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Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Upstate New York
Posts: 3,101
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Re: Anne Murray DUETS cd.
Nice article here:
Anne Murray sings with her friends
By R. Scottt Reedy, correspondent
Wed Feb 06, 2008, 03:26 PM EST
Providence, R.I. -
Providence, R.I. - Anne Murray didn’t know what she was in for when executives from her record label, EMI Music Canada, called her in for a meeting.
“My manager was there as was my assistant and what seemed to be all of EMI. I didn’t know what was going on. I thought maybe it was some kind of intervention,” Murray says with a laugh. “I told them right off that I wasn’t going to do another album. As far as I was concerned, I had done my last album and that was that.”
Fortunately, for legions of Murray fans in Canada, the U.S. and throughout the world – including those heading to the Providence Performing Arts Center Wednesday, Feb. 9, for her concert with the Rhode Island Philharmonic – EMI proved persuasive and soon the four-time Grammy award winner was sold on the idea of making a duets album of some of her best-loved songs with some of her favorite singers.
“I never once in my life thought about doing a duets album,” the singer explained by telephone from her home north of Toronto last week. “And I was adamant that I had done my last album. I knew I couldn’t do another album of original musical, because it just wouldn’t sell in today’s market. The duets idea interested me right away, however, especially when I started thinking about all the possibilities.”
Murray, 62, started thinking about possible singing partners, too, soon after she shared one important idea with her record label.
“I suggested all my duet partners be female,” Murray said. “It seemed to me it would not only simplify some of the logistics, but I also thought it hadn’t been done before. The label resisted at first, but they came around.”
They also signed nine-time Grammy Award-winning record producer Phil Ramone to the project. Ramone, founder of A&R Recording, had previously worked with everyone from Karen Carpenter, Elton John and Aretha Franklin to Rod Stewart and Paul Simon.
“Our first meeting to discuss this project happened in January 2007 and the album was done by October. Phil Ramone was the first producer they approached and he was in like a dirty shirt. He works very hard and I learned a lot from him. Once we picked the songs, I told him he had free reign with them. He never strayed too far from the original arrangements, which is a good thing, because people like to hear familiar songs done the way they first heard them.”
With the veteran producer onboard, Murray set about finding duet partners for the album, "Anne Murray Duets: Freinds and Legends," which was released last month and spent last week at #8 on Billboard’s Country chart and at #42 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart.
“I knew the Canadian girls like Celine Dion (‘When I Fall in Love’), Shania Twain (‘You Needed Me’) and k.d. Lang (‘A Love Song’) who grew up with me would probably be interested so we approached them first,” says the Nova Scotia-born Murray. “And then we added some people I had worked with before like Emmylou Harris (‘Another Pot O’ Tea’) and others who I had not like Carole King (‘Time Don’t Run Out on Me’) and Olivia Newton-John.
“Olivia replied right away. She’s a big Gordon Lightfoot fan so she wanted to do his song, ‘Cotton Jenny.’ Olivia was great and she came in prepared and was so good that we nailed it after only a few tries and we still had time to go out to dinner.”
Before long the list of collaborators also included Nelly Furtado (“Daydream Believer”), Indigo Girls (“A Little Good News”), Amy Grant (“Could I Have This Dance”), Martina McBride (“Danny’s Song”), Murray’s daughter, Dawn Langstroth (“Nobody Loves Me Like You Do”), and others. One with a musical theater pedigree was paired with the “Canadian songbird” on what is perhaps her signature song.
“When I first heard that the label wanted me to do ‘Snowbird’ with Sarah Brightman, I wasn’t sure what to think, because her voice is just so different. When we first got together in the studio, she looked me in the eye and said ‘You’ll have to help me with every line, because I really want to get this right.’ She was really very sweet and the song turned out very well.”
The 17 songs were recorded in Toronto, Los Angeles and Nashville, with Murray and each of her fellow artists sharing a studio, something almost unique to contemporary duets albums, which often find artists recording separately.
“That was one of my conditions. If I was going to do this album, I would get to meet each of these people.” Murray made only one exception for someone she calls “my hero,” the popular British singer Dusty Springfield, who died of cancer in 1999.
“Our duet is magical,” Murray said of her pairing with Springfield on “I Just Fall In Love Again.” With consent from Springfield’s family and estate, a new duet was made using a 1979 Springfield recording and new Murray vocals. Springfield had made her recording in a booth, instead of on the floor with the musicians, so it was possible to isolate her vocals and place them on a new track with Murray’s, making it seem like the old friends were once again singing together.
I had sung with Dusty so many times over the years. It was eerie to be in the studio again, singing along with her, knowing she is no longer with us. Everyone in the control room felt the same way. That song works beautifully as a duet and I never thought it would. I love Dusty’s voice so much.”
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