Farrar Cuts His Own Tape
By Linda Hamilton, Deseret News staff writer
Think about it. When a guy writes a song for someone else to record, how does he get it across to the intended? Sheet music, sure but the inflections are hard to describe in so many symbols.
John Farrar has always used a demo tape of him singing the songs he’s written for Olivia Newton-John, and that process has worked for most of her biggest hits “Have You Never Been Mellow,” “You’re the One That I Want,” Hopelessly Devoted to You,.” “If You Love Me Let Me Know,” Magic,” Xanadu”.
With friends hearing demo tape after demo tape of Farrar’s singing, somebody was bound to notice his voice as well as the lyrics and music he was trying to sell.
“I played some to my manager,” said Farrar by phone from Los Angeles “and he thought it might be something new, so he talked to CBS (Records) and got me a deal.”
Farrar, a black-haired, bearded Australian, has just released his first solo album, “John Farrar.” A single, probably titled “Can’t Hold Back,” is to be released in a few weeks. His style and voice fall somewhere between Newton-John and Michael McDonald of the Doobies.
The album hasn’t been out long enough to tell if it will sell, but if it doesn’t, Farrar won’t be heartbroken. “I want to be a writer mainly. If the record happens, it would give me another outlet for my songs, and that would make me real happy.” he said.
In addition to having written most of Olivia’s hits, Farrar also knew success as a replacement member of the Shadows, one of Britain’s best-loved and most enduring groups. His relationship with Olivia, singer Pat Carroll (now his wife of 10 years), the Shadows and their leader Hank Marvin, who contributed to the writing of “John Farrar”, all began years ago in Australia.
Olivia and Pat each won Australian talent contests that carried as prizes a trip to England to perform as opening acts for the Shadows.
“They were too scared to work on their own so they went as a duo,” John remembers Pat returned to Australia, married Farrar, and they both went to England so he could join Marvin and Bruce Welch for an acoustic trio when the Shadows disbanded.
The trio was dolayed as Marvin went to a TV series, so Welch and Farrar “went into the studio with Olivia to see what we could come up with.” That was “If Not For You,” her first hit. The trio and later the Shadows were reformed with Farrar producing for Olivia all the while.
In 1975 Farrar wrote “Have You Never Been Mellow,” mainly because he “liked the word so I wrote a song around it,” and it was L.A. and stardom ever after.
Though “Rolling Stone’s Record Guide” dismisses all of Newton-John’s albums as fluff and calls her a blank-faced Barbie doll with a whispering fashion model voice, Farrar defends her abilities. “She’s really a good singer with great range,” he says. “It’s not that difficult” to write songs she’ll sound good singing.
“She wants to have more energy in her performances,” he adds. “and she is steering more toward rock and roll.”
“You’re the One That I Want” partly proves Farrar’s contention that Newton-John can handle harsher stuff. When Farrar writes, he crafts the melody first. “That sort of puts me off on some angle and helps me come up with lyrics. I find that very hard.”
He professes difficulty with lyrics, yet some on his own album are quite good. “Obviously, it’s something I did very privately in a friend’s studio,” he says. And coming home from that studio provided one of the songs, “Cheatin’ His Heart Out Again.”
Farrar was driving during one of those California flash floods. “It was washing cars away, and I got caught in it driving up the hill to where I live managed to get through it but there was water up to the doors and rocks coming down It was quite scary” He turned the idea into a song about a guy cheating on his wife who uses such a storm as an excuse to stay in a motel in town for the night.
In reality, Pat and John are happily married and have a 21/2-year-old son, Sam.