Country Is the Word For Newton-John
NASHVILLE - With the 20th anniversary re-release of the movie “Grease,” Olivia Newton-John is once again in the public consciousness. Fans also remember her from her multiple pop hits such as “I Honestly Love You.”
Yet with the May 12 release of “Back With A Heart” on MCA Nashville, Newton-John returns to country “When I decided I wanted to record again,” she says, “the kind of music I was listening to was country and I thought I wanted to go back to my roots. It seems like all the good melodies and the good songs are on country radio.”
Born in Cambridge, England, and raised in Melbourne, Australia, Newton-John first charted on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles chart in 1978 with “Let Me Be There,” which peaked at No. 7. She followed with a string of country hits and in 1973 won a Grammy for best female country vocal performance for “Let Me Be There.” In 1974, she won the female vocalist of the year award from the Country Music Assn. That year, “I Honestly Love You” won Grammys for record of the year and best pop vocal performance.
Newton-John went on to star in the films “Grease,” “Xanadu,” and “Two Of A Kind.” In the late ’70s and ’80s, her music took a more pop direction with hit songs like “Physical.”
She then married and had a daughter. In 1992, she underwent a successful battle with breast cancer. That experience prompted her first major foray into songwriting when she wrote all the songs for the album “Gaia: One Woman’s Journey”
Her health regained, Newton-John visited Music Row “I started going to Nashville and meeting people, and I really liked [MCA Nashville president] Tony Brown,” she says. “I met everybody, and everyone was wonderful, but also I’d been with MCA a long time, and they have my catalog. So it makes sense for me to be there.”
Brown is optimistic about Newton-John’s prospects. “She still looks great. She still sings great, and she’s writing some great songs,” he says. “She decided this was the year to make a record again.”
Newton-John collaborated with several country songwriters for the project, including Gary Burr, Victoria Shaw, and Chris Farren. (She has her own publishing company Zargon Publishing, named after a Great Dane.)
She worked with several producers on the album - Brown, John Farrar, Gary Burr, Don Cook, Chris Farren, and David Foster. She worked with Foster on the remake of “I Honestly Love You,” which features a guest appearance by R&B crooner Babyface.
MCA plans to work the remake of “I Honestly Love You” to AC and hot AC radio; the single “Precious Love” will go to country radio May 11. (A release date for “I Honestly Love You” hasn’t been set.)
Newton-John and her label are hoping for a positive reception from country radio. Many people still remember Nashville’s old guard not taking kindly to the fact that she won country awards in the ’70s. Newton-John says she was unaware of any controversy back then, as her management kept her shielded.
“It just feels natural to me,” Newton-John says of being in the country market. “On all my records, I’ve always done ballads and things that had that feel to them. So I don’t feel like I’m doing anything I shouldn’t be.”
Steve Gary, music director at KASE/KVET Austin, Texas, says he hasn’t yet heard Newton-John’s new music, but he says he’s looking forward to it.
“I’ve sure got an open mind toward Olivia Newton-John,” he says. “I’d love to hear her new stuff. She had some things out in the ’70s that some country stations played. That was when country was in a pretty conservative mode as far as the artists they played and the songs they played. Now I think the boundaries of what’s acceptable have been pushed a little bit.”
With the exposure Newton-John is getting via the “Grease” revival, does Gary think she could bring country listeners back into the fold? “That’s a possibility,” he says. “There certainly is a fan base for [“Grease”]. If she gets the play on country radio, and if that’s where people have to go to get her music, then she could bring some people in that we wouldn’t otherwise get.”
MCA VP of national promotion Dave Weigand agrees. “I think she can bring listeners back into the format and really help the format,” he says. “She has cross-demo appeal, and she has a real twentysomething cult following. She has mass appeal.”
Brown says Newton-John’s music and image fit the country format. “She’s a very sweet person, and country music is about people that have good values,” he says. “It represents middle America, and she’s all that.”
Brown describes Newton-John as an icon, and Weigand admits her place in popular culture has people anticipating her return.
“A lot of accounts have been asking what she’s doing and what she’s been up to and so forth,” he says. “Because a lot of people are such huge Olivia fans, we put together a scrapbook. We got Olivia’s personal scrapbook and we designed our marketing plan after that. It gives our accounts a preview of how we’re going to market Olivia. It gives information on our radio and media plan and our advertising plan.”
Weigand says the label is also looking at opportunities provided by Newton-John’s current exposure. “The driving force of our marketing efforts is going to be media,” Weigand says. “She’s going to get a ton of media, and we’re gong to capitalize on that.”
He says she will be on TV shows such as “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” and RuPaul’s show on VH1. She’ll also be in magazines like “People,” “US,” “Good Housekeeping,” and others. She’s also slated to be a presenter on the Academy of Country Music Awards April 22 and will perform at Fan Fair in June.
She is managed by Mark Hartley at the Fitzgerald Hartley Co. and booked by CAA. She plans to tour in support of her new album. Newton-John is looking forward to sharing these songs with an audience. “I think my voice is more mature now,” she says. “I think the songs might be more personal than I might have done before.
“I’m going to be 50 this year,” she adds. “It’s a really interesting time of my life. It’s a wonderful new time of my life. So I thought I’d do another album and see how it goes.”