and thought about my friend's feedback on the post card I sent to him
two years ago. The post card was sent to him as a Christmas greeting
from an international friend in Canada. Then, Anne Murray to me was just the
first Canadian singer who was welcomed by Americans. The program let
me understand that Anne Murray is still a big star in today's Canadian
show business. She is more than an icon of Canadian cultural treasure
but a world renowned star.
My friend is an American in his late 60s. It must have aroused some
good old days memory in his minds. Actually, the first song attracted
my attention of the program was Anne Murray performing You Needed Me
on stage. I thought it belonged to the Carpenters. Well, I was wrong.
Anne Murray humbly recollected the facts about how she had discovered
the song and recorded the song that made it a number one hit in the
American market. There were only a few lines about how Anne Murray
reviewed her rebellion performance style like bare feet. The Global
and Mail book review on All of Me let me gain more insight about how
daring and unconventional this was in her youth time. But I can see
her humble and self-controlled spirit that comes with her hair style,
the way she talks about her cooperation with other stars.
Anne Murray mentioned that Gen Campbell had always been supporting
her. She said Bryan Adams was so sick in their cooperation but
performed so professional that she only got to know that it was so
hard for him to stand up in the back stage when the show was finished.
Anne Murray also talked about her once for a life time duet rehearsal
with a cellular phone. On the other side of the phone, it was Celine
Dion. The next day, the two performed together and Anne's heart was
lifted so high but slowly was put down by the perfect match of voices
and seamless performance. It is like her songs, humble, soft, smooth,
but spiritual, Anne Murray neither highly appraised any star, nor
implied any complain about the strange rehearsal with Celine Dion. She
just said that Celine could not come because of an exhausted long-time
flight but she herself had always prepared and rehearsed for every
show.
I guess there is a gap of time and culture that made it hard for me to
interpret Anne Murray's words about Julio Iglesias' invitation to her
for dinners. Was she indicating a romance between them? She said that
she was so young and could not be assured what could happen if she
accepted his invitation. But she did use fabulous words to describe
her fondness of Julio. I liked the two's duet very much. It would be
more than better if the two really had some romance.
The program went on talking about how Anne Murray had blended so well
with her assistants and band members. It resonated the same feeling of
her songs and lyrics. For the reason that the program let me approach
a bit deeper about the culture and people's feelings in the past
decades of years, it is a warm and delicate TV product. Strange
enough, I had never heard of Anne Murray before I was preparing some
greeting cards to my old friends. Anne Murray's post card was picked
because of the Canadian scent. It is the selections of Anne Murray's
life stories and performances that made her stay in my heart and soul
forever.
2010/5/10
