We Love Ya Olivia
By STEPHEN DEMOREST
There were tougher beats in the naked city than mine Sunday night. I watched a frisky blonde named Olivia Newton-John make butterscotch out of more than 3,500 New Yorkers at the Metropolitan Opera House. Dressed in a scooped white dress and gold cowboy boots, she performed a variety of cross-over standards with devastating wholesomeness.
Olivia’s slight, airy voice is not a marvel of our age, but her vocals are well enough acted to project the personality that is her real asset informal, sweet, bubbly as Coca-Cola. She pines guilelessly, or dances a carefree “pony” as unthreateningly as the lissome girl next-door.
Her own hits, like “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “I Honestly Love You,” tend to be sentimental ballads that are enhanced by her soft-eyed earnestness. From her forthcoming album, the premiered “Cooling Down,” a fairly affecting ballad, and a Bee-Geeish dance tune called “Making a Good Thing Better.”