6/30/66 - The Beatles played the first of three concerts at
the Nippon Budokan Hall in Japan.
The concert was filmed with The Beatles
wearing black suits. The following day's first performance was also filmed,
this time with The Beatles wearing white suits.Both films, although of high quality, do NOT show them at their best performance-wise.They have been widely
circulated now for decades.(I believe
this first aired as a Japanese television special at the time)
See links below to watch the entire concert for Day 1 (June
20th) and Day 2 (July 1st)
PLEASE NOTE:You may
want to fast-forward thru some pretty horrific opening acts!
And there is a very annoying sound drop-off in the first
show … but then again as previously mentioned, these do not represent The
Beatles at their concert best!(Consider
them more for historical value)
Today I’m talking with Matt Hild, author of the new Olivia
Newton-John biography “A Little More Love: The Life And Legacy Of Olivia
Newton-John.”
kk / Forgotten Hits:Hi Matt – great to talk to you again.Congratulations on the publication of your
second book.(We covered Matt’s first
book, “Arrow Through The Heart:The
Biography Of Andy Gibb,” via an interview done by long-time Forgotten Hits
Reader Scott Paton …
MATT HILD: Hi Kent. Well
actually it’s more like my sixth book, but the others are mostly history books
of an academic nature. But this is my second pop star bio — both of them on
English-born, largely Australian-raised performers.
kk: I have to ask you – Olivia Newton-John and
Andy Gibb had several career crossovers during their most popular chart years …
tv appearances, a hit single and also an Australian connection.Were you inspired to tell Olivia’s story next
after wrapping up your Andy Gibb project?
MH: There was a connection
there, for sure. Olivia and Andy worked together a lot from 1978 to 1982, on
TV, some concert performances, and two duets that they recorded in 1979, and
they were close. I mention in this book how Andy was showing up for openings of
Olivia’s and Pat Farrar’s Koala Blue stores as late as not even a whole year
before he died. I had actually gotten to do a brief email interview with Olivia
in May, 2021, for the book on Andy, and a number of people who I interviewed
for that book (including Scott Paton) had crossed paths with Olivia back in
those days or even worked with her to some degree, so in some ways writing a
book about her seemed like a natural follow-up to the book on Andy.
kk:I have been a big fan of Olivia’s since the
very start and this book brings back all kinds of memories of the backlash she
had to deal with early on in her career when she kept winning Country Music
Awards, including a Best Country Female Vocalist award and even a Best New
Country Artist Award.A good percentage
of the diehard Nashville folks were more than a little bit perturbed when a
girl from Australia was cleaning up on their turf! (Of course, all of this was before
her reinvention after the Sandy / ”Grease” period and the sexier videos like
“Physical” by which point she’d left most of her country crooning behind.)
MH: It all seems a bit silly
now, but at that time Nashville wasn’t too accepting of outsiders or of pop
stars, except, of course, for Elvis Presley. As I mention in the book, John
Denver (a friend of Olivia’s) faced some of that backlash, too, as someone who
wasn’t from the American South and wasn’t part of the Nashville scene. He and
Olivia both helped pave the way, I think, for more crossover success between
the country and pop fields. But yeah, Olivia got a frosty reception in
Nashville at first, but when she went back there in the late 1990s to record
some of Back with a Heart and make some personal appearances, she was
treated like royalty.
kk:Your
book reminded me of a particularly awkward scene on the televised CMA Awards in
1975 when Charlie Rich (himself a former rocker, turned country artist),
announced John Denver’s name as the winner of the Country Entertainer Of The
Year Award and then let the paper on fire, on stage, that bore his name.(Charlie’s son later said that his dad was
very drunk on stage that night.)
MH:Regardless of what Charlie Rich's intentions
were that night, John Denver faced some of the same resentment from the country
music establishment at that time that Olivia did. Yet, as I mention in the
book, Olivia was Charlie's opening act at the Las Vegas Hilton in the summer of
1974, and he gave her a nice gift when their two-week engagement there ended.
kk:As you said in your book, two of the hottest
Female Country Acts at the time were Olivia Newton-John from Australia and Anne
Murray from Canada!
MH: And about 20-25 years later,
Shania Twain, also a Canadian, would be one of the hottest. I think Olivia, in
particular, helped pave the way for the later crossover success of Shania and
Faith Hill, both of whom were big Olivia fans themselves. Shania faced some
backlash, but not to the degree Olivia had.
kk:They both seemed to dominate the country
music scene there in the early-to-mid ‘70’s.
MH: And yet, as you mentioned,
in the late ‘70s Olivia reinvented herself … ”You’re the One that I Want,” “A
Little More Love,” “Deeper than the Night” … she became a rock singer and sold
even more records during the 1978-82 period than she had during her country
period.
kk:Another point the book makes is that Olivia
was judged as being almost TOO beautiful to be taken seriously as a recording
artist.In what ways do you think this
stereotype may have hindered her career early on?
MH: Even her record label (Uni,
then MCA Records after that label absorbed Uni, Decca, etc.) was writing ads
like “she sings songs that are as pretty as she is,” and before “Let Me Be
There” became her first really big US hit, people at MCA were calling her
“plastic.” But once she started racking up the million sellers, beginning with
“Let Me Be There,” then I don’t think her beauty was hurting her career at all.
Maybe it made some critics less inclined to like her, but as she told Rolling
Stone, she cared more about whether the public liked her records than
whether critics did. And her long run of big hits made it quite clear that the
public loved her records.
kk: One thing that I REALLY like
about your style of writing is that you’ve clearly done EXTENSIVE research in
order to find all these quotes by and about Olivia from back at that time …
which you then weigh against current observations and “look backs” with the
benefit of so much hindsight … it really paints a much more complete picture of
just how she was regarded over the course of her career.
MH: And some of those 1970s
concert reviews really emphasize her beauty, too, and some of the reviews of
her hit albums weren’t too kind. But when she returned to touring in the late
1990s, overall the tone of the concert reviews and newspaper and magazine articles
took on a different tone, more appreciative of her talent and accomplishments,
sometimes even almost reverential.
kk: Olivia certainly faced her
health battles … and some financial woes as well … but overall she did SO much
good for society with her cancer treatment centers.It’s so ironic to think that she herself
would become a patient at one of her own clinics in later years.
MH: It speaks volumes about her unfailing
positivity that she was inspired by her own first battle with cancer to help
build that Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre in Australia, which
she told someone would be her biggest legacy. And, yes, it was ironic that she
later was a patient there, but I don’t think she ever really felt sorry for
herself.
kk:She also had more than her fair share of
“unlucky at love” moments over the years.In fact, there were times during the course of reading your book that I
found myself wanting to ask you: Do you think she was ever TRULY happy?Certainly, she had fame and riches … and
adoring fans all over the world … but in her REAL world, her personal world,
there always seemed to be something lurking around the corner to knock things a
bit off course.I couldn’t help but
wonder if she ever had the chance to truly enjoy her success.What do you think?Did you get that same sort of vibe?
MH: Her greatest happiness in
life came when her daughter was born in 1986. Her daughter became her pride and
joy. Her last words, spoken to her daughter, were “my sunshine.” And her second
marriage, to John Easterling, by all accounts was truly a very happy one. As
for her heyday, I think she absolutely took pride in her success and
accomplishments, but she also worked very hard and made a lot of sacrifices to
achieve and sustain that success. And as the book explains, she certainly did
have to deal with some of the drawbacks of fame, including some really
obsessed, and in some cases, dangerous, fans.
kk:I assume you also followed her career as it
was unfolding … what was your reaction at the time to Olivia’s complete
make-over in the role of Sandy in the film “Grease?”Personally, I never saw it coming … but I think
she pulled it off TREMENDOUSLY … and actually reinvented herself in the process
for an entirely new career in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80s!It was just one more testament to the scope
of her true talent.
MH: That’s another irony: she
was reluctant to take that role, and as I relate in the book, via a story told
to me by Steve Binder, when she watched the film, before it came out, she was
terrified that it would be a bomb! But Grease really transformed her
career. Her star had been slipping for about two years before that. Her records
hadn’t been selling as well, and Rolling Stone was on the verge of
cancelling a profile on her which Ben Fong-Torres had been interviewing her for
on and off since 1975. Rolling Stone quickly changed its mind and
published the piece on her when Grease came out!
kk:I was very fortunate to have seen Olivia
perform live in concert a couple of times, including her final tour of America,
which was simply amazing.With her
health being what it was by this time, I honestly don’t know how she was able
to pull it off, knowing the demands of a show of this stature, the travel,
etc.I had heard that her body just
completely gave out after some of these shows the minute she hit the dressing
room.
MH: She was a true professional,
and she cared a lot about pleasing her fans. That might sound trite, but
there’s no doubt that it was true. Some of the people I talked to who worked
with her or spent time with her before and after her shows in those last years
were in tears as they were describing what Olivia was going through when she
was doing those final tours or Las Vegas engagements.
kk:Again, this to me is just further testament
to how much her fans meant to her … and her wanting to give them one last
chance to see her up on stage.
MH: Exactly. She didn’t need the
money. In her heyday, she didn’t particularly enjoy tours and concerts, which
was a large part of why she stopped after 1982. But when she started up again
about 16 years later, she started telling the people she was working with how
much more she was enjoying it, and she did a lot more concerts in her later
years than she had during the 1970s and ‘80s. She may not have been having many
hit records by that point, but she could still draw her large, loyal, and
enthusiastic following to concerts.
kk: The first time I saw Olivia
live, I took my daughter, who is, herself, also a lifetime fan.(Her very first book report in school was
about Olivia Newton-John.Her second was
on John Travolta!And she remains a
major fan to this day, even having the strength to endure … I mean watch “Xanadu”
20-something times!!!)
At that show, Dennis Tufano, former lead singer of The
Buckinghams (and a long-time friend of Forgotten Hits) was her male counterpart
for the “Grease” and “Xanadu” numbers.I
was so pleased by this in that it’s also Dennis who appeared in the
commercially released video of those concerts.
But I never realized that fellow Chicagoan Skip Griparis (one
of the final members of The New Colony Six) had played such a large role in
Olivia’s touring years.His accounts of
these moments are absolutely glowing and offer keen insight as to what it was
like to be part of Team Olivia.In fact,
it seems that EVERYONE ever connected with Livy’s touring band has only the
nicest things to say about her and the way she treated them … sort of the
Taylor Swift of her time!
MH: This might sound trite, too,
but just about everyone I interviewed who toured with her, whether it was Skip
Griparis from 1975 through ’78, Dennis Tufano in ’82, or Warren Ham from 2001
through 2017, said that touring with her was one of the greatest experiences of
their entire careers. (And Ham has toured with lots of big acts … Toto … Ringo
Starr.) And speaking of Taylor Swift, I think Olivia helped pave the way for
her, too, especially in terms of country/pop crossover success.
kk:Everything we’ve talked about so far has been
on a very positive note … so I have to come up with at least ONE negative thing
to say about the book … and that was an easy one for me …
What the heck is up with that cover photograph?!?!?
MH: Honestly, I was just glad
that the publisher sprang for a photo from Alamy or Getty. All the other books
I’ve written, I’ve had to use something that was public domain, or, in the case
of the Andy Gibb book, find one on my own that I could get the rights to use
without paying too much. For the Olivia book, I picked a few photos, sent them
to the publisher, and they designed the cover.
kk:A book about Olivia Newton-John should be
bright and shiny and jumping off the bookshelf – glowing as she did!Silvery, sparkling … a real attention
grabber.But in this photo, she just blends
into the background … wearing virtually the same color dress as the background
color … she disappears!If this goes
into another printing, you REALLY should consider doing something to draw more
attention to the positive energy that she conveyed throughout her career.I want to see Olivia in all her effervescent
sunshine!I guarantee you it will draw
much more attention to your book!
MH: I mean, I am a writer, what
do I know about cover art or photos - haha. But I’ll pass along your thoughts
to the publisher. A paperback is already in the planning, so maybe a new cover
will be in order. (Also, more interestingly and importantly, to me at least: Two weeks after the book came out, John Farrar
— who produced many of, and wrote some of, Olivia’s hits, and who I’d wanted to
interview but couldn’t find — emailed me and said that Greg Mathieson was
totally wrong in claiming to have come up with the “ooo, ooo, ooo” hook on
“You’re the One that I Want,” and that Bill Oakes exaggerated how much
direction he gave to Farrar before Farrar wrote that song and “Hopelessly
Devoted to You.” So I’ll need to work that into the paperback somehow.)
kk: That’s great news about an
“updated” paperback edition.(Maybe John
Farrar can send you an “exclusive” photo to use!)Or, once her people hear how well the book is
doing, they might “comp” you a glitzier photo that’ll help to sell more copies
of the book!And then we can BOTH make a
ton of money after you pay me my 10% marketing-strategy royalties!!!(lol)
MH:“Updated" is too strong a word, but I
promised John Farrar that I would get his response into the paperback. There's
nothing more to it though than what I said here. As for the cover photo, I
think Olivia's fans are buying the book regardless -- the printed version of
the book keeps selling out as fast as the publisher can stock it. But there's
certainly no shortage of other photos of her, that's for sure. She had to be
one of the most photographed persons of her era.
kk: Okay, I’ve given you enough
of a hard time.I really did enjoy the
book … and know others will, too.I
understand the initial print run sold out and Amazon was actually out of stock
on this item for a little while … but it’s back in stock now, right?
[EDITOR'S NOTE: “People Magazine” did a profile
on Matt Hild’s book a few weeks back and copies started flying off the shelf –
but I’m told that inventory has since been replenished and books are available
now for immediate shipping. – kk]
MH: It’s a long story, but
Amazon has had a harder time keeping it in stock than other booksellers have.
Barnes and Noble has never run out online, and they’ve kept copies in some of
their stores, too.
[Note: Amazon has received a shipment from the reprint, but they have yet to return the book to “in stock”
status even as smaller outlets such as Books-A-Million and Bookshop restocked
from that reprint and have already sold out for the third time. Amazon SHOULD
have the book relisted as “in stock” sometime this week, but I mention Barnes
and Noble as the reliable Plan B.]
kk:What’s next on the horizon for you?Have you got a new candidate selected for
your next book?
MH: Right now, I am writing some
academic history again, but this will probably be an article, not a book. As
for another pop music book, I am thinking about it, but I want to give it some
thought before I jump into another one. If you have any good suggestions, let
me know!
kk:Matthew, thanks again for taking the time to
talk with us today.I wish you much more
success with your passion … and please keep us posted so we can let other music
fans know what else you might have coming up!
MH: Thanks, Kent. I appreciate
you featuring my book on Andy Gibb and this one in Forgotten Hits, which
I was reading long before Scott Paton introduced us via email back in 2022. Forgotten
Hits is a tremendous resource for “oldies” fans!
