Born in London, U.K. as Lionel Breeze (or Breese) on December 6. 1909*, Murray was the son of a violinist Ethelbert George Walter Breeze and Ida Clough. His father also worked as a blacksmith and teacher.

He spent his childhood in the Haymarket, Leicester Square and Hammersmith, where England’s most popular music halls stood. He managed to attend school there pretty regularly. But even these comparatively prosaic days were punctuated with bicycle tours around the British Isle, and with surreptitious paint ing of mustaches on the busts of Queen Victoria of Julius Caesar. The pranks resulting in periodic lambasting by the headmaster.

Although he did receive a few lessons in exchange for pumping the bellows for a church organist at Barrow-in-Furness "Breezy" was just the all-boy who laughed like anything when the family piano fell through the floor into the cellar, thus putting a temporary stop to the endless pouncing "It wasn't that I didn't like music," he explained later, "but that English parlor was like an icebox. You could have hung a side of beef in there all winter"
Reportedly he received early musical training from his father, a violinist who frequently helped young Lyn recognize a rhythm by tapping it out on the boy's head with his bow.

In 1925 the Murray family journeyed to the United States and settled in Philadelphia. Although Lyn liked the Quaker City, he liked the sea better; and when he was 17, he began a three-week vagabond trip on a freighter. This trip extended to six months. His next trip, on an oil tanker, was short-lived because his mother took him off bodily just before the vessel sailed. So ended this adventure. During that period, as a member of the crew of various vessels, he visited British Trinidad, Cuba and coastwise points between New Orleans and Newfoundland.

The Breeze family had settled in Philadelphia and Lionel eventually returned there. At the North East High School in the Quaker City he reported for the Megaphone, the school publication; joined the dramatic and debating clubs. besides giving plenty of time to studying English, history and music and participating in many of the sports activities.

Once his general music class at High School had been assigned the task of composing individual original hymns, and the one turned in by the lad now known as Lyn Murray was so excellent that the instructor refused to credit it, insisting that he must have copied it from some source the teacher was unable to trace. Lyn was more flattered than otherwise by this strong skepticism, since he knew the song was all his own. His steadily growing love of music was given a sudden though left-handed boost. He finished his high school course in fundamentals of music.

After graduation he worked on several newspapers. He did a stint as a reporter with the Philadelphia Public Ledger. His first steps into a professional career in music, was as assistant organist to the late, great "Fats" Waller at a silent movie house in Philadelphia's Little Harlem.

Soon he decided that music was a far more advantageous profession, and he accepted a $15-a-week position as church organist in a small church. He probably inherited his musical talent from his mother, who had some skill as an amateur musician.

At 19 Lyn traveled the vaudeville circuits as a pianist playing one-night stands, including a song and dance act at the Guard Theater in the Pennsylvania town. After several weeks as an actor in a stock company he landed in Newport News, Virginia. There he did some radio pioneering in its most fantastic form. A hotel housed the radio studio WGH. When real money wasn't available Murray and his partners discovered that they could ask the hotel manager to sing a solo on the air and all would be forgiven. Lynn acquired a lifetime allergy to the song Macushla, the only number in the manager's repertoire. Having served a radio apprenticeship in Newport News he moved back to Philadelphia WNAT and a made a name for himself finally arriving in New York.

Later going on to lead an orchestra in a Newark, N. J., night club. In the meantime he arranged popular airs, a work which rapidly established him in his profession.

He was later called to WCAU to take charge of singers and put on a novelty program, Bill and Ginger (WABC Columbia, May 1932-1934).

From 1931 to 1937, he was staff conductor and arranger at WCAU in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From there, he went to CBS, where he conducted, arranged, and composed music from 1934 to 1947.

He married On Carolyn Elizabeth Irwin on February 2. 1935 in Manhattan.

At the master CBS station, WABC in New York, he directed orchestras and choral groups. Since the beginning of his radio career, Murray’s work has included coaching vocalists, playing piano for several choral groups, arranging and rehearsing his own trios and quartets, and conducting his own orchestra for some programs of distinction.

By July 9. 1941 he was divorced from his first wife and around January 1942 he married Florence Baker, a radio actress, they went on honeymoon to Miami. He officially had his name changed to Lyn Murray in city court, New York in March 1942.

He later founded the Lyn Murray Singers, who became known throughout the United States as the featured group on CBS Radio's Your Hit Parade.

In the early 1940s, Murray, his orchestra and chorus were featured on Meet the Music, "a Sunday evening feature paying weekly tribute to the modern song writers." Beginning in 1943, he led a 20-piece orchestra and 12-member singing group on To Your Good Health, broadcast three times a week on CBS radio.

His other work in radio included composing for The Adventures of Ellery Queen and being choral director for Pursuit of Happiness (CBS, 1939). He was also music conductor for Radio Reader's Digest.