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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
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reputation
Sweet Inspiration
United Kingdom
3069 Posts |
 Posted - 24/10/2009 : 18:26:35
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Things that happen behind closed doors should stay that way, we don't need to know the details.
I am surprised at Anne Murray for repeating that,but perhaps she feels the need to sensationalize her book in order to make it sell?
Note that these kind of things always happened when Dusty was intoxicated. |
Edited by - reputation on 24/10/2009 18:47:54 |
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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
Posted - 24/10/2009 : 18:55:41
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I agree with you Karl, but Anne isn't the first to open the doors and probably won't be the last either. I'm rather surprised that Anne did write this in her book.
Marty
quote:
Originally posted by reputation
Things that happen behind closed doors should stay that way, we don't need to know the details.
I am surprised at Anne Murray for repeating that,but perhaps she feels the need to sensationalize her book in order to make it sell?
Note that these kind of things always happened when Dusty was intoxicated.
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twinlorna
Something Special
USA
1122 Posts |
Posted - 25/10/2009 : 15:54:46
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I dont think fans of Dusty's would be surprised at this,so i dont have a problem with it as long as its true.Sometimes negative
things are revealed in order to shed light on other things.
To me,the most important thing in the excerpt was Anne's feeling that Dusty didnt know how good she was.She picked up on that so easily.
-Lorna |
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reputation
Sweet Inspiration
United Kingdom
3069 Posts |
Posted - 25/10/2009 : 16:40:48
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quote:
Originally posted by twinlorna
I dont think fans of Dusty's would be surprised at this,so i dont have a problem with it as long as its true.Sometimes negative
things are revealed in order to shed light on other things.
To me,the most important thing in the excerpt was Anne's feeling that Dusty didnt know how good she was.She picked up on that so easily.
-Lorna
So did the rest of us Lorna, I still find it amazing that after all these years people dig up something and report on it knowing full well that the person concerned cannot answer back.
Until now I had a high regard for Anne Murray but sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut. We know Dusty wasn't perfect and had her failings but as we've said before the people who REALLY care for Dusty are saying nothing and it's people like that who get my respect! |
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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
Posted - 25/10/2009 : 17:57:00
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I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with Anne now. I always liked Anne. I have an autographed picture by Anne of Dusty and Anne singing together next to my printer. I'm considering putting it in a drawer for awhile as it's now bothering me to look at it.
Marty |
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spaniel
Brand New Me
USA
8 Posts |
Posted - 25/10/2009 : 19:04:14
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What I find so interesting is that there isn't ONE artist out there that, if you look/listen long enough, that hasn't had negative comments made regarding their sexuality. The comments are s-o-o-o disgusting and unecessary. (Especially on YouTube--I think people look for someone that brings joy to people and then write something so totally distasteful, just to shock.) What the heck does it matter? It, in no way, changes the wonderful talent that they are/were. We live in such a sensationalized world!
I will never forget my discussing one of my music idols at work one day and the lady said "Yeh, she wasn't treated very well--once she came out of the closet, they quit playing her music." I was totally agast at the thought. (The fact that she was/was not a lesbian had never crossed my mind!) Addiitonally, she never came out of the closet; they quit playing her music, when at a time, they quit playing ALL female artists music over 40 years. And so what if she was? Did it affect her singing ability; ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!
Lee |
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Janie
Administrator
United Kingdom
7272 Posts |
Posted - 26/10/2009 : 11:33:02
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I think Anne Murray has stirred up a bit of a storm!  
http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=171925#
Not gay at IFOA
Authors are coming out as straight at IFOA
By Susan G. Cole
What's so bad about being a lesbian, anyway?
Anne Murray, set to be interviewed next Friday at the authors festival by her own co-writer Michael Posner, has made a point of using her new autobiography to say she's not queer. I believe her, actually, even if she does love Dusty Springfield and Olivia Newton-John.
And I believe Scottish writer A.L.Kennedy, too, who in her strangely unfocussed one-woman show Words, performed at IFOA on Saturday, proclaimed loudly as part of the performance that she's not a lesbian, either.
But why did she have to ridicule her dyke fan base at the same time?
It's one thing to joke about being programmed for an LGBT tent at a book fest – "Oh you have to rewrite the program to change that? I have to rewrite my whole life" – but referring to being cornered by an "earnest-looking woman" at a festival party, which in turn, prevented her from meeting some interesting men, is a bit much. There are so many interesting stories she could have told about not being a lesbian – being hit up by a hot one, for example, but still having no interest – to make her point without putting down an entire population.
The rest of Words was disappointing. Kennedy, who has some drama training that did show, told some amusing anecdotes about her path to becoming an author but she didn't have a strong enough throughline. The show is supposed to be about the power of words - nothing new there - but few of the observations were illuminating and the whole thing had a not entirely deserved self-satisfied air to it.
Good idea to include performance of this kind in the festival, though. New kinds of programming are always welcome.
Oct 25, 2009 at 12:22 AM
Copyright 2009 NOW Communications
Janie  x56 |
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Janie
Administrator
United Kingdom
7272 Posts |
Posted - 29/10/2009 : 11:12:59
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I have reread the global and mail article this morning. I have ambiguous thoughts about such writings, that is the part about the drugs etc. On the one hand I do feel that it is a betrayal of a 'friend' but on the other hand these little anecdotes give further insight into the woman whose music we love so much.
I know there will be some who think its wrong to publish such detail, full stop - I have always been more concerned about the rantings of the likes of Carole Pope which for me overstepped the line i.e. the publication of the more private details of their relationship  and that chap from The Searchers (another name that escapes me, Frank something or other...Allen was it?).
I am glad that Anne did give a focus to her abilities as a great singer.
Stories like these should if anything lift us a little, perverse though that thought may seem. Mary Isabel Catherine O'Brien was a truly gifted but also troubled soul in life, but look how she fought those demons (I know, I hate that word as well  ). AND just think of the legacy she gave to the world  . Nothing anyone can say will change what happened, make it any better, make it any worse. She dealt with her life the best she could and that's all any of us can do, some find it so much harder than others................
I thought the last part of the extract from the link Marty posted was very touching, gave me goose bumps it did:
I saw her again at her house in L.A. – there were walls of gold records and the writer Fran Lebowitz was there – but in 1981, when Dusty lived in Toronto with Carole Pope (formerly with Rough Trade), she never called me. Then in 1999, not long before her death, I received a call from a friend of hers; Dusty had drawn up a short list of people to say goodbye to, and I was on it. First I sent her a tape we'd made of our rehearsals from the 1975 album, and then I called her. She was tired and failing, but we spoke for about 20 minutes, reminiscing about some of the good old days. It was very hard to say goodbye. She seemed a tortured soul, but for all the excesses and all the demons she fought within, I will always remember a sweet and vulnerable woman and my favourite singer of all time.
Janie x56 |
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Janie
Administrator
United Kingdom
7272 Posts |
Posted - 30/10/2009 : 11:11:37
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Another review of the book in which Dusty is mentioned. I reckon this review is better than the others in as much as it mentions so much more than the incident with Dusty . I've highlighted in italics the section re Dusty.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hQe8qhJp2XyGqvPZurTR2u_hZbbg
Anne Murray says memoirs were 'painful,' talks retirement, drugs, divorce
By Nick Patch (CP) – 20 hours ago
TORONTO — Anne Murray says she decided to write her tell-all memoir because it was the last item remaining on her career to-do list.
She had no idea how difficult it was going to be. "All of Me," which hit stores this week, indeed covers everything - her dizzyingly swift ascent to becoming America's Canadian sweetheart, her lengthy affair with a married man, her divorce from that same man and the series of personal hardships that have marked the past two decades of her life.
And the 64-year-old says she wouldn't go through this painful process of reliving the past again.
"You have no choice but to go through it, but to write about it was awful," Murray told The Canadian Press over the line from her Toronto-area home.
"It was just very painful for me and I had no idea. I had no idea how I would be affected. And so, you know, to be truthful, there was a point where I didn't know whether I could get through the book, because it hurt so much."
She did complete the project - "I have to do everything 100 per cent, and I have to finish," she said - and fans have accordingly been afforded an otherwise unseen look at the Canadian songbird's enduring career.
Beginning with her "mostly untroubled" childhood in Springhill, N.S., Murray and writer Michael Posner track the twists and turns of a 45-year music career.
Murray - she of the squeaky-clean, freshly scrubbed image - shares plenty of eyebrow-raising anecdotes, including the details of her years-long affair with Bill Langstroth, a television producer who was married with children when he and Murray began an affair while working together on CBC-TV's "Singalong Jubilee."
The relationship began during a trip to Charlottetown, when Murray and Langstroth smoked marijuana together and kissed. Murray wrote that the early years of their affair were difficult.
"However unhappy he might have been in his marriage, he was still married (with two young children), almost fifteen years my senior and also my boss," Murray writes. "But I was falling in love, fast, and powerless to do anything about it."
For years and years, they had to keep their relationship hidden while Langstroth remained married. That Murray had to be secretive about her relationship fuelled speculation about her own sexuality, she says, and might have contributed to the "legion of gay fans" she writes about.
By 1975, after Langstroth had finally divorced his wife, he married Murray.
Writing about the affair, Murray said, was easy. It was ancient history. But delving into her 1998 divorce from Langstroth and a recent onslaught of tragic developments - her daughter Dawn's struggles with anorexia, the downturn in her career that began in the mid-80s, the guilt she felt over being away from her family for extended periods of time, and the deaths of her mother, her close friend Cynthia McReynolds and her longtime manager Leonard Rambeau, to whom the book is dedicated - was much more trying.
"It's the divorce and all of that that's uncomfortable," she said. "Going through all of that again ... that was hard to re-live that. It's typical. Everybody's lives are full of good things, some tragic things, and nobody escapes these things."
Of course, there's also plenty of more breezy material covered in the book.
Murray writes of brushes with John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and the Queen, whom Murray accidentally offended following a performance at Canada's 125th birthday party in 1992. In the early '80s, she gave comedian Jerry Seinfeld - then a little-known comic working the club circuit - an opening spot on a series of high-profile shows.
She earned praise from a list of luminaries as long as it was diverse, including former U.S. presidents Richard Nixon and George Bush, Sammy Davis Jr., and Wayne Gretzky (and yet Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, when he stumbled into her backstage at the Grammys one year, said: "Oh, my God, it's Ann-Margret.")
She also writes of late British soul singer Dusty Springfield, who made a clumsy, drunken pass at Murray and after being rebuffed, attacked her husband with her fingernails ("Dusty was a lovely person - when she was sober, she was great," Murray says now).
Murray also engaged in an "extended flirtation" with American actor Burt Reynolds. He sent her flowers, turned up at several of her performances and arranged for Murray to be his musical guest in an episode of "Saturday Night Live."
"Nothing ever came of it," she says now with a laugh. "He just loved the music, he loved my voice."
Murray also writes about her brushes with drugs - while seemingly everyone around her in music spent the '70s in drug-induced delirium, Murray more or less stayed away from using anything.
"I was never much interested in the drugs," Murray said. "I certainly smoked dope like everybody else the odd time, but you know, I did very little of it. ... I had to have my wits about me. I was the one out on stage, I was the one doing these shows, so I couldn't get involved in that stuff.
"I took my job seriously. I wanted to do it well."
And Murray, judging by her record-setting sales and endless award tally, certainly did.
She was the first Canadian female solo singer to reach No. 1 on the U.S. charts, and also the first to earn a gold record. She's sold 54 million records and has won four Grammy Awards, 24 Juno Awards, three American Music Awards and three CMA Awards.
Yet she says she has permanently closed that chapter of her life. She has retired from music and says she "doesn't particularly want to" sing in public again.
"I haven't sung in a year and a half," she said. "I don't miss it."
But what about her aforementioned list?
"I don't have anything more on the list," she said. "So maybe that's the perfect time to retire, what do you think?"
And yet, Murray says that looking back on her life for "All of Me," tormenting as it was, did ultimately yield a positive result.
"Maybe once and for all, I'll be able to put this stuff to bed, and not have to deal with it again," she said.
"Because boy, some of it is tough."
Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Janie x56 |
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Janie
Administrator
United Kingdom
7272 Posts |
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tedabracci
Wishing And Hoping
USA
126 Posts |
Posted - 21/11/2009 : 08:40:40
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I thought that the one person who truly cared about Dusty would mention something as priate as that. Then the man drive's her home
tedabracci |
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reputation
Sweet Inspiration
United Kingdom
3069 Posts |
Posted - 21/11/2009 : 14:19:17
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Until I read this article l really liked Anne Murray and have most of her albums.
She's said several things (see Janie's post) that don't sit comfortably with me, the book was very painful to write - well if it was SO painful why go ahead with it? I'll bet it wasn't that painful cashing the cheque she received for it!
Also she states she hasn't sung in 18 months and doesn't miss it, that does not sound like a seasoned entertainer and it sounds like her career was "just a job", it also sounds like she doesn't really care that her fans won't see her in concert again or buy a new album.
Anne is not an old woman she still has a lot of years left in her (I hope), Petula Clark & Shirley Bassey are still going strong and they are older than her, I also read recently that Al Martino & Buddy Greco were still performing in their 80's.
Anne could semi-retire and still do the odd performance now and again but from what she has said she obviously doesn't want to.
I am convinced that when someone famous writes a book there are parts that are "spiced up" to make it sell, I feel Anne's life was rather mundane hence the need for saying what she did. That aside the affair was news to me so perhaps the squeaky clean image was rather tarnished !
In closing the fact that Dusty allegedly scratched Anne's boyfriend's face and he later drove her home - would YOU do that? I think I'd have kicked her backside and got her into a taxi pretty damn fast!!!! |
Edited by - reputation on 21/11/2009 14:20:52 |
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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
Posted - 21/11/2009 : 18:21:57
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Just thinking should we comdemn or even dislike a singer because of their personal lives, something that they said, wrote or done? Should we forgive, forget, not concern ourselves with any of it and just enjoy their music? (Of course I'm not talking an axe murderer here)
Having said this, admittedly I'm a bit undecided on the answer. As I mentioned I have a framed pictured of Dusty and Anne singing together and personally autographed by Anne. I still have not put it away, but after reading these posts I'm thinking about it once again.
I always liked Anne. The previous stories I heard about Anne and Dusty were touching. When Anne did her England special, she was asked who does she want to perform with and her immediate reponse was Dusty Springfield, of course, she is my favorite singer. She knew that Dusty was not in a very good way and wanted to help Dusty out.
I remember watching the special when it first aired on TV being very excited about it and feeling rather disappointed afterwards. I believe the special aired after I saw Dusty at the Grande Finale. As I mentioned previously, Dusty was not in good voice at the Grande Finale due to a very bad cold. I could have my time frame mixed up as it was so long ago. However, after seeing the Anne/Dusty special on TV after it first aired, it made me think geez what is with Dusty she isn't the Dusty I once knew. Of course I had no personal knowledge of all the demons she was going through at the time.
I adventually forgot about this and went back to remembering the Dusty I wanted to remember. I recently watched Dusty and Anne performing together once again and decided it still is very good. I still have my originally VHS tape of the program and now put it on DVD.
A friend of mine met Anne backstage after a concert a couple of years ago and started to mention Dusty to Anne. Before he could even mention Dusty's name, she said, Oh you must mean Dusty, my favortie singer!
I agree with you Janie, the part about Anne saying good-bye to Dusty is very touching.
For those of you that know me, I can get extremely defensive when anyone says anything negative about Dusty. Bottom line IMHO is was/is the BEST contemporary singer EVER. Yes, Dusty may have had her demons, like Janie, I also dislike that word but she worked through them.
I was never offended by Frank Allen's comments (Searchers). I found them to be somewhat amusing. Comments like those only made Dusty more human to me. After all, Dusty was human like the rest of us. She, too, had a life and such is life.
I don't mean to open another kettle of worms here, but I have far more trouble accepting what Vicki has said and done in the past. Her comments about Dusty hating to sing and only doing it for the money just irritate the hell out of me. Can't help it!
After speaking or should I say writing my mind, it made me feel better, the autographed picture by Anne with Dusty singing together is staying on my desk next to my printer! I don't think I'll be reading Anne's book very soon but adding never say never.
Thanks for letting me rant. It made me feel better. Sorry if I just just bored anyone to tears. I just reached my own conclusions. We don't have to like every performer out there, nor do we have to like their personalities. Life is way too short to be filled with anger, so let's just enjoy the music and people we like and love.
Marty |
Edited by - Earthbound Gypsy on 21/11/2009 19:20:02 |
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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
Posted - 21/11/2009 : 18:25:40
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One more comment, the term tortured soul bothers me. Makes me think we should remember only the bad things and I refuse to do that!
OK it's letting me edit now. Just want to add would Dusty have sang with so much emotion if she wasn't this tortured soul that many claim she was? I, myself, like to believe she wasn't quite that tortured and her emotions came from her ability to act.
OK I'm getting away from Anne's book her, but hard to turn me off when it comes to talking about Dusty
Marty |
Edited by - Earthbound Gypsy on 21/11/2009 18:49:15 |
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JMFabianoRPL
Wishing And Hoping
108 Posts |
Posted - 22/11/2009 : 01:42:56
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Good posts, Marty. And I am VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRY sensitive about the person vs. performer angle. Maybe more than most are! I mean, people draw the line at murderers or criminals (i.e. O.J., Phil Spector)...but for me "smaller" things throw me off too. Like it's hard for me to like Nina Simone because of the Drink Incident (other things too, but then I learned she was bipolar?); Diana Ross because of the nightmare stories about her alienating the other Supremes; Buddy Rich (duh...); Richard Carpenter for the Something In Your Eyes sleeve incident; and more recently, I was totally disappointed in LeAnn Rimes, who I thought was a rare breath of fresh air in today's music industry...she actually CARED about music and seemed not to be a Walking Circus (TM)...and then, you know...
So you get the idea....anything can set me off here. I guess I need personality and class along with talent, but to a fault.
I don't think Anne has a bad heart...(maybe don't WANT TO think? As you see I've been hurt before...) Apparently in the book she mentions how lonely and stressful fame was, so I can understand if the best way to cope is to take an indefinite amount of time away from the limelight. Controversy does create cash, but I hope it was more that she wanted to be honest in her "final chapter" on her career. Anyway, what happened with her and Dusty obviously didn't turn her off to her...she loved her enough to say kind words about her and to include her (posthumously) on her Duets album amongst the mostly younger performers she duetted with. She was even in a montage seen at the beginning of the last concert I went to (and I applauded the image the loudest, if I may say so ;-))
Anyway Anne's heart...correct me if I'm wrong, Marty, but am *I* the fan who you mentioned meeting her backstage? That she agreed to see me says a lot too, and that she offered condolences when I told her my grandmother (another big Anne fan) died, and she recently did the same for another friend who had a death in her family. And I might tell a story of my own...for a certain friend I snuck in some pictures of Anne and Dusty and a note asking if she could sign them for her. I had a gift for Anne anyway so I slipped it there while she was on stage. Lo and behold, weeks later the pictures arrived at my friend's house, all autographed!
(Looks up....guess the identity of that friend isn't a big secret!)
So I think she does care and isn't a callous person. And one I don't want to hate.
As for Dusty, the other thing you gotta remember is, demons or not, she kept up appearances in public and was always Dusty at least partially. She still had the class and the soul and didn't go around practically begging the paparazzo to follow her like others do now (you didn't see Dusty inviting the cameras as she got her head shaved for no reason, did you????) And I do think her voice had to come from some kind of emotional fuel indeed, and so what, it made her more real.
I do get impatient too when I feel she is being treated wrongly. It's like only we really understand and "get" her indeed. The two quotes that seem to ALWAYS stick by Dusty are her own about being the most misquoted, misunderstood person she knew. And of course, "No one really knew her," as so many have said in the past. And I hate having to dislike other people or have bad feelings in her name.
__________________
Dusty = winner and still Miss Valentine!
(TLOL, YDHTSYLM, IOWTBWY = part of WCBS-FM's Top 101 Love Songs, 2009) |
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Earthbound Gypsy
Sweet Inspiration
USA
2743 Posts |
Posted - 22/11/2009 : 04:38:26
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Thank you Jim for your kind comment. Yes, Jim you are the person I speak of in my post. We might as well tell everyone that the autograph pictures I speak of at my printer are the pictures that Jim speaks of in his post. The cat is out of the bag, LOL!
All said and done, it is proof that Anne does have a good heart, don't you think? BTW, in the pictures that she signed Dusty is in full view and Anne's back is turned. Anne obviously had no objection to signing these photos and must like Dusty to do so.
Marty |
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Dusty in Anne Murray's Book
