Newton-John to Be At Livingston, April 10 1975
Olivia Newton-John will again sing in tall cotton when she returns to the deep South Thursday to perform on the Livingston University campus.
This year’s Rising Star she was named on CBS’s “Entertainment of the Year Awards” claims two Grammies, the Country Music Association’s Top Female Vocalist of the Year Award, and four American Music Awards.
Enthusiasm rings high for the SGA sponsored show scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. in Pruiti Hall Gymnasium. Advanced tickets at $4 p per person may be purchased by contacting the Student Affairs Office, Station 3, LU. Tickets at the door are $5.
Earlier this year Olivia was breaking all time attendance records at the Dixie National Livestock Show & Rodeo in Jackson, Miss., and her concert at Livingston is expected to be another sell out. Current top singles “I Honestly Love You” and “Have You Never Been Mellow” follow the star’s other gold singles “Let Me Be There” and “If You Love Me Let Me Know.”
On the record racks last year, the 26 year-old pop and country singer outsold every other songstress but Australian chum Helen Reddy herself. Olivia, who has professed to sing strictly by ear, has composed a few of her own songs like “Changes” on her last album which reflects the traumatic impact of divorce on a child.
She was born in Cambridge, England, the daughter of a Welshman and the granddaughter of Nobel-German prize-winning physicist Max Born.
Her musical influences while growing up were Tennessee Ernie Ford, Ray Charles, Joan Baez and Nina Simone. Although she earried a British passport, the singer lived in Austrialia for 11 years after her father was made master of University College in Melbourne.
Olivia started to sing in her early teens and got regular TV gigs until a talent-contest prize took her back to England at age 16. She started with Toomorrow, a teenybob group: then toured with Cliff Richard, Britain’s Pat Boone, and made her name in Europe with her version of Dylan’s “If Not For You.”
The Birmingham News, USA. April 6 1975
Olivia performs at Livingston University, Livingston, AL, USA, April 10 1975.