why I love it,” Murphy says.
He’s also deeply involved in charity work and speaking to kids with a simple message of staying in school.
Murphy will perform a concert at the Dataw Island Club on St. Helena Island Saturday evening to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Boys & Girls Clubs of Lowcountry.
The show is sold out. Proceeds support the nonprofit’s work. Murphy will be joined by local artist Gwen Yvette McKinnon of St. Helena.
“We just try to do our best in paying it forward and giving it back and raising money for the ones in need,” Murphy said Friday at the St. Helena school.
Murphy told the kids that showing up at school and listening was their job. Yes, parents have a role in guiding their lives, he said, “But [kids] also have a role in being the best kid growing up to be a greater adult.”
Their job, he added, “is to go to school and graduate.”
Murphy performed for television audience of 14 million a week during the “America’s Got Talent’ contest in which he sang Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” for his final performance.
On Friday he talked to about 50 fourth-graders at St. Helena.
“You have an opportunity not to do what I did,” he told the group regarding his decision to leave school before graduation.
At one point, he pulled one of the students to the front and put his arm around his shoulder as he looked him in the eye to make a point.
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The West Virginia native, who said he grew up poor, was washing cars when he decided to try out for “America’s Got Talent.” He won the title and $1 million.
He had been singing and dancing since he was three years old. He learned to love the big band sounds that helped him to win by watching “Looney Tunes” cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Foghorn Leghorn, the singing rooster, on television. Big band music, he said, is a backdrop in many of those cartoons.
“You can blame it all on Bugs Bunny, really,” he said.
Murphy has visited the Lowcountry to help the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Lowcountry for several years. The clubs serve children ages 6-18 in after-school and summer programs.
After winning “America’s Got Talent,” Murphy said he soon started getting requests to talk to kids. He agreed, but it bothered him that he hadn’t graduated. The voice of his grandmother nagged him: “practice what you preach.” When work slowed down during the pandemic, he finally listened to his grandmother’s advice and earned his high school diploma.
Now he is a spokesman for adult education in his home state of West Virginia.
This story was originally published January 17, 2026 at 4:30 AM.
