Cliff Richard's heartbreaking musical tribute to late pal Olivia Newton-John

28 August 2023 , 23:01

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Sir Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John during The 39th Annual CMA Awards (Image: FilmMagic, Inc)

Sir Cliff Richard gave a heartfelt tribute to his late friend Olivia Newton-John as he revealed his new album will contain a reworked version of their duet, Suddenly.

The singer, 82, has recorded orchestral versions of his greatest hits, called Cliff with Strings - My Kinda Life, to come out in time for Christmas. And announcing the release, available from November 3, he paid tribute to the singer and Grease star with whom he shared a long friendship before her death last year, aged 73, following a 30-year battle with breast cancer.

“It is really an emotional journey to listen back to some of my original vocals and hear just how young I was and how my style changed over the years,” he explained. “These tracks mean a lot to me and they are so refreshed with the orchestral arrangements. The most emotional track on the album for me is Suddenly with my dear friend Olivia Newton-John. We recorded this version together live for my 75th birthday in 2015 and it always strikes me how well our voices sounded together and the crystal gentility that Olivia always managed to exude.

Richard and Newton-John in 1971 (Getty Images)

“I’m glad I was able to highlight this great performance again.” The pair’s vocals on Suddenly, originally recorded for the 1980 film Xanadu, are taken from one of their last performances together at London’s Royal Albert Hall in October 2015. The new arrangement, by Chris Walden, is said to bring “an emotional beauty” to their voices in harmony. Olivia was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 at the age of 43, and lived for another three decades. She received further treatment when the breast cancer returned in 2013, and more in 2017 when it spread to her spine, leaving her struggling to walk.

The star said that using medical cannabis, grown by her second husband John Easterling on their ranch in southern California, had helped her with anxiety, sleep and pain issues. In 2020 she said in an interview that singing had also helped her to feel better. “I’m healthy, I’m strong - I think it’s very important to keep that positive message in your head,” she said. "You know, if you have a difficult moment, music is always a great healer.”

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Richard's new album is due out for Christmas

The album is his first since his battle for number one last year with Stormzy, and celebrates Sir Cliff’s extraordinary 65 years in the music business. Featuring 12 tracks released over seven decades, it also includes his best-known songs Summer Holiday, Living Doll, Wired for Sound and We Don’t Talk Any More. It also includes a rare recording from 1999 of Cliff’s performance of Everything I Do (I do it For You) from his Millenium Countdown concert.

Cliff and Newton-John first met in 1970, when she was dating his bandmate from The Shadows, Bruce Welch. Although he says in his memoir they were “never an item,” he has admitted to being “in love” with her at one point – but she was engaged. Speaking of their relationship he once explained: “We hit it off straight away.“She was the sort of soulmate that you meet and you know is a friend for life.”

Soon after their introduction, Olivia and her friend Pat Carroll went on tour as Cliff’s backing vocalists. He noted that “everybody loved” the Aussie singer and asked her to perform on his TV series It’s Cliff Richard, which led to her first big hit - a cover of Bob Dylan’s If Not For You. He later explained: “It was clear from our on-screen chemistry that Olivia and I got on well. The papers began to speculate that we might be an item.” Cliff clarified: “We never were - but we were as close as it’s possible for two just-good-friends to be.”

Nicola Methven