Olivia won a prize of a trip to England on the Australian talent competition, Sing, Sing, Sing, - she had already been appearing on Australian TV but this could take things further. Although heartbroken to be taking leave of her Australian boyfriend, Olivia came ot London chaperoned by her mother, and part of the prize was a one-off record deal with Decca Records.
Decca didn't make a good job of the fledgeling talent in their recording studio - the Jackie de Shannon song Till You Say You'll Be Mine has Olivia struggling to make herself heard against a wall of sound production that was all the rage at the time. The young Olivia Newton-John didn't have the power to make herself heard well over this instrumental barrage, and the delicate inflection that listeners came to love in her voice over the next decade isn't really much in evidence on the A side.
The B side, however, the song For Ever, shows some hint of the delicacy with which Olivia was to captivate listeners in her early 1970s folk song style. Decca didn't take this any further and it remained a one-off deal.
The single is very rare, but both tracks came out on CD on the See For Miles budget compilation of early Decca tracks Pop Inside The Sixties which came out in 1993.
With thanks to Kay
Songs:
- Till You Say You'll Be Mine
- For Ever
Original Release
- Format: 7in single
- Date: 13 May 1966
- Country: UK
- Label: Decca
- Catalog: F.12396