My longtime friend Bill Earl was the official KRLA historian and wrote a book about the station. In Dream-House (pages 79-80), Bill noted that it was KRLA program director Dick Sainte who hired Murphy away from KJR in 1971. Sainte told Murphy that KHJ morning man Charlie Tuna had been ordered by management to listen to airchecks of Murphy "to hear how a morning-drive radio show and real high-personality radio star should sound." Bill added---not necessarily objectively---that KHJ knew Murphy would eventually be the top morning DJ in Los Angeles.
Murphy, of course, did not last long at KRLA. Shadoe Stevens became program director and moved Murphy to the 9-to-noon slot and later to the midnight-to-six slot and finally fired him and replaced him with Jay Stevens. If KHJ had considered Murphy to be such a threat, then why didn't KHJ hire him after he left KRLA?