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Photography by Kevin Kelly
The lyrics reveal a very personal reflection of, not only his past, but the present and future as well. The new album opens with Pick Yourself Up. His voice and guitar playing are front and centre on each track. The tune was originally written for the film Swing Time (1936), and introduced by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It also served as the theme song for The Johnny Carson Show. On this new album there are a few other timeless tunes that he chose to cover, however he still considers them his songs as well. “I’ve made them my own. They’ve seen me through some dark times and helped me to see the clouds from the other side,” he confides. The Luckiest Guy is a tribute to McLauchlan’s wife Denise Donlon, who forged her own career in the entertainment industry. I’m Not Gonna Waste Another Minute of My Life is more or less what the title states…take the time to enjoy every minute of life we have here on this planet. “Of the songs I wrote or co-wrote, Love Just Can’t Tell Time and Little White Lies have a special place in my heart. They were co-written with my friend Alison Gordon, a take-no-prisoners gal who was a sportswriter, a novelist, and broadcaster. She passed away before I finished this record, but she lives on in these songs,” he reminisces. McLauchlan is also one-quarter of the mega-songwriter group, Lunch at Allen’s. With four CDs under their belts, they continue to sell out venues across Canada. The band consists of McLauchlan, Cindy Church, Marc Jordan and Ian Thomas. As individuals, they have penned hits for Chicago, Josh Groban, Bonnie Raitt, America, Santana, Cher, and Rod
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Stewart, just to name a few. McLauchlan has always been unabashedly passionate about Canada, and that great love collided with his love of aviation, when he piloted a circumnavigation of the entire country in 1986, from Atlantic to Pacific to Arctic, in a Cessna 185 floatplane. He was followed by a film crew, which resulted in the TV special Floating Over Canada. After reuniting with Doris McCarthy (a past art school teacher) and one of Canada’s great landscape painters, McLauchlan rediscovered his love for painting. He had a couple gallery showings last year, and sees painting as “an existential experience similar to music.” Recently one of Murray’s donated works was auctioned off to raise money for the Nature Conservancy. Some are also now hanging on the walls of EMI, and the home of Pamela Wallin.
They’ve seen me through some dark times and helped me to see the clouds from the other side In 2016, he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, and produced a concert called Voices that Care at the Glenn Gould Theatre in Toronto, a benefit for the Room 217 Foundation, a social enterprise dedicated to caring through music. Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy, Molly Johnson and Corner Gas star Eric Peterson showed their support at this inaugural event. In May of this year, he produced a second edition featuring Margaret Atwood, Natalie MacMaster, and Donnell Leahy. This year McLauchlan turns 69…but age is only a number. “I’m going to hold onto that for as long as I can,” he chuckles. He toured Ontario earlier this year playing all of his classic tunes as well as his new material. Along with the upcoming Lunch at Allen’s dates, this only proves how dedicated he still is to playing music and entertaining fans…for many more years to come. murraymclauchlan.com