As I confessed in your Alanis post, I too had a deep undying love for Anne when I was a youngster. After posting my comment, I dug through my old vinyl and pulled out this little beauty, threw it on my hi-fi and drifted back about 30 years:

Your fan-letter story is disappointing. After all this woman was a gym teacher for god's sake! Hopefully she's become more enlightened over the years... *

Thanks for the post. It's nice to know I'm not alone ;)

*BIG.HUGE.CLARIFICATION (thanks carolf!)

I need to slow down and read more carefully. The letter was Amy's not Anne's...whew!

Whenever I hear a duet, I'm automatically tuned to consider the lyrics sung to each other, not two people happening to be on stage (or in the studio) together to sing the same song at the same time. 

So, listening to the songs on Anne Murray's website is making me completely ecstatic!

First she wants to have and raise a child with Martina McBride (just skip over the last verse.)

Then she falls in love again with Dusty Springfield; the love song with k.d., and on and on. Oh my, I think I'm going to faint! But not before I get that CD - practically a must anyway, if you're a Canuck. ;-)

"At that point, you could have all gotten naked, gotten in your pool and had four bottles of champagne in your house."  ~~ Stephanie March

"Your fan-letter story is disappointing. After all this woman was a gym teacher for god's sake! Hopefully she's become more enlightened over the years... "

I believe the fan letter was written to Christian singer Amy Grant, not to former gym teacher Anne Murray

just defending the reputations of gym teachers everywhere! 

...that I would ever find Amy Grant's name in one of the AfterEllen blogs. Amy is my favorite singer, and always has been. Her answer to your letter was... well, how should I say it, "narrow minded and stupid"? But I'm sure you received her "nice words" long before she got divorced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a divorce a "sin"? Maybe you will meet her in hell one day and you can both listen to this wonderful cd:)

Thanks for letting us know about her duet with Anne Murray - you're right, it really is very, very gay. :)

had a crush or at least thought Anne Murray might be gay.  I remember reading years ago that she got so tired and lonely on the road singing that finding someone to settle down with was something she had to do to hold onto her sanity. Very much paraphrasing there.  She got married, had kids and started leading a different kind of life than one constantly on the road.  She has said that Dusty Springfield was her idol and she, along with many others, tried to help Dusty on many a comeback at a time when Dusty was just not emotionally able to.  She was a GREAT friend to Dusty from what I've read. 

 Figures. I always had my Dusty pic up here until I tried to change it briefly the other day. Not I've got no pic.  Gotta go get Dusty back. 

Also, I was crazy about Amy Grant's singing. I've known she was a strict, evangelical or whatever you want to call it Christian for a long time.  I didn't care about that one way or the other. But if she told someone they were going to hell, well, to hell with her.

I've been a rather avid Anne Murray fan since I was 11. I've been to several concerts and plan on getting tickets for her final concert tour. Anyhoo...I loathe her last album and have threatened all those that know me against buying it for me. *grin*

I have no issue with duets. I have issue with her butchering all her signature songs in this fashion.

The crush lives on though, it at least did not fall victim to a bad choice for a final album. Woman has staying power.

A friend and I joked this was her coming out album. Anyhoo it seems we weren't the only ones who were curious as a reporter from a lead Canadian newspaper, The National Post, actually popped the question.

Interview with Anne

My heart just broke a little bit. I certainly hope she has evolved since that small-minded, bigoted reply to a young Scribegrrrl. I always had such a crush on Amy Grant. **Sigh

I always had a crush on Anne Murray as well. The lineup on that duets album is very gay. I don't even have to look on the back cover.

Never did I think I would read about Amy Grant on AfterEllen, but I do have to laugh as she is a part of my herstory.

Wow it takes me back...The first girl I ever kissed took me to an Amy Grant concert one of the first times we ever went out.  (Of course it was not a "date" at the time, we were good Christian girls in Mobile, AL).  I do believe Amy Grant was such a turn on that I kissed my "date" at the end of the night!  :-)  I still have the ticket stub in my scrapbook.  After that concert I had a huge crush on Amy Grant.  Fun memories.....

Back to Anne Murray--this has to be the gayest CD of the year!  I fell out when I read the lineup.  My gaydar always went off when I saw her on TV.

She sang a duet with Melissa Etheridge on one of the Women in rock tv concerts (as KW said) - Also I have spoken with her a couple of times and she is a 'live and let live' person now.

Glad to see the duets and look forward to listening to more

Any K.T. fans out there?

(Not to be confused with K.D. ...) K.T. had a huge gay following and she pandered to her hard core fans and called them the "die hards". K.T. won an Grammy award or two and her most famous song was "80's Ladies"---oh, and her videos were a bit...well...gay. She is one great singer/songwriter and would look real cute next to Anne (who I used to love and saw in concert a few times....) Her sexiest song: "Didn't Expect It To Go Down This Way"....yeah, well, I did.

--Mari

Mari SanGiovanni

Author of: Greetings From Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer...
www.GreetingsFromJamaica.com

 Who is also on the new Anne album, and is about to release her new album of Dusty Springfield material !  oh, its like 6 degrees of separation!! 

in the words of Alice, " So gay!" 

back to the studio Paint Monkey!

Have been since I was a kid, but I'm not over 40 (35 and counting). Her songs provide some of the best group sing-a-longs and best (as in worst) personal karoke performances :)

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"I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for what I didn't do."

Apparently, I'm in good company among Ann's fan. Yes, she's a former physical education teacher (gotta love them gym teachers -- AND I DO!-- my partner is one!), but her stilted moves on the stage are just adorable. We love to watch Ann every time she comes to the West Coast (early 2008 TO BE EXACT!). Can't wait to hear the new album...

Wow!  I have loved Anne Murray for years, loved Amy Grant for years, and loved 'Could I have this dance' forever.  It's my 'if I ever do karaoke, I'll do this one' song.  Since I only came to realize I was a lesbian several years ago, I didn't know my feelings for Amy were a crush until recently.  Now I'm walking around remembering stuff and constantly bonking myself on the head with, 'Oh my Gawd!  That was a major girl crush!'  I would admire these women all these years, and I would keep saying stuff like I wanted to grow up and be just like 'em, but in fact, I guess I wanted something entirely different.  Who would have guessed it?  Apparently, not me.  Soooo very deep in denial for years.  Sooooo very glad I have entered reality.

Again, Afterellen.com has made me feel less freakish and less alone.  Thanks Gals!    

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

 From the Globe and Mail, 11/10/07

... The rumours have persisted through the years, despite marriage and children. The "evidence" was always circumstantial She'd been a tomboy in childhood, refusing to wear dresses. She was a jock - could golf and throw a ball better than most men. She wore her hair short. Since her divorce from Langstroth nine years ago, she has mainly kept social company with women. Certainly, like the late Peggy Lee and Rosemary Clooney, Murray developed a sizable gay and lesbian following.

Bruce Allen [her new manager] was certainly aware of the rumours and, in his direct style, made it one of the first questions he put to her.

So is Anne Murray gay? Oddly, until now, no journalist has ever seen fit to ask her the question point-blank.

"No. I'm not." she told me. "Nor have I ever been, although I know there are people who thought I was. I do have a lot of women friends, but none of them is gay, nor have they ever been. [The allegations] used to bother me, but I can laugh about it now. It's silly." ...

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:tJuDVk57ONIJ:www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/freeheadlines/LAC/20071110/ANNE10/thearts/%3FpageRequested%3Dall+%22anne+murray%22+lesbian+duets+globe&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1

The very day that the new CD arrived from Canada, I came across the above interview.  The Duets album is still wrapped up.  It will be a while before I feel like listening to it.

I've been a fan of Anne Murray's for 30 years, bought all her LPs/tapes/CDs, seen her in concert half a dozen times.  I've heard the anecdotes of her fairly open lesbianism before her marriage, her longtime relationship with the late Cynthia McReynolds, etc. 

In the past, she diverted direct questions and made a point of saying nice things about us dyke fans.  Now, she sounds like someone testifying before Senator McCarthy back in the early 50s.  ("I am not now and never have been a member of the Communist Party," for those too young to remember.)  I'm disappointed. 

I finally broke down and opened the Duets CD and listened to it.  I cried during "I Just Fall in Love Again" (Anne and Dusty Springfield), the song that made me an Anne Murray fan back in 1979.

I'm still pissed off by the "Gay? Who me?" interview... (see above)

...but Anne Murray's voice is still rich and full, and these duets with women about love are (mostly) wonderful.  (Shania Twain and Celine Dion I can live without.)

Thanks for sharing. I'll listen to it.

----

I am also on http://www.femmate.com (Community for relationship-minded lesbian singles and provides a new way to fin

Here I go, I just fall in love again.

I've been an Anne Murray fan since I could pick up a guitar and sing folk songs.  That ages me a little?  If I die knowing she is a lesbian, I'll die going to heaven.  Of course she's remain closeted!  Look at what happened to Dusty Springfield, and need I mention how k.d. lang (another favorite of mine) was black listed.  You can read anything you want into her songs and swoon with fantasy, but the fact still remains that she got married, had kids, and I suppose had to do the thang with a man called Bill.  Who knows, maybe  they had a special agreement during their marriage?  Have any of you listened to the song off her "As I Am" cd, looking as dykey as one could look on the cover, and singing that song "As I Am?"  Am I the crazy one here, or what?  Anyway the cover is hot.  I am not ashamed to say I may have actually fainted dead away looking at it.  Why is it that I've suddenly fallen in love with her again?  That woman remains hot!

Would love to hear some thoughts from some of you other Anne Murray fans..  Why do we continue to spin this one on and on?  Of course, it may have had something to do with her buttery, sexy alto.  But that's just me. Another thought here -- Jann Arden?  Indigo Girls? k.d. lang?  Well, I could be wrong, but this "Duets" album sure has the ring of a coming out one for Anne.  Maybe she was just trying to protect her family -- her mother died recently, her "best friend", Cynthia,  and her daughter is in rehab for anorexia. Ms. Murray, you have a lovely daughter.