We Love Ya Olivia
By Pete Bishop
Mary Macgregor, Barbra Streisand, Debby Boone, Donna Summer, Crystal Gayle, the Emotions, Rita Coolidge, Carly Simon - 1977, where hit singles, are concerned, has been “Ladies’ Year,” and Olivia Newton-John thinks “it’s terrific.”
“I think people are starting to listen to female singers more than they used to,” said Miss Newton-John, herself an established hit-maker, in town today on a goodwill, fence-mending tour.
“HELEN REDDY TOLD me that when she was first getting started the radio stations would play maybe one girl an hour. Now you may hear three girls in a row. Maybe the barriers are coming down.”
You’ll notice that Miss Newton-John’s name is not in the opening paragraph of this story. She hasn’t had a big hit this year, and that’s the reason for this 11-city jaunt, to support her “Greatest Hits” album and get back into the public ear.
“I seem to have lost touch with people. I spent six months doing a lot of filming (of “Grease” with John Travolta) and didn’t get to too many cities,” she said. “I have done one five-week tour this year; the film took up most of the year.”
Touring poses no special problems for women that men don’t face, “although never having been a man I couldn’t say,” Miss Newton-John said with a laugh.
“But they must be the same. We do the same traveling and have the same pressures. I think women are maybe a little stronger. When I’m traveling and doing this kind of work, I look after myself very carefully. I think women are more conscious of how they look and what they eat.”
SHE ENCOUNTERS no problems in the concert hall, either, none of the crude remarks other women sometimes get. “People are very polite, just a few wolf whistles. And during ‘I Honestly Love You, some people yell, I love you.’”
Although the 30-year-old Grammy-winner had “a great time” making “Grease,” it cost her a band; she now has to pick one up in every city. “There are some fellows I like to work with, but I can’t really keep them. I haven’t been working on the road enough to make it worth keeping them on retainer.”
Such is the price of diversity. And diversity seems the name of Miss Newton-John’s game now.
She recently did two holiday radio specials, one for Thanksgiving with rock stars Peter Frampton, Shaun Cassidy, Karen Carpenter, Alice Cooper, Kiki Dee and Travolta, the other for Christmas with country singers Stella Parton, Charley Pride, Merle Haggard, Barbara Mandrell and Eddie Rabbit.
Isn’t it almost bizarre for a woman born in England and raised in Australia to be the gap-bridger among rock, pop and country? “Not at all”, she says.
“I always liked country music,” said Miss Newton-John, who plays piano by ear (“which can be very painful,” she cracked) and “a little bit a very little bit” of guitar.
“It’s pretty simple: nice melodies, simple arrangements, nice words sad, but nice. In England, where I recorded my first album, I never knew the distinction (between rock and country) but I do now. But I think the gap’s narrowing anyway.”