Anne Murray weighs the highs and lows of a big year, and her unexpected new album

Despite being nearly two decades into retirement, the calls were pouring in from music industry well-wishers, some of whom asked if she would attend celebrations of her career, which had shaped so many of theirs.

“I never want to do anything,” Murray chuckled while sitting backstage before a recent Nashville tribute show in her honour.

“I feel retired and I’m saying, ‘No, I’m not going to do this. And no, I am not going to do that.’”

Except this year, Murray concluded that she might as well do something. To quell requests, and at the encouragement of her manager Bruce Allen, she granted a few answers of “Yes.”

One of them was to attend the Juno Awards in March, where fellow Maritimer Sarah McLachlan solidified Murray’s legacy with a lifetime achievement award. It was only the second they’ve ever handed out.

Then, an all-star Nashville country tribute unfolded in October, as generations of musicians performed Murray’s biggest hits inside the hallowed Opry House, home of the Grand Ole Opry.

The event was a reminder to Music City that Murray still hasn’t been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, a glaring omission to some, given that she’s often credited for exposing country music to the pop mainstream in the 1970s.

Between those celebrations, the Springhill, N.S. native also issued her 33rd studio album, “Here You Are,” a collection of lost tracks rediscovered in university archives by one of her loyal fans.

But her year wasn’t all revelry and merriment.

About six weeks before landing in Nashville, Murray fell and smacked her head outside a friend’s home.

At first, she feared a concussion, and while doctors concluded it wasn’t as serious as they initially thought, the incident left her temporarily using a walker. She only got off it a couple of days before the tribute show.

“It was scary,” Murray said. “It was a freak accident. No control whatsoever. I was down.”

“Anyway, I lived to tell the tale,” she added.

While Murray says she’s quite physically active for her age, she acknowledges she’s not getting any younger. It seems to have only strengthened her resolve to focus on family, friends and golfing, even as the world of show business tries to drag her back in.

For instance, rumours that Murray would surprise everyone at her tribute by stepping onto the Opry stage were quickly shut down. And prayers from Toronto Blue Jays fans that she might reprise her lucky rendition of O Canada at this year’s World Series also went unanswered.

Murray has no regrets about standing her ground.

“When I left, my career was in a really good place, but I wasn’t,” she said.

“I couldn’t do vocally what I used to, I was travelling so much that I never got enough time to rest my voice … Mentally, I knew it was time to go.”

Murray stepped away from the music business shortly after releasing her seventh Christmas album in 2008, and aside from her annual hometown meet-and-greet at the Anne Murray Centre, she’s rarely revisited her past in any meaningful way.

Until this year, she hadn’t issued an album of new material since 1996. Her more recent records consisted almost entirely of country covers and standards.

So when people started whispering about the possibility of a new Murray album taking shape, comprised entirely of unreleased songs, she greeted the idea with understandable skepticism.

“If those songs didn’t make it the first time around, why would I bother putting out an album now?” Murray remembered thinking.

Most of the rough cuts had been rescued from the dustbins of time thanks to Lynn Holt, a “superfan” who jumped into action when he heard about a massive archive of Murray’s memorabilia being opened to the public.

Back in 2017, she donated 40 years’ worth of her belongings to the University of Toronto as she downsized and moved into a condo. There were photos, press clippings, and tour schedules that had been tossed in boxes. The thought of holding them was enough for Holt to book a flight to Canada.

“There was little question where I was taking my next vacation,” he said from his home in Las Vegas.

When he arrived in Toronto, Holt found more than he bargained for. About a dozen lost Murray songs were sitting on cassettes that the library lent to him with a tape player. None of them had been digitized.

Soon after, he learned of a second archive at the University of Calgary, donated by Murray’s record label, EMI/Universal Music Canada, where another arsenal of unheard Murray songs awaited discovery.

All told, Holt collected about 40 unfinished songs, most of them comprised of rough takes made by Murray in the recording booth.

“I was really flabbergasted,” he said.

“These weren’t even final vocals. This is how well this lady sang in rehearsal.”

Word of his findings got around, and eventually Murray agreed to listen to the tracks with a heavy dose of skepticism.

Years passed before Holt got a clear sense of what she thought. It was during Murray’s annual East Coast summer meet-and-greet in 2024, as he sat among fellow fans, that he heard what sounded like “substantially cleaned up” versions of the songs he once found. He recognized little touches, like new drums added to the mix.

Asking around, people close to Murray confirmed that plans were in motion for a new album.

Her label had hired Grammy-winning Canadian producer Bob Rock to shine up the unfinished tracks. He consulted with Murray from his studio in Hawaii, while his engineer tinkered away in Calgary. As the process inched forward, it became a family affair.

“I got my daughter to do background vocals,” Murray recalls.

“My nephew Dale has a studio out in the boonies in Nova Scotia, and he plays great guitar and fantastic pedal steel. We spent a day or two in the studio and had so much fun.”

Murray was even convinced to break the promise she had made never to perform again. On her cover of Bryan Adams’ “Straight From the Heart,” she joined her daughter, Dawn Langstroth, to build out new background harmonies that played with her original 1984 vocal.

“I was scared to death,” Murray said of the process.

“I haven’t sung in so long, and I guess it’s like falling off a log. I was pretty rusty.”

She credits her daughter with guiding her through the unnerving process.

“I wouldn’t have done it without her,” she said.

“They had to get a stool for me to stand on, because she’s quite a bit taller than I am. Our microphone was between us, and we did the chorus.”

Other memorable tracks include the melodic opener “Heaven in My Heart” and the sentimental title track “Here You Are,” which Holt suggests is among Murray’s best songs ever recorded.

There’s also the oddity “I Lost My Dog,” an ode to a beloved pup who’s vanished. Murray has warmed to that one, in particular.

“I’ve heard from so many who say that’s their favourite song … it touches people,” she said.

“I was (not) a dog owner when I recorded that, but it moved me. So if it moves you, you sing it.”

Overall, Murray has no qualms about dipping her toe back into music ever so briefly.

Asked to ponder her legacy, she doesn’t hesitate with how she would like to be remembered. It’s not necessarily for that honeyed voice, her many awards, or any other inductions that might come down the pipeline.

“You know what the most important thing to me would be?” she posited.

“What was I like to my people? Was I good to them? Yes, I was.”

By her people, she means her bandmates, the touring crew, the bus drivers, and many others who’ve been part of the Anne Murray business over the decades.

“I treated them the way I would want to be treated,” she said.

“That’s what I’d like to be remembered as — someone who treated people well.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 12, 2025.