On the night of October 27, 2025, Anne Murray walked into the Opry House in Nashville and the place erupted. Fans waved Canadian flags. Someone yelled, “We love you, Anne!” Someone else shouted back, “I love you more!”
Anne, dressed in black sequins, took her seat in the fourth row. And for a moment, she honestly wasn’t sure who all that noise was for.
She told NPR about it a few months later:
“I said, ‘Who’s here?’ I’ve been out of the limelight for so long. Then I went, ‘Oh! That’s for me!'”
It was for her. The whole night was. It was called The Music of My Life: An All-Star Tribute to Anne Murray, and some of the biggest names in country music came to sing her songs back to her.
Seventeen Years Away
Anne walked away from music in 2008, after her Christmas album. She has said she was tired after 40 years, and she wanted to be a mom again, and by then a grandmother too. She went home to Nova Scotia and lived quietly.
So when people started talking about a tribute concert in Nashville, she didn’t put much stock in it. She later told American Songwriter she didn’t know if it would ever really happen.
“I’ve been retired for 17 years, so it never occurred to me that something like this might happen.”
It happened just weeks after she released Here You Are, an album of 11 songs she recorded years ago and never put out. A devoted fan had tracked them down in university archives.
The Night, Song by Song
Collin Raye opened the show with “Daydream Believer.” Pam Tillis followed with “Shadows in the Moonlight.”
Then Trisha Yearwood stepped up and couldn’t hide how she felt. “My junior high self is freaking out right now,” she told the crowd, before singing “Somebody’s Always Saying Goodbye.” She thanked Anne for blazing a trail for women in country music.
When Shenandoah played “Could I Have This Dance,” people in the audience grabbed their partners and slow danced in the aisles of the Opry House. One reviewer called it one of the most joyful moments of the night.
Lorrie Morgan sang “You Needed Me.” Martina McBride sang “Danny’s Song.” Kathy Mattea took “I Just Fall in Love Again.” Fellow Canadian Michelle Wright got “Snowbird,” and she said it was Anne who taught a small-town Canadian girl like her to dream big.
Natalie Grant started “How Great Thou Art” with no music at all, just her voice, and the crowd rose to its feet. The a cappella group Straight No Chaser sang “He Thinks I Still Care,” and that one brought Anne herself up for a standing ovation.
k.d. lang came out barefoot and sang “A Love Song.” She has worked with Anne many times over the years, and she told her straight out:
“You plowed the road before I got there, and I owe so much of my success to you.”
There were video messages too. Reba McEntire sent one. Blake Shelton said Anne was his favorite artist. And Randy Travis walked out arm in arm with his wife Mary, who spoke for both of them, and the whole building stood up for him.
“They Should Be Ashamed”
Not every word that night was gentle.
Nancy Jones, the widow of George Jones, came to Nashville with something to say. Backstage before the show, she said it plainly.
“They should be ashamed of themselves, not having her in there.”
She was talking about the Country Music Hall of Fame. For all of Anne’s hits on the country charts, she has never been inducted.
Nancy said George used to call Anne the “golden voice,” and that he loved Canada. Then she promised to do whatever she could to get Anne into the Hall of Fame. On stage, she kept pushing, and one reviewer said her calls for Anne’s induction had the whole room fired up like a revival.
She wasn’t the only one. The point came up several times that night.
Why People Think She Belongs
Anne was the first Canadian female solo artist to reach No. 1 in the United States. “Snowbird” gave her the first American gold record ever earned by a Canadian woman singing solo.
She won four Grammys and three CMA Awards. In 1984, A Little Good News made her one of only four female solo artists to win CMA Album of the Year between 1967 and 1990. She co-hosted the CMA Awards with Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Kenny Rogers. She is often named alongside Kenny Rogers and Glen Campbell as one of the voices who brought country music to millions of new listeners in the 1970s.
One Year Later
On March 20, 2026, the Country Music Association announced its Hall of Fame Class of 2026: Tim McGraw, songwriter Paul Overstreet and bluegrass pioneers the Stanley Brothers.
Anne Murray’s name was not on the list.
She is 81 now. She still welcomes fans every summer at the Anne Murray Centre in her hometown of Springhill, Nova Scotia. And one year after Nashville stood up for her, she is still waiting on that call.
Do you think Anne Murray belongs in the Country Music Hall of Fame? And which of her songs still takes you back? Tell us in the comments.