Though Anne Murray, on first account, may seem like just one more in a long stream of female singers, she has much more going for her than just her first hit record, “Snowbird.” There’s a great sense of humor, a simplicity and unpretentiousness that makes her glow, and most important of all, there’s a realistic attitude about show business that is so new to Anne.
“My career is not my life,” she told me recently in Hollywood, where she taped her second “Glen Campbell Good Time Hour.”
“They are two separate things. Right now they are, but ultimately they will be. Right now I’m doing what people are telling me to do, because I know it’s good for my career. I don’t mind, because if it’s going to help my career, fine. But it really doesn’t concern me.”
Q. What you see is the most important things in your life?
A. “The main thing I’m looking forward to is building a home on my land in Nova Scotia. I have about 1500 feet of waterfront, with its own cove and a little beach. It’s very private and very nice. It would be so nice to leave here and just go there, put on a fire and just sit around on a bear rug.”
“It’s like when you’re in second grade and you get your first two wheel bicycle. Or it’s like when I bought my first car. I went out and earned the money and bought it. That’s the way I feel about this house. I think that’s more important to me than being a star. A star-so what?”
Q. What is more important to you than becoming a worldwide singing star?
A. “I’d like to go to Europe and travel. I’d like to see Europe, but not in connection with work. I’d like to see many parts of the world, but these I’ve seen were because I’d been working there and I didn’t get to see anything!
“I didn’t get to relax or just kind of take my time looking around, but that’s what I’d like to do. Eventually I’d like to get married and have kids.”
Q. Would you give up your career for marriage?
A. “Oh yes! There’s no question if I got married that I’d give it up. Especially being a female-who wants to be called Mr. Murray? It’s not my way. The male’s got to be the male. He’s got to be the breadwinner, because that’s what our society dictates. Women’s Lib or not, that’s the way I feel!”
Q. How did you start in a musical career?
A. “There was always music around my house. We always had a record player, the radio was always on, we always took piano lessons. All my brothers hated it and I did too. We’d always sing Christmas carols around the piano and have family songfests. I never really thought about singing seriously. I just did it. I never sat down and said, ‘You know? You can sing.’”
“I remember as a kid I’d be in the backseat of the car and I’d be singing along with the radio in my mom’s friends would say, ‘Oh Marion, your daughter has such a lovely voice.’ But I never really thought about it until I want to song Festival when I was 15.”
Q. It’s quite a step to take from a schoolteacher to being a professional singer. How did it come about?
A. “In January 1967 the principal of the school where I was teaching said, oh ‘are you coming back next year? We have to know by February 15,’ and I told him, ‘I don’t see why not.’ But in the meantime there were some offers to do TV, radio and a few other things so I didn’t know what to do. I was torn
“As a matter of fact the night of the 14th I called everybody I knew to try and give me some advice. Most of them were saying ‘stay with the teaching.’ So I called home and my parents said, ‘we don’t know what to tell you, dear, so we’ll leave it up to you.’ Finally I called Bill Langstroth, who’s my manager–the guy who got me into the business in the beginning–and he said, ‘you should definitely go into show business.’ ‘Well, that was all I needed, so I hung up the phone. My first call at seven the next morning was from my folks and they said, ‘what did you decide?’ I said, ‘well I’ve decided I’m going to go into show business. I’m going to give it a try.’ They said, ‘we had decided that would be the best thing.’”
Q. Did you ever have visions of making a hit record?
A. “I never really thought of it. I recorded an album with a Canadian company and one year later I recorded one for Capitol. That’s where it all began. I used to think, ‘I wish I could sing like so-and-so,’ but it had nothing to do with becoming a star. My all-time favorite, great singer is Dusty Springfield. I think she’s the best singer in the world.”
Q. So how did “Snowbird” come about?
A. “Bill Langstroth, who was then producing a television show, called and told me, ‘I have this guy here who’s got some songs and I’d like you to hear his material.’ So I went right over to the studio and here’s this guy standing there with a patch over his eye and playing his music I said, ‘Wowwwww!’ Because very seldom when you hear a song for the first time, especially in Halifax, for heaven sake, it is that good. I said, ‘that’s great sing me another one.’ So he sang me another and another and then I said, ‘do you have any more of that material?’ And he said, ‘really? You mean you like it?’
‘As a matter of fact I have a song I wrote for you a year and a half ago.’ And I’d never met him before! The song was “Biding My Time” which was the flip side of the “Snowbird.”
“I recorded three of his songs within the next month. Gene MacLellan just writes such great stuff and he’s a great singer as well. “Snowbird” was released in November 1969 on an album and the single that was released in Canada bombed, so they released another single off the album, then finally they released “Biding My Time,” and it didn’t do much. Then Capital released “Biding My Time” with “Snowbird” on the flip side.
“Everybody flipped for “Snowbird” and that’s it. Poor Jean’s been bumming around for ten years and now “Snowbird” has been recorded by about 30 artists-top artists. And he such a modest guy he can’t believe that anybody would like his songs. He’s a great person.”
Q. How did the news that “Snowbird” had entered the charts affect you?
“I was told that it was 102 in billboard and ‘bubbling under.’ I had no idea what bubbling under meant! But they sent me to New York, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit and I met a lot of people involved because that’s where it all started. They were all getting excited, but I didn’t know what it all meant.
“I took off for a vacation at my folks’ summer place. I got a call while I was there and they said, ‘It’s 45 with a bullet.’ Then it hit me. I hadn’t been excited at all before, but I thought, ‘45 with a bullet!’ That’s another expression that I just learned. I guess I finally got excited because I had always heard “top 40″ and that was so close to the top 40!”
Q. What plans are there for a follow-up to “Snowbird”?
A. “That is a very difficult question when you have one single record that sells over 1 million and the next one sells 350 it’s a bummer. “Sing High, Sing Low” was the logical choice for us because it’s up like “Snowbird.” Moves along like “Snowbird,” and it’s a happy song.”
Interview by Ann Moses for New Musical Express
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