Murray, Anne (1946—)

Juxtaposing fresh-faced country girl innocence with a hard-nosed sense of business practicality, Anne Murray is a Canadian national treasure who, from the early 1970s, became a singing star throughout North America. By the late 1990s, her velvety contralto voice and personable delivery had taken her from her simple beginnings as a ukulele-strumming folk singer to her high-profile status as one of the most highly paid Canadian entertainers. Though ultra-cool music critics sometimes sneered at her efforts to broaden her genre (one called her disco album "Madonna of Sunnybrook Farm"), even they found it difficult to fault Murray within the folk-pop-country niche that she made her own.

Murray was born in the Nova Scotia mining town of Springhill to a Scottish Presbyterian surgeon and a coal miner's daughter, just in time to grow up to the smooth pop sounds of the pre-rock and roll 1950s. As a toddler, she was already singing along with her parents' albums, and she gave her first public singing performance at age 15, yet she had never considered singing as a career choice. "Singing was something you did in the bathtub and around bonfires," she said. "I felt there was no security in it." Always a tomboy, who enjoyed playing ice hockey with her five brothers, Murray got a physical education degree from the University of New Brunswick and went on to teach the discipline on Prince Edward Island. As a sideline, she regularly performed on a CBC-TV show called Singalong Jubilee, playing a baritone ukulele as she sang folk songs from the Maritime provinces and rapidly gained popularity across Canada.

In 1970 a recording she made of a song called "Snowbird" became an immediate hit, both in Canada and across the border in the United States, and from that point Anne Murray launched into a singing career that lasted over 30 years and yielded 30 hit singles and nearly 40 albums in three decades, as well as television specials in Canada and America, and many awards for her music. In 1990, the Anne Murray Center, a museum devoted to her life and career, opened in her home town of Springhill.

During the 1970s Murray moved to Toronto and married Bill Langstroth, who had been her associate producer and host on Singalong Jubilee. After a brief, difficult period from 1976 to 1978, when she tried but failed to fit into the glitzy American rock scene, she opted to prioritize her family over stardom, and placed strict limitations on her touring concert schedule to ensure that she spent sufficient time at home with her children. Whatever income she might have sacrificed as a result, was well compensated for by the adroit management of the enterprise that is Anne Murray. The careful investments made by trusted financial advisors, combined with Murray's own hardheaded business sense, turned the singer's sales and royalties into something of an empire. Her company, Balmur Ltd., is a successful talent agency that handles not only her own career, but also a handful of other Canadian singers including her brother Bruce.

When Murray was a child, listening to the girl singers of the 1950s, she aspired to be "just like Doris Day." In a way, she achieved her wish. Her public persona, like Day's, has always been friendly and likable, fresh and wholesome—sometimes to her dismay. "It's a real pain in the ass, having to read all that crap about me being goody-two-shoes next door," she has complained. Also like Day, she has been pursued through her career by rumors that she is gay. The rumors have been hotly denied, but she has always attracted a large lesbian following, drawn perhaps to her tomboyish appearance, casual manner, and cello-deep voice. Within the gay community stories have circulated of Murray-sightings in lesbian bars and of possible affairs with well known lesbians such as fellow Canadian singer kd lang.

Though an internationally known star, who has made recordings in phonetically learned French and Spanish, and commercials on Japanese TV, Anne Murray has maintained a simple and thrifty lifestyle. While perhaps staying in elite hotels with posh service on tour, at home in Toronto she remained a housewife and mother. Though she separated from her husband in the late 1990s after 25 years of marriage, she continued to live with her children and give priority to her personal life over her public career, but with no loss of popularity as a performing artist.

—Tina Gianoulis

Further Reading:

Grills, Barry. Snowbird: The Story of Anne Murray. Kingston, Ontario, Quarry Press, 1996.

Livingstone, David. Anne Murray: The Story So Far. New York, Collier Books, 1981.

Rasty, Frank. "Managing Anne Murray's Millions." Canadian Business. Vol. 56, May, 1983, 32.