Early career

Anne Murray was born on June 20, 1945, in the small town of Springhill, Nova Scotia. Her father, James Carson Murray, was a doctor and her mother, Marion Murray, was a registered nurse.

After expressing an early interest in music, she studied piano for six years; by age fifteen, she began taking voice lessons. Every Saturday morning, she took a bus ride from Springhill to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, for her singing lesson with her teacher, Karen Mills.

Following high school, Anne spent a year at Mount Saint Vincent University, a women's college in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After dropping out of Mount Saint Vincent University she went to the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where she studied Physical Education. Friends of Anne encouraged her to audition for the 1960's CBC music television show Singalong Jubilee. However, the cast was full but two years later, she got a call from Singalong Jubilee co-host and associate producer, Bill Langstroth. She then returned for a second audition and was cast for the show.

After a summer of singing, Anne began teaching Physical Education at a high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. However after one year of teaching, she was offered a spot on a television show, Let's Go and returned to Singalong Jubilee. A Singalong Jubilee soundtrack was released by Arc Records, one of Canada's first record labels. The show's musical director, Brian Ahern, advised Anne that she should record a solo album; her first album, What About Me, was produced by Ahern in Toronto and released in 1968 on the Arc label.