We should have declared it Anne Murray Week in Vancouver (May 5 to 10). Canada’s first lady of song played Monday night to a full house at the 3000-seat Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I was asked to emcee the opening and told the crowd that I had discovered that during this, her final coast-to-coast tour, the longest applause was in Ottawa with a three minute standing ovation at the end of the show. I urged everyone in the audience to beat Ottawa and they did by 30 seconds. On Friday night at the Red Robinson Show Theatre (another sellout), the audience there beat them all with a 5 minute standing ovation.

After the Friday night show we met Anne in the Green Room: photographer Kevin Statham, TV camera person Sharon Bates, Carole and some of Anne’s people. Bruce Allen, Anne’s manager, was on the speaker phone from backstage at Michael Buble’s Santa Barbara concert.

I told Anne that we had a special gift for her: the audio of Anne’s complete show at the Cave Theatre Restaurant in 1971- recorded illegally. It is one of a kind and might have been lost over the decades but it was discovered in the late deeay Jack Cullen’s collection. My friend Owen Coppin rescued it and copied it onto a disc. We had the pleasure of presenting it to Anne. She was awestruck as she had no idea anything like this existed. It was a special evening with a special lady.