Olivia Newton-John special focuses on change
It was, as the show his trade publications like to say, a chart-buster for many weeks, the biggest hit of Olivia Newton-John’s career. With its sexually provocative lyrics, Physical also is Newton-John’s first venture into rock oriented music.
When the album containing the controversial title song was initially released, Physical got itself banned by some radio stations in Utah, surely one of the best things that can happen to a record. The controversy surrounding the song can be counted among the numerous reasons for its success. But as any Newton-John fan will breathlessly to you, obviously the main reason it “went gold” was simply be cause Olivia did it and along the way revealed an entirely new facet of her talents. Viewers will be able to judge this for themselves tonight, when she stars in Olivia Newton-John: Let’s Get Physical, at 10 p.m. on WTSP-Channel 10 and WXLT-Channel 40
THE ABC SPECIAL, taped in Los Angeles, Malibu and London, uses the new album as a focal point. Performing songs drawn mainly from the record, Newton-John presents each cut as a surrealistic vignette, showcased with an elaborate production backdrop. The songs include Landslide, Stranger’s Touch, Silvery Rain and, of course, the biggie, Physical.
Newton-John recently discussed the special and immediately shattered certain fantasies many of her admirers may have had about the show. Laughing, the Australian raised singer explained that anyone hoping for the obvious setting that that the suggestive mood and lyrics of Physical conjure up will have to settle for something else. “It’s done in a gymnasium setting”, Newton-John said. “There’s a lot of whimsy and humor in the way we handled it. Obviously, because of the lyrics, it had to be left so you can make your own interpretations. I think it worked out beautifully, though. It’s a very stylized piece.”
For Newton-John, the harder rocking and hard breathing sound of Physical is a major crossover from what she’s been doing for most of her recording career. Likewise, she says that when she co-starred with John Travolta in the blockbuster movie version of the musical, Grease, it also was a significant turning point for her acting career. It was the movie that transformed her image from the perky young girl up the block to that of a hot blooded vamp. (Grease earned more than $150-million in international rentals alone.) Asked why she wasn’t cast for the sequel, she promptly replied, “It is simply that I was never really asked to do it. No deal was ever struck. They decided to go with an unknown.”
IN SHARP CONTRAST, however, her next film, Xanadu, drew relatively kind words from the critics, but it was a box-office klunker. “I learned a lot from that,” Newton-John says somewhat ruefully. “I should not have taken a script that was really not finished. My problem was I fell in love with the outline.”
Newton-John’s newly found maturity, in terms of a record sound and expression of an obvious stage sexuality, is quite a way from her earlier image. Not that she did badly with it. Since 1974, she racked up a dozen hits that landed in the magic Top Ten circle. There is hardly a den that could hold all the honors and awards she has, including two Grammys, eight American Music Awards and enough framed citations from such important trade publications as Billboard, Cashbox and Record World to fill a vault. Virtually all of her earlier hits were mild C&W-oriented songs, which eventually gave way to a string of gentle ballads like I Honestly Love You and Please, Mr. Please, to Have You Never Been Mellow and Let Me Be There.
Said Newton-John: “We decided early on that the album Physical would be all uptempo. People have enough misery and sadness in the world. We thought it was time to liven and brighten up.” She added, “I think it’s very different for me. It’s been two years since I made an album and, between each album, my tastes change because of the influences around me. I’m more adventurous now and it’s exciting for me to do something really new. I love all kinds of music, but I never really cared much for rock until recently.”
Newton-John said that one of her deepest interests is the subject of a song she co-wrote with long-time friend and producer John Farrar, which is on the album and which will he highlighted in tonight’s special. The Promise deals with ecology and the kinship between humans and dolphins. “I earnestly believe that we can learn to communicate with these gracious creatures,” says Newton-John.
Photo Caption: Olivia Newton-John, who is an ocean-side dweller in Malibu Beach, sings a song saluting the dolphins who gladden her days in Olivia Newton John: Let's Get Physical, tonight at 10 p.m. on Chs. 10 and 40, ABC
By Bill Kaufman