Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Southpoint Sun - 27
Anne Murray’s career was nothing short of sensational Back in mid-December, there was a two-hour TV Special on CBC called “Anne Murray – Full Circle” which I recorded for future viewing on a snowy day. Well, I finally got around to watching it last week. Wow! What a great biography. Having grown up in the same era that Anne’s music hit the airwaves, I always enjoyed her songs which were sort of a broad mixture of pop, folk and a bit of country. Her two-hour biography was very enlightening, and it brought back many memories of her performances on TV – especially in the mid’70s – that I’d seen on the Glen Campbell Goodtime Show, Midnight Special and Saturday Night Live. More importantly, the TV special featured many comments from artists
like Shania Twain, Kenny Loggins, Jann Arden, Gord Lightfoot, k.d. Lang and producer Jim Ed Norman – all who respected and thought very highly of her talent. However, in the mid’70s, no doubt her biggest break came when her American success began flourishing because of her newly hired American manager Shep Gordon, who was in charge of jump-starting her career south of the border. He was already the manager and promoter of such successful acts as Alice Cooper, Kenny Loggins and Luther Vandross. Shep’s first impression of her wasn’t very promising, though. As he stated, “I did not get the Anne Murray thing at all. She was this Canadian folk singer and she is one of the purest singers that God ever put on this
planet, and she was as far away from Alice (Cooper) as she could possibly get. She’s so middle-America. In fact, she’s Canadian!” As Capitol Records and Anne were looking for American exposure, Gordon booked her into the Troubadour in L.A. However, he had a method he used called “guilt by association”, which is if you take somebody really famous and put them beside someone else, that other person melts off the fame”. With that in mind, there was a very special group that hung out at the Troubador called “Hollywood Vampires” that was a drinking club, with its members including John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Harry Nilsson, Mickey Dolenz, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr. Gordon begged that they help him with Anne Murray. Sure enough, ev-
Erie Shores senior men’s golf It was a great day for golf as 50 players on the Erie Shores Senior Men’s League enjoyed the excellent course conditions on May 9. The 50/50 winners were Cecil Mendel and Jerry Malott. Closest to the hole on #3 was John Rutgers and on #16 Cam McKay. Longest putt was Jerry Mallard on #8 and Jim Bleasby on #17. The winning team at 142 were John Rutgers, Ross Clark, Randy Bradley and Rick Metz. In second at 145 was Tom Miehl, Tom Klassen, Fred Klassen and Dave Binder. Wayne Wiseman, Gord Anderson, Jim Dueckman and Jerry Malott were in third with 147. Dave Wilkinson, Norm
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Beattie, Heinz Kosempel and Garth Dennerley were fourth at 150. Low golfers for the day were Tom Miehl at 80, John Rutgers 81 and Jerry Mallard 82. Wayne Wiseman and Frank Gow each had 83. Frank Gow birdied on #1 and #12. Wray Pollock not only birdied #1 but also had an eagle on #12. Way to go, Wray! Alden Warner also had a bird on the first hole. Gord Anderson, Brian Collins and Bill Gherasim birdied #2. Jerry Mallard had the only bird on #3. John Rutgers had one on #4. Eddie Schachoskoy birdied #9, and Wayne Wiseman birdied #11 and #13. Ron Tremblay had one on #12.
Derek Horop birdied #14, and Tom Miehl had one on # 16. See you next Monday!
erything worked out perfectly for Anne that night as photos taken of her with the agreeable John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Mickey Dolenz would soon appear in many magazines, including Rolling Stone. As for that famous photo at the Troubadour, Murray says, “That picture has had more mileage than any other picture that I ever had taken in my career. Rolling Stone wanted to interview me. I was all of a sudden the hit girl for a few weeks!”. Anne met Lennon again at the 1974 Grammy Awards when she won her first Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance for her hit “Love Song”. Lennon made a special point of telling her then that her version of “You Won’t See Me” was his all-time “favourite Beatles cover.” While I was at CHYR, we played many of Anne’s songs. Before I arrived in 1977, in the six years prior to that, Anne had also won six RPM Awards, an Actra Award, three Junos, and a CMA of Great Britain Award. In 1978, her number
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one hit “You Needed Me” won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal and an Academy of Country Music Award. In 1979, Anne won five trophies that included three Juno Awards and two RPM Big Country Awards. From 1980 through 1993, Murray won a total of 28 music awards that included two Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, six RPM Big Country Awards, three Canadian CMA Awards, 14 Juno Awards and a Gemini Award. Having sold close to 55
million albums, Anne is now long retired and enjoying the good life back in her home province of Nova Scotia.
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