I was Anne Murray’s business manager for almost twenty-five years, and I’m often asked how that came about. The answer is actually a perfect example of the six degrees of separation theory.
In the spring of 1971, Anne was riding high with her monster hit Snowbird, was about to become a huge international star, and had recently moved to Toronto. Her career had been launched a few years earlier when she starred in the Halifax CBC-TV show Singalong Jubilee. One of the musicians on Singalong was George Buckley, a young banjo player from London, Ontario. George and Anne had remained friends, so it was natural for her to reconnect with him in Toronto, where George was now a broker with the investment firm Wood Gundy. George found Anne an apartment in the same building where he was living in the Yonge-Davisville area.
George had a good friend, Tony Grey, a young lawyer with the large Toronto law firm, McCarthy, McCarthy (now McCarthy Tetrault), and Tony became Anne’s lawyer. Tony knew he could handle Anne’s legal affairs, but knowing she also needed overall business, tax, and financial advice he asked a senior partner at his firm, Ron Robertson, to recommend a chartered accountant. Ron called Don Beach, my partner at Coopers & Lybrand (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers).
Although Don was perfectly qualified to advise Anne, he preferred doing corporate tax work. As I was dealing almost exclusively with individuals, and in a broader capacity than just income tax, Don arranged for me to have lunch with Anne, Tony and George. We hit it off and I took over Anne’s financial and business affairs. Six degrees of separation: Anne, George, Tony, Ron, Don, and me.
This would be a good time to clear up a misconception. Many people think Anne Murray was my first high-profile client. She most certainly was not; and she wasn’t even my first entertainment-business client. When Anne became a client I was already doing work for opera singers Jon Vickers and Riki Turofsky and the rock group Crowbar. At that time I also had fifty-four NHL players, a number of popular media personalities and many very well-known CEOs as clients.