Murray McLauchlan began writing songs and performing them in his late teens. After playing at major music festivals, such as The Philadelphia Folk Festival, where he appeared alongside Jim Croce and John Prine, and Mariposa where he gave up half of his concert time so Joni Mitchell could play, he began to attract wider attention on the club circuit, playing such well known rooms as The Riverboat in Toronto, The Bitter End in New York, The Main Point in Philadelphia, and the famous Earl of Old Town in Chicago.
Before Murray had actually recorded an album of his own, his "Child's Song" was already well known after being recorded by American folk star Tom Rush. Live versions of his song "Honky Red" were performed by Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, And Bobby Neuwirth. He received early song cuts by country music star George Hamilton IV.
Now, thirty odd years later, Murray has eighteen albums to his credit on both True North Records and Capitol Records. His songs have been covered by many other artists as well as being featured in high school text books. He has played, both solo, and with bands in ever major hall in Canada, from Massey Hall in Toronto, to the Orpheum in Vancouver and all the Jubilees in between. His band "The Silver Tractors" is still remembered fondly from the TV special "On the Boulevard" for CBC and playing Maple Leaf Gardens with Gordon Lightfoot's Olympic Team benefit in 1976. It was a very loud band.
Over the years, Murray has won eleven JUNO awards, as well as RPM "Big Country" awards and Toronto music awards.
McLauchlan has always been unabashedly passionate about Canada and that great love collided with his love of aviation when he made a circumnavigation of the entire country, from Atlantic to Pacific to Arctic, in a Cessna 185 floatplane, followed by a film crew. The result was the special Floating over Canada starring Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Buffy Ste. Marie, Levon Helm, Edith Butler, and a host of unsuspecting Canadians who became involved.
This show became a regular mainstay of Canada day broadcasts for a number of years until it eventually found its way onto PBS in the United States.
Murray has also been passionate about song-writing as an art form and starting in the mid 80s he found an outlet as the host of the CBC weekly radio program Swinging on a Star, a showcase for and a celebration of the songwriters art in a live performance venue. It was the top rated music show in the country with over 750,000 listeners every Saturday for five years.
In 1993, to his great amazement, Murray was appointed to the Order of Canada and still firmly believes that many others deserve it more. His only regret was that his mom and dad didn't live to see the ceremony. 1998 saw the release of Murray's book, a memoir titled Getting Out of Here Alive on Penguin/Viking. It had taken a year and a half to write it and provided a very well-lit snapshot of the early days of the Toronto music scene as well as some hard looks at its inhabitants.
For the past two years, Murray has made major trips to explore his other great love--painting. Since being re-united with his teacher from art school days, Doris McCarthy, one of Canada's great landscape painters, Murray has been producing work with the intent of having a show. Negotiations are underway with a Toronto gallery.
Murray has been less active as a performer in recent years, but that doesn't mean he has been idle. His songs continue to appear.
Notably, his "No Change in Me" was a featured song in the musical "Needfire", as well as being recorded by John McDermott, and The Ennis sisters. Murrays co-write with Tom Wilson, "Burned Out Car", became a duet on the Junkhouse album, featuring Sarah McLachlan and Tom, and won the best video JUNO. Murray co-wrote "You Should be Havin' Fun" with Barney Bentall, and "Bad Girl" with Lorraine Segato of Parachute Club. Bentall, incidentally, produced McLauchlan's 1996 album Gullivers Taxi, which featured The Odds from Vancouver, Billy Cowsill, Tom Wilson from Junkhouse and a whole lot of collaborations with some great songwriters.
Murray is also very active on the business side and has for a number of years been a board member at SOCAN, the Canadian songwriters/publishers collective, championing the cause of author's rights and copyright reform. He also sits on the boards of the SOCAN Foundation, The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and The Music Works Foundation, based in the USA.
Murray is happily married to Denise Donlon, Executive Director of CBC's English language radio division. They have a son together, which means that the most important job Murray has is being a dad.
