Why Olivia Newton-John is returning to the country fold
While a sore throat inspired Olivia Newton-John to sing again, it was her songwriting that drew her back to country.
Olivia, who scored more than a dozen country hits in the ’70s, has returned to her roots with the new album Buck With a Heart. Set for a May release, the CD is her first full-length studio project in a decade.
“The sore throat was a little scary, especially after what I had been through,” says Olivia, 49, who marks her sixth anniversary as a breast cancer survivor this year. “I really started thinking about what it would be like if I couldn’t sing. I kind of took it for granted that I could And I thought, ‘You know, I’d be really devastated if this turned out to be something serious and I couldn’t sing.’ “
For the singer of such classics as “Let Me Be There” and “Please Mr, Please,” the lingering sore throat during Christmas 1996 was frightening, especially after enduring a partial mastectomy and eight months of chemotherapy.
“The sore throat went on and on and on,” she says. “I guess it sparked something. I thought, ‘I have a gift and I’m not using it. Maybe I need to start singing again.’ “ The sore throat turned out to be nothing serious. “But it was an awakening” Olivia says. “I felt it was trying to tell me something.”
So Olivia, who scored hits with “If You Love Me (Let Me Know)” and “Have You Never Been Mellow,” decided she would return to country music.
“I started writing again and thought that I’d like to go back to my roots in country, you know, the simple songs with great melodies and interesting lyrics.”
During a songwriting retreat at a castle in France a couple of summers earlier, Olivia met respected Nashville songwriter Gary Burr. She decided to revisit Music City.
“I had written on my own but I thought it would be fun to write with other people,” she says. “I wrote with Gary in Nashville and came up with some really good songs.”
Olivia’s new single Precious Love” is set for release April 15. “I love to create. It’s wonderful. It has just opened up a lot of things for me,” she says enthusiastically. “The album’s songs are about relationships, whether they’re mine or someone else’s, the pain of relationships breaking up.”
When Back With a Heart is released, Olivia will have come full circle with country music and Nashville. Early in her career, she achieved great success in country. The Academy of Country Music named her the Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1975. That same year she won a Grammy Award for “Let Me Be There.” And in 1974, Olivia snagged the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year.
Olivia’s personal life the past several years could be inspiration for a slew of country songs. She battled cancer, 1ost her father to the disease, divorced husband Matt Lattanzi after ll years of marriage and closed her once successful chain of clothing boutiques, Koala B1ue.
Yet, Olivia, a single mother, remains, philosophical.
“I choose to look at things in a spiritual way and believe you can learn from your experiences” she says. “I had a wonderfu1 career. It’s been interesting I’ve been very lucky”
By Greg Tasker