Don't Stop Believin' album Review - Country Music

Don't Stop Believin' album Review

By Dennis Metrano

Olivia Newton-John Don’t Stop Believin’ MCA-2223 $6.98 MCA T-2223 (tape) $7.98 Star rating: * * * *

In 1974 Olivia Newton-John somehow won the CMA award for Female Vocalist of the Year, an odd honor for an Australian pop singer whose music occasionally included a meek steel guitar. The award opened a wound among country purists. Don’t Stop Believin’ does not claim to heal the wound (“Don’t know nothing ‘bout the politics of people”), but simply delivers the best music Newton-John is capable of and, no matter the label, about the best your money can buy.

It is striking how much of the texture of Olivia’s first Nashville recording is attributable to her mentor, John Farrar (an ex-member of Cliff Richard’s Shadows). Besides producing, Farrar wrote four songs, played guitars, and sang backup. Despite Farrar’s monogamous production, Olivia shines in such rich material as Hey Mr. Dreammaker, the backbeat Every Face Tells a Story, and Larry Murray’s funny I’ll Bet You a Kangaroo, nicely punctuated by the staccato harp of Charlie McCoy and the little girl laughter of Olivia. But it is Olivia’s celebrated voice of independence and innocence in Brian Neary’s The Last Time You’ve Loved that brings this album a meaning not found in her usual pop fluff.

Many will argue that Olivia Newton-John deserves to be called the Doris Day of country music. Just as many will argue that they are in love with her voice, her girl-next-door looks and her irrelevant ditties of lost and found romance. In the end, that is the way it should be, for, no matter what you call her, Olivia Newton-John is one of our better performers, and, politics aside, she deserves to be recognized as such, simply because she is one hell of a singer.