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Nearly two decades after announcing her retirement from music, Anne Murray is opening the vault once more.<\/p>\n
On her 80th birthday last fall, the Canadian icon released Here You Are<\/i>, a collection of previously unreleased recordings made between 1978 and 1995.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t remember a lot of them,” she says. “I’ve recorded in excess of probably as many as 400-500 songs over the years. It was like hearing them again for the first time.”<\/p>\n
Murray first became a household name in 1969 with “Snowbird,” which helped make her the first Canadian artist to earn a U.S. gold record. Her career went on to include four Grammy Awards, a record 26 Juno Awards and honors on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canada’s Walk of Fame.<\/p>\n
Since retiring from music in 2008, Murray has spent much of her time living quietly in Nova Scotia, so when she was surprised with a tribute at the Grand Ole Opry last October, she was taken aback by the applause she heard when she walked onstage.<\/p>\n
“I said, ‘Who’s here?’ ” she says. “I’ve been out of the limelight for so long. Then I went, ‘Oh! That’s for me!’ “<\/p>\n
Today, Murray joins World Cafe<\/i> to talk about why she felt ready to open the vault, what it was like hearing these songs with fresh ears, and she shares stories from her long and illustrious career.<\/p>\nInterview Highlights<\/b><\/h3>\n
On releasing a new album<\/b><\/p>\n
“This was a big surprise to me, and I had totally forgotten that there were songs in the can, as we call it. But there you go. There was a very zealous fan who went searching and found them. Every album that we had, we always overcut and then we would choose. So a lot of those songs ended up on the cutting room floor, as they say, and didn’t get used.”<\/p>\n