By spring 1967 she had married Langham in a small ceremony that included the bride's sister, the groom's brother, and a minister. Leaving Laura with her parents, she returned to Toronto and her Eaton's job. That summer MacNeil decided to continue working toward her singing goals as she made a life for her daughter. She also started struggling with her weight, which fluctuated from 119 to 183 pounds. On April 15, 1966, MacNeil gave birth to her daughter Laura. She became pregnant in 1965 frightened and unsure of the future, she returned to her parents, who cared for and supported her. She began dating this man although he had told her his parents wanted him to marry a Sicilian woman. She had also met a man she described as Sicilian, with jet black hair, brown eyes and very white teeth. Like her mother, MacNeil worked for Eaton's, in the Customer Account Services Department By 1964 she had begun taking voice lessons. Upon returning to Sydney in the fall, MacNeil knew she wanted nothing more than to begin her singing career, and with her parents' support she moved right back to Toronto to get started. She had just finished Grade 11 when she took a summer job in Toronto, along with her friend Carolyn Tobin, working for CNR. 1960s īy the summer of 1960 MacNeil was itching to get away to the city to start making a name for herself. After a terrible night of drinking and fighting, MacNeil's older brother Malcolm ('Malkie') arrived in Toronto, and he and Mary convinced their parents that it was time to move back to Cape Breton, which they soon did. Alcoholism, already a large part of her parents' life, became worse in Toronto, especially with her mother's desire to move back to Cape Breton. MacNeil's father worked as a carpenter, her mother worked at Eaton's, and her sister Mary worked at a local grocery store. In the mid-1950s MacNeil's parents sold their store and began a big move that would take them to Sydney, then to Toronto. She called it a point in her life that profoundly affected her because it was a traumatic passage out of innocence. She noted that the sexual abuse eventually ended, unsure whether it was because someone had found out about it or that her family moved away from Big Pond. For many years she kept this to herself, only revealing it for the first time in her autobiography, recalling years of sexual abuse and noting that he had done everything short of raping her. Īs a young girl, MacNeil was molested by her great-uncle who lived down the road from the family home. Her father owned a local store and was a carpenter, and her mother worked in the family store. MacNeil was the fifth of eight siblings she had three brothers and four sisters. She was born with a cleft lip and palate. MacNeil was born in Big Pond to Catherine and Neil J. On the eighth anniversary of her death, April 16, 2021, it was announced that Rita MacNeil would be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame posthumously in May of that same year. Through her career MacNeil received five honorary degrees, released 24 albums, won three Juno Awards, a SOCAN National Achievement Award, four CCMA awards, eleven ECMA awards, was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and was named to the Orders of Nova Scotia and Canada. She was also the only female singer ever to have three separate albums chart in the same year in Australia. In 1990, she was the bestselling country artist in Canada, outselling even Garth Brooks and Clint Black. In the United Kingdom, MacNeil's song "Working Man" was a No. 11 hit in 1990. Her biggest hit, "Flying On Your Own", was a crossover Top 40 hit in 1987 and was covered by Anne Murray the following year, although she had hits on the country and adult contemporary charts throughout her career. Rita MacNeil CM ONS (– April 16, 2013) was a Canadian singer from the community of Big Pond on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island.
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