Anne Murray

Anne Murray, born Morna Anne Murray on June 20, 1945 in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada, is a Canadian singer who achieved worldwide success over a career spanning more than four decades and sold over 55 million albums. After learning piano for six years and taking singing lessons in Tatamagouche, she recorded a student project in 1965 and joined the television variety show Singalong Jubilee, where musical director Brian Ahern encouraged her to record a solo album. Her debut What About Me (1968) produced a modest Canadian hit, while her second release This Way is My Way (1969) yielded the breakthrough single "Snowbird", reaching number 8 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 and earning her the first U.S. Gold record for a Canadian artist. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Murray released a steady stream of albums-Honey, Wheat & Laughter (1970), Straight, Clean and Simple (1971), Anne Murray/Glen Campbell (1971), and Danny’s Song (1973)-and achieved eight Number One Adult Contemporary hits, the most notable being "You Needed Me" (1978), a U.S. Top 10 single and the first Canadian female artist to win the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance that year. Her 1983 album A Little Good News earned her the Country Music Association Award for Album of the Year, making her the first woman and first Canadian recipient. Murray continued to record through the 1990s and 2000s, including the platinum What a Wonderful World (1999), Country Croonin' (2002), and the collaborative Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends (2007), which debuted at number 42 on the Billboard Top 200 and was certified double platinum in Canada. She retired from recording and touring in 2008 after her final concert at Toronto’s Sony Centre, citing vocal fatigue. In 2009, she published her autobiography All of Me, and that year the Anne Murray Centre opened in her hometown of Springhill to preserve her legacy. Murray’s accolades include four Grammy Awards, 25 Juno Awards, three American Music Awards, and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (1995). She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1975 and promoted to Companion in 1984, and she was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, the Juno Hall of Fame, and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, Mount Saint Vincent University awarded her an honorary degree.