Singer Says Whirl Blurts Alertness
By Scott Cain
Olivia Newton-John, the singer, tries to stay alert as she whirls around the globe but admits that cities have a tendency to blur together.
“Every morning when I wake up, I always check the matchbooks by the hotel bed to see where I am,” she confesses.
She had just come to Atlanta from Dallas, which stood out in her mind because of having eaten well there. “We have to try to get home-cooked food wherever we can. One of the people in the band is from Dallas and we told him he just had to take us home for dinner.”
The doting Texas mamma treated the Newton-John gang to turkey, cornbread and other homey vittles which went down very well, the star recalls.
Miss Newton-John fancies herself a cook and, at one point in the tour, fixed dinner for her entourage, featuring leg of lamb. She was proud of the accomplishment.
Miss Newton-John makes her home now in England. She lived in Australia at one time. Her father and other relatives still reside in Australia and she tries to get there at least once a year to see them, but finds that the great distance is a formidable barrier.
She made some of her early impression as a singer working with amazingly diverse types ultra-pop star Cliff Richard in England and balladeer Sacha Distel in France.
Since her career took off, with her own renditions of country-flavored American songs, she has appeared opposite a series of uniquely American types, such as Charlie Rich.
Miss Newton-John says she has not found this difficult. In fact, she feels she has found valuable guideposts for herself in working with a diversity of other artists. “I try to learn something from each one,” she says.
The pecularity of Miss Newton-John’s career is that she is a British singer who has achieved her greatest success working in a definitely American vein. Furthermore, she has won even greater acceptance in this country than she has in her own. “That’s because country music is not as popular at home as it is here. There’s not as much market,” she finds.
She came to Atlanta to appear at Six Flags Over Georgia. Her show in Dallas had been at Six Flags there. Her current American tour is filled with such mass-audience engagements state fairs and the like.
She is traveling with her own band, since the problems of using a “pickup” group in each city would be too much. As was true here, in most cities she has to make a dash from airport to hotel room to show site, back to hotel room and then back to airport. Such is the life of a modern troubador.