{"id":3950,"date":"2025-10-28T17:47:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/28\/as-nashville-toasts-anne-murray-stars-call-for-country-music-hall-of-fame-induction\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T17:47:57","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T20:47:57","slug":"as-nashville-toasts-anne-murray-stars-call-for-country-music-hall-of-fame-induction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/10\/28\/as-nashville-toasts-anne-murray-stars-call-for-country-music-hall-of-fame-induction\/","title":{"rendered":"As Nashville toasts Anne Murray, stars call for Country Music Hall of Fame induction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>EntertainmentSome of Anne Murray\u2019s biggest fans welcomed the East Coast songbird to her Nashville tribute concert on Monday evening. As she made her entrance into the Opry House theatre, even she seemed a bit surprised by the rapturous reception. Nova Scotia\u2019s legendary Snowbird singer receives honours by performers k.d. lang, Martina McBride and moreDavid Friend  \u00b7 The Canadian Press  \u00b7 Posted: Oct 28, 2025 11:07 AM EDT | Last Updated: 4 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesAnne Murray arrives for her tribute event at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville on Monday. (Mark Humphrey\/The Canadian Press)With Canadian flags waving in their hands and shouts of admiration echoing from the rafters, some of Anne Murray\u2019s biggest fans welcomed the East Coast songbird to her Nashville tribute concert, offering a level of fanfare fit for a musical legend.At 80, Murray has been around the block more than a few times, but as she made her entrance into the Opry House theatre on Monday, even she seemed a bit surprised by the rapturous reception.\u201dWe love you, Anne!\u201d a flurry of voices screamed as she settled into a sofa chair in the fourth row of the auditorium, dressed in a black sequined shirt and slacks.\u201dI love you more!\u201d countered another.That outpouring of affection continued for the next two hours as country music\u2019s elite stepped into the home of the Grand Ole Opry for \u201cThe Music of My Life: An All-Star Tribute to Anne Murray.\u201dFrom left, Rudy Gatlin, k.d. lang, Kathy Mattea and Larry Gatlin were some of the musicians to perform at Murray\u2019s tribute event. (Mark Humphrey\/The Canadian Press)Each musician sprinkled a little more sugar on the woman with the honeyed voice, who retired from singing nearly two decades ago, and decided to stay put in the audience for the duration of the show.\u201dMy junior high self is freaking out right now,\u201d confessed Tricia Yearwood shortly before she performed Murray\u2019s 1982 single Somebody\u2019s Always Saying Goodbye.\u201dThis is the fabric of our lives.\u201dHer sentiments were shared by many of Yearwood\u2019s peers, some longtime friends of Murray and others who simply considered her one of their greatest influences.All of them positioned Murray as an often unsung ambassador for country music, at least outside her homeland, a voice who scaled the charts during a fruitful era for the genre.Country Music Hall of Fame snubWhile the tribute concert was billed as a celebration of her musical impact, it also served as a reminder of one incredible oversight: Anne Murray has not been inducted into Nashville\u2019s Country Music Hall of Fame.No one put that fact more bluntly than Nancy Jones, the widow of country star and Hall of Fame inductee George Jones. She turned out to be Murray\u2019s most vocal advocate of the night.Jones stepped in when presenter Brenda Lee was forced to cancel her appearance, and she came armed with her frustrations about the Hall of Fame.\u201dThey should be ashamed of themselves, not having her in there,\u201d she said backstage before the show.\u201dIf it\u2019s up to me, I will do whatever I can to get her into the Country Music Hall of Fame here in the United States.\u201dJones said there\u2019s ample evidence for why Murray should already be an inductee.She was the first woman to win album of the year at the Country Music Association Awards in 1984, and the first Canadian female singer to reach No. 1 in the United States years before that.Murray also holds four Grammys and is the most decorated Juno Award honouree, with 24 wins and two career achievement trophies. She\u2019s already been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, as well as the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame.Jones made her case on the Opry stage, using her speech to call on Nashville to induct Murray to their highest honour. Her suggestion was met with a roar of support from the audience and echoed by fellow country stars backstage.Singer Martina McBride performed Danny\u2019s Song at the Murray tribute event. (Mark Humphrey\/The Canadian Press)Other artists used their appearances for more clearcut tributes.Bluegrass singer Kathy Mattea shared that she hadn\u2019t met Murray until earlier Monday and was struck by the opportunity to speak directly with her living idol.\u201dYou made singing along with the radio much easier for an alto like me,\u201d she said before she performed I Just Fall in Love Again.\u201cIt is such a gift to be able to look you in the eye and \u2026 tell you what you mean to all of us.\u201dMichelle Wright, who grew up in Merlin, Ont., sang Murray\u2019s unsinkable anthem Snowbird, a song she has been practising since she was a child.Martina McBride landed on Danny\u2019s Song, but told the room that she holds dear another Murray favourite, Nobody Loves Me Like You Do, which she sang to her husband at their wedding.Natalie Grant brought the audience to their feet with a powerful six-minute rendition of How Great Thou Art, a Christian hymn that Murray covered on her 1999 album What a Wonderful World.K.d. lang, who\u2019s worked with Murray several times over the years, credited her with making it possible to pursue the sort of music career she wanted.\u201dYou plowed the road before I got there, and I owe so much of my success to you,\u201d she said.Murray seemed particularly enthused by the a capella group Straight No Chaser. (Mark Humphrey\/The Canadian Press)Murray seemed especially charmed by the nine-man a capella group Straight No Chaser, whose take on He Thinks I Still Care brought her to a standing ovation.While Reba McEntire couldn\u2019t attend the event, due to her filming commitments in Los Angeles for TV competition series The Voice, she sent a video message recalling how Snowbird was one of the first songs she performed in her 10th-grade band.\u201dThank you so much for everything you\u2019ve done for the women of country music,\u201d she said.ABOUT THE AUTHORDavid Friend is a reporter with The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EntertainmentSome of Anne Murray\u2019s biggest fans welcomed the East Coast songbird to her Nashville tribute concert on Monday evening. As she made her entrance into the Opry House theatre, even she seemed a bit surprised by the rapturous reception. Nova Scotia\u2019s legendary Snowbird singer receives honours by performers k.d. lang, Martina McBride and moreDavid Friend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,129,1],"tags":[116,128],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-nova-scotia","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-nova-scotia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}