Olivia - pop plus a little country
Olivia Newton-John Opens Thursday at Celebrity.
Olivia Newton-John. The name sort of rolls off the tongue. It conjures up visions of Wimpole St. It’s a name that could have been given a friend of Cathy and Heathcliff. Or maybe the lead in a movie version of any Daphne du Maurier novel.
And perhaps one day it will. For the present, the name belongs to the No. 1 female singer (according to the charts and the awards) in the land.
OLIVIA HAS BEEN making a name for herself, with three consecutive hit singles and a pair of hit albums. That name has been spread on country and the pop charts and country and pop radio stations.That’ s where the rub comes in.
Some of the country folk don’t like little Welsh-born, Australian-reared singers coming in and walking off with the top prize in country music, the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year award.
And that’s what Olivia did last October, mainly on the strength of “Let Me Be There” and “If You Love Me (Let Me Know).”
Sweet old Olivia didn’t help matters. when she was reputed to have said, “I enjoy country music but I don’t know much about it,” and the firm quote of, “I love country music, although of course I don’t intend to limit myself to that alone.”
THE UPSTART OF ALL this was the organization of the Association of Country Entertainers, which aims to keep country, country. Olivia isn’t a member.
Let Me Be There
While Miss Newton-John professes no great affinity for country music, one and a half of her two and a half albums are overtly country in makeup.
The two and a half comes from the fact that Olivia’s first album, If Not For You (that’s right, the Dylan tune) (UNI 73117) came out in 1971 and went nowhere. When “Let Me Be There” hit in 1973, it was resurrected by MCA (which had bought out UNI in the meantime).
BUT NOT THE entire album, just most of it. Six songs “If.” “In A Station,” “Where Are You Going To My Love,” “Lullaby.” “If I Gotta Leave” and “No Regets” were dropped and four were added.
The new songs included the title cut, “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “Angel of the Morning” and “Just A Little Too Much.” The album then became Let Me Be There (MCA 389).
The album, either the first or second, has a decidedly country flavor about it. With songs like “Banks of the Ohio” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and the arrangements given “Me and Bobby McGee” and “If You Could Read My Mind,” it’s hard not to come to that conclusion.
But the first album also contained the highly pop stylings of “If” and Tom Rush’s “No Regrets.”
Then came If You Love Me, Let Me Know (MCA-411), which is a bit more pop than country. Olivia’s latest hit single, “I Love You, I Honestly Love You” is a straight pop tune, but still gets air play on the country stations.
IT’S LIKE THE FIRST album was a smorgasbord of styles, a test pattern to see which one developed. The revised album played upon the country stylings while the latest is aimed at getting Olivia back into the so-called mainstream.
That can be translated to money there’s more opportunity for easy money on the pop side of things.
All of which points out the problem that we have in trying to place singers, and other performers, into little cubby holes. It would seem that with singers in particular, there is this public preoccupation.
There’s really no sense in trying to limit one’s scope, but this is precisely what has happened. It’s so much better to just sit back and listen and enjoy.