EDMONTON - How classy a class act is Anne Murray? I'll tell you.

She put the music critics front row centre for her farewell show at the Jubilee Auditorium last night.

Never in my 16 years of reviewing shows has this ever happened. Critics aren't used to this sort of treatment.

We're more accustomed to hunching in the shadows near the exit, scribbling snarky remarks into grubby little notebooks, skulking out in the middle of the show to make deadline and writing a review that makes it sound like we saw the whole thing.

But front row? Spitting distance of the star? Unheard of.

If our Canadian musical treasure did it to curry favour and ensure a swell write-up, she needn't have worried.

Federal law requires that all Canadian music reviewers must write nice things about Anne Murray, and at least once in the review refer to her as "our Canadian musical treasure."

We will say the crowd got what they came for, that Anne Murray at the age of 62 still has the distinctive, pure voice that made her famous, that she sang Snowbird and You Needed Me and Could I Have This Dance and many other hits, that her easy-going wit had the folks in stitches, that having her daughter join her on vocals was a nice touch, and that there were a lot of jokes about getting old and being old.

All of these things happened last night and undoubtedly will when she returns to the Jube on May 12, the actual farewell show.

There were no surprises here. You were expecting something radical after almost 40 years of being the queen of easy listening?

I think she put the critics in the front row so she could call us out - and she did.

"What are you writing?" she said at one point, staring me down.

"My will," I replied, but no one heard. She had the microphone.

"They put the newspaper guys in the front? Geez," she exclaimed and made an exaggerated grimace. There was raucous laughter.

Yeah, nice try, sister. You think this extremely unlikely event would happen without your say-so? They don't give Orders of Canada to dummies. Well, glad to be part of a bit anyway.

To be honest, the proximity to Anne Murray did have its effect. After being wowed by the pianoforte fireworks of opening act Michael Kaeshammer - Harry Connick Jr., Bruce Hornsby, Jelly Roll Morton, Victor Borge and Liberace all rolled into one, and then given meth - her relentless gentle Canadian charm wore me down.

I have to go with my original thesis: Anne Murray is a class act.

There were some problems to get past, if I may risk running afoul of the law. Chunks of the show were unbearably hokey.

The intro "Life of Anne Murray" slide show was pure cornball. And some of the show proper felt like a 1-800 commercial in an old folks home, especially the medley of mouldy oldies.

Ripe cheese was also detected in flat arrangements topped by frothy dollops of Muzak-ready strings. Through it all, Murray smiled, danced unfunkily and deployed her magic pipes to make it look easy.

Folks clapped as much in surprise recognition of an old song - like All of Me - as they did for the performances themselves.

Of the produced stuff, Time Don't Run Out On Me was a highlight. It had a strong pulse. It had a relevant message that is even more apt in the context of a farewell show.

But ultimately the best of the best of Anne Murray came "unplugged," when she gave the string section a break, hauled out the stools and took requests.

"And don't ask for Snowbird," she told the crowd. "Because we always do Snowbird, no matter what."

So we got to hear a hint of what the real Anne Murray deal can be - through Save the Last Dance for Me, the jaunty kids' tune Hey Daddy and the somewhat obscure but lovely A Million More, plus Snowbird.

I've said this before: The acoustic setting was far superior than anything else Murray did in the show.

It allowed a glimpse of where real Canadian country music came from, not the kind of Canadian country music made by Canadian singers who move to Nashville, promptly adopting the methods and twang of the Yanks, but something we could proudly call our own.

Like Anne Murray, our Canadian musical treasure.

By the way, she's only one year older than Cher. With any luck, Murray will drag out her farewell tour even longer.