Olivia wants it to happen
There’s a rather freaky, hairy, heavy music orientated, call it what you will, shop situated quite near to where I live. Some Zeppelin, Purple or Hoop music always belting out through its speakers; its record racks are liberally stocked with Velvet Underground, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Grateful Dead album sleeves; its assistants are generally long-haired, bearded and seemingly slow-witted.
Yet, surprisingly, conversely you can always find an Olivia Newton-John album sleeve in the shop window. If you listen attentively and carefully, you may even catch a snatch of ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ or ‘It Not For You’ in between tracks like ‘Woman From Tokyo’ and ‘Black Dog’ played on a Saturday morning.
It reflects Livvy’s wide, universal if you like, appeal. I’ve yet to find anyone, mother, father or Zep fan, who really dislikes her or her country-style much, anyone who fervently objects to her manner of singing and delivery. She’s immensely wide-eyed, smoothly (almost perfectly) featured and friendly. Perhaps overly so - all too often, it’s very difficult to distinguish between simple politeness, graciousness and out and out sincerity.
Last week represented her first visit to Britain for some time - seven months in fact. “It’s a long time really,” she admits, “I’ve been touring in America a lot, playing colleges, universities, even appearing at Las Vegas and doing television. Everything. It was great. “I have a band to back me. It’s a six-piece from Minneapolis called The Oneness. Their own stuff is heavy jazz, but they play fantastic country rock for me. They’re very talented.”
What sort of audience did you find you attracted in the States? “Well, really from kids to grandmothers. I don’t seem to be missing out on any age group. I seem to have a sort of - uh - wide range of fans” Which is unusual? “Yeah,” she laughs, “I really don’t know why. I’ve had a reasonable amount of success in England, but nothing to the extent of what I’ve had in America. I think it’s the records, mainly - my music was successful long before I ever toured there. I had two hit country records and then a hit, with a ballad and then I flew over to the States I did an awful lot of live work in small colleges places like that. Before I had the big hit record - ‘I Honestly Love You’ - I did a bus tour of about three weeks of all the colleges. But mainly it was word of mouth, I think music can be easily related to. after all.””
Olivia had a couple of pretty large hit singles in Britain, ‘Banks Of The Ohio’ and ‘Country Roads’ three or four years ago. Then everything tapered off, and she has never equalled that success since.
“Hmmm,” she reflects “I also had a hit with What Is Life, after that nothing really happened here. I don’t think that my music was taken all that seriously, and perhaps it was a case of releasing the wrong songs at the wrong time, there’s an awful lot of that involved.”
Even ‘I Honestly Love You’, Olivia’s huge US hit, failed to make a substantial impression in Britain. “Well, I think that a lot of people didn’t have a proper chance to hear it. In America there are so many radio stations, say 20 or 30 to each city, and people are able to hear a record 10 or 52 times a day, even if they’re just fiddling about with the dial. Here, you’re lucky to get maybe two or three plays a day - and ballads like I Honestly Love You’ obviously need to be played time and time again and are that much harder to get off the ground. Except … when someone like Minnie Riperton has a hit with ‘Loving You’, which was in the American top five the same time as ‘I Honestly Love You’. Maybe she had the hit over here because she’s American and the song’s new and - it was just a very different record. You just can’t tell what’s going to happen.”
How did you first get involved in the music business? The first time I remember hearing the name Olivia Newton-John was around five or six years ago, in a group called Toomorrow. “Yeah, that was around 1969. You want me to go right back there?” Uh-huh. “Well, I came to Britain from Australia in 1966,” traces of a rather broad Australian accent, mixed in with European, American influences, are still evident, “and I was a double act with another girl for a couple of years. “Then I joined Toomorrow we were supposed so be the new “in” group. We had a lot of publicity lavished upon us. We made a film that did nothing, a record that did nothing. In all it was rather horrible. I spent two years sort of waiting for the big moment, but it never happened. It all folded in 1970.
“At the beginning of 1971 I made my first solo record, If Not For You. It was a big - and it was unbelievable, I couldn’t believe it. It was also a hit in America, funnily enough, but I didn’t go across then. Where can I go from there? Well, you know what I’ve been doing - I worked with Cliff Richard a lot, did a fair number of television appearances. I didn’t do a lot of live work until 1974, when everything started happening in America. Are you planning to tour over here at all? “No,” she says, bluntly, “not at the moment. There’s not much point until I have some record success otherwise no-one will come.”
To what do you attribute the lack of record success over here? “I really don’t know, I don’t think you can ever say why. If I knew why then I’d be able to have number ones all the time. It might be the wrong songs, it might be the wrong sound or timing - I just don’t know.”
A lot of Olivia’s songs are country-orientated. Bearing in mind Tammy Wynette’s current success, and the general nationwide acceptance of country music, do you think this might open any previously closed doors for you? “Maybe it will. It’s quite ironic that Tammy Wynette’s having this success, actually. I’m having hits in America with country songs, and I’ve been trying to have hits here with them but couldn’t. “I think country music is nice, happy music. It’s easy so sing along with. Maybe people are starting to sit up and notice now, we’ll have to see.”
Are you living in America at the moment? “Yeah, all my work is there at the moment so I don’t we any point in commuting. It was much simpler to pack my bags and move plus I couldn’t keep two homes going. I’ve given up my residency in Britain now so I’m only allowed back three weeks a year, which isn’t long. But I still regard Britain as my home country, nonetheless, even though I am Australian.’
Why did you leave Australia in the first place? “I didn’t actually want to. I won a contest on television - a talent contest - and the prize was a trip here and my mother insisted that I had to leave and broaden my horizons. I didn’t want to go at all. But after I was here for a while it all grew on me. Eventually I found I didn’t want to leave. Also, I started to get interested in what I was doing - I was, at first, singing, but I wasn’t that involved. Then I started working with that other girl and, as I say, we did a double act here and I began to enjoy it”
You hope that the new single, ‘Follow Me’, may be the one to take you back into the singles charts? - “I’d love it to happen. I’m not always this pessimistic, but I don’t have great hopes, because I’ve had such bad luck with the songs we really wanted to be hits. ‘Have You Never Been Mellow’ and ‘I Honestly Love You’ I really believed in as songs. In America they happened and here they didn’t, so I don’t know. But I’d really love it to happen. Maybe it will. If I’m not too conscious of it, maybe it’ll happen”
Do you find it disappointing that you cannot consolidate your record success in what you now regard as your home country? ‘I suppose it is a little. It doesn’t upset me, because I’m having success somewhere else. As long as it happens somewhere, then it’s terrific. I’d love it to happen here, after all, Britain is where I came to have it happen.”