We should have declared May 5-10 Anne Murray Week. Canada’s first lady of song appeared Monday night at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre to a sold out crowd. I was asked to emcee the show, and told the crowd that I had just found out that during this Coast to Coast one last time tour, the longest standing ovation was 3 minutes in Ottawa. I suggested that we could beat that and we did with almost 4 minutes of thunderous applause at the conclusion of Anne’s show, but that was beaten at the Red Robinson Show Theatre on Friday night, with over 5 minutes of standing ovation. After the Friday night show we met privately with Anne and presented her with a one of a kind item. It was the complete audio recording of her appearance back in 1971 at the Cave Theatre Restaurant. It was discovered by my friend Owen Coppin and transferred to digital from the original tape. The “bootleg” recording had been done by the late Jack Cullen, who was known to break all the rules. He hid a tape recorder under the stage at the Cave in 1971. She was thrilled to have a piece of history that no one knew existed. It was a special evening with a special lady… Add the name Stevie Wonder to the list of performers coming to town this Summer. Stevie will take to the stage at GM Place July 12th. Get your tickets, as they will go fast… Former Kitsilano resident, actor Ryan Reynolds is engaged to the beautiful actress Scarlett Johansson. The two have been an “item” for over a year. He is 31 and she is 23. Reynolds was formerly engaged to Alanis Morissette…
“Click me – I talk!”
Leaving this mortal coil in recent weeks are some famous names in entertainment. Dead at the age of 79 is singer Jerry Wallace, known for hits such as Primrose Lane and How The Time Flies. Also saying a final farewell is country superstar Eddy Arnold, who has passed away at age 89. Known as The Tennessee Plowboy, Arnold was one of the first country giants to cross over to pop. Many in Nashville at the time were not amused; however many others followed and by the mid 1960’s, country had changed forever. In his career Arnold charted 22 pop hits and a staggering 145 hits on the country charts from 1945-to-1983. At one time he was managed by Elvis Presley‘s mentor Col. Tom Parker. Eddy’s biggest hit was Make The World Go Away… A local media man, Dave Roegele has died. His career began in Penticton on CKOK Radio and on CHBC TV. Dave joined KVOS Bellingham in 1964. He returned to Canada in 1966 as a staff reporter for the TV Newsroom at CBC Vancouver. He remained with CBC until his retirement in 1984. He was 83… Canada Post has announced that the 2009 Canadian Recording Artist Stamp Series will feature Stompin’ Tom Connors, Bryan Adams, Edith Butler, and Robert Charlebois. It is about time we started recognizing our own. Good going Canada Post!… Grammy Award winning rock act Stone Temple Pilots are back together and touring. They will headline FOXFEST in Vancouver on August 30th. Tickets are on sale now… The recent BC Association of Broadcasters annual convention has ended and congratulations are in order to News1130 for receiving the Award of Excellence for their coverage of the 2007 oil pipeline explosion in Burrard Inlet… Screen Siren Pictures has two of their projects, produced for CTV, nominated for the 2008 Leo Awards. Both Luna: Spirit of the Whale, a feature length drama inspired by a true story about a stray killer whale, and Reservation Soldiers, a one hour documentary about the Canadian Forces recruitment of aboriginal youth, have been nominated. An encore broadcast of Luna will be shown on TV on June 21st at 8 p.m. Also congratulations to the Leo Awards, this year celebrating their 10th anniversary…