Cliff Richard - Back from the Wilderness Singles and Albums 1975 - 1995

No offence to anyone who likes Cliff, but I thought I would post an alternate view.
I accept Cliff has great tenacity, but I've never enjoyed his music. I don't wish to threadcrap, but I think you should be wlling to accept another point of view.
I remember when I was about 13/14 I was so fed up with Cliff's records, but he'd had years of failure in the charts. I remember thinking "Come on Cliff - give up".
Then he had a massive hit with "We Don't Talk Anymore" which irritated me so much. I then heard an interview on the radio when he said that if We Don't Talk Anymore hadn't been a hit, he would have given up pop music.
I was so sick. Maybe I'm just unlucky.

 

To " don't you want to play that game no more"



Peace and love✌

 

Of course we accept that people view his music differently from the ways that we do. I have no problem someone getting tired of his music and for his endless search for another hit. I just happen to like his music a great deal, and I don´t intend to apologize for that. You present your views with such politness and consideration, so how could anyone take offence at that?

For me, it boils down to two paradoxical sentiments: A. It´s only music, and I love it. B. It´s MUSIC. It´s ART, and I love it. Cliff didn´t make art in the way that Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and many others did. He just made pop music. Simple pop music, even. You either like it, or you don´t. I don´t mind people who don´t like Cliff´s music. It´s not important. What´s important is that we all can listen to the music we like. Just what we like is irrelevant.

Thank you for your contribution. Respect.

 

Yep, I found the title in brackets. I prefer the original title, just for its big words. I sometimes wonder if someone bet Bernie Taupin whether he could work those two songs into a song of his... If so, he won that bet!

 

Well I know it's not cool to like Cliff, maybe even in 1960 it wasn't, but I've always loved that run of singles that this thread covers. I friend did me a tape of these songs years & years ago. I love some of these songs from the tape mostly singles but the odd deep cut too.
This thread has gotten me to buy 4/5 of the albums from these years on cd for the first time and that's the best thing about these forums.

Wonderful thing sharing music is.

Remember nothing is cooler than not trying to be cool !

Peace and love✌

 

I love the way you put things. And yes, I think this is about sharing the music we love, and not about being cool. That´s why I also loved the way OldTurkey put it; with respect and politely.

Glad that you bought those albums. Hope they brought you joy!

 

It doesn't matter what other people say - you've got to stand up for what you think.. I liked the Shadows BTW.

 

Hi Jarleboy,
This is a great thread with lots of great tales and things. I have enjoyed it from the beginning.
Getting to Phil's albums, there are two versions of "She Means Nothing To Me" and the other is from the Rock Connection an album I really enjoyed.
The "One Way Love (On A Two-Way Street)" is a song I have no info on Cliff being part of.
Hope this helps.
Chris

 

Thank you - for kind words and help.

Yes, the version on the single and Phil´s album is faded towards the end. The version on "The Rock Connection" has a cold ending, and is, I think a few seconds longer. Otherwise, the vocals are the same. Great song! Agree with Bobby that it deserved a better album. (The Cliff one, not the Phil One.)

I hope you decide to chime in with your comments again!

 

Cliff isn't duetting with Phil on the song, but he is on the backing vocals:

Phil Everly (CD) »

 

Thanks for the information. Only two tracks are mentioned on The Cliff Richard Song Database website, but maybe they never felt the need to verify backing vocals.

 

I'm going to get this track and have a good listen to as I don't think Cliff is on there (after listening to the bing link) but the source is a bit distorted. But if this is Cliff's backing then it will be added to the Database.
As for the rest of Phil's album I have enjoyed spining this many times.

 

I forgot to say that I loved the Cliff/Phil Everly single She Means Nothing To Me.

 

Yep, it´s one of the good ones.

 

I couldn´t hear him either, but my "listening environment" wasn´t the best at the time.

Yes, it´s a good album. "I´ll Mend Your Broken Heart" is rather nice, as well.

 

Single No. 79: 1980 October 10 — UK — Jet JET 7002
A-side: "SUDDENLY" (Written by John Farrar)
B-side: "YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU (I DIDN´T WANT TO DO IT)" (Written by James V. Monaco & Joseph McCarthy)
A-side and B-side produced by John Farrar
B-side involving Olivia Newton-John only





How lucky can one person get? Cliff´s career, which almost took a nosedive in the mid-to-late 70, was resuscitated by a couple of great singles, "DEVIL WOMAN" and "WE DON´T TALK ANYMORE" and a few others. His albums were better than previous ones, and after WDTA, the singles released provided him with an - almost - unbroken string of hits. The best bit? They were hits because they were good.

Then, Cliff had been asked to provide vocals for a duet with Olivia Newton-John for the soundtrack to the film "XANADU". Knowing that their voices sounded great together, and that John Farrar would have done a great job on the writing and producing end of things, he knew this could be another hit. In addition, it meant seeing a good old friend again.

The "Xanadu" project yielded a critically panned movie - well-deserved, I think - and several big hits and a popular soundtrack album. The hits were trotted out - "Magic", "I´m Alive", "Xanadu", "All Over the World", "Don´t Walk Away". As an afterthought, the jazzy ballad "SUDDENLY", which was the duet between Olivia and Cliff, was released as a single. Lo and behold, the single rose to No. 20 in the US, and No. 15 in the UK. (It was even a No. 6 hit in Germany.)

"SUDDENLY" was a well-crafted ballad, sounding like a 1930s or 1940s pop/jazz ballad. Slinky, sophisticated - you could almost hear the song being performed by Jo Stafford or Ella Fitzgerald. Cliff and Olivia acquit themselves well, and it´s an elegant pairing of two recognisable voices. Too bad that the song itself is not all that memorable. It´s high quality all round, but I have never really loved this tracks. It´s miles ahead of their first duet on record, "DON´T MOVE AWAY", but it´s actually one of my least favourite tracks on the "Xanadu" album. Now, who´d a-thunk that? Don´t get me wrong - it´s a good song, just one I don´t really want to hear again too soon.

For both Cliff and Olivia, it was another hit under their belts, and both of them have performed the song live in concert over the years, with different duet partners.

 

When Cliff celebrated his 75th birthday on October 14 2015 with a concert in the Royal Albert Hall, Olivia was a "surprise" guest, and they performed the song together. (I found out too late that this is not a professionally recording from the night, but an unofficial one. Please enjoy, all the same. The "proper" version is below.)

 

Some more information about the song from The Cliff Richard Song Database:

"And Suddenly was... Apparently her co-star [in Xanadu] couldn't or didn't sing. Probably could sing. Most people say they can't sing but in fact they can. But obviously he's not a singer. And then John Farrar rang me up and said, 'look we've got this wonderful ballad and we'd like you to sing it.' So I went across there and... Y'know, earlier talking about people recording in their bedrooms, we recorded that in a garage. John's engineer works in it from a garage and we just have to stop if a car went by. Or a lorry, really. You couldn't hear the cars so much, but you hear the lorries going by. But that was recorded in someone's garage. But that was a great treat and I love the song, it's a fantastic song. It wasn't as big a hit as the other ones, but then it was the fifth single from the album and the album had already been... I don't know if the album had been number one, but it was already into the multi-millions."
Cliff Richard (June 3, 1991 - Cliff Richard - The Interview Australian CD)

"All the singles that were released in 1980 reached the top twenty, with Carrie achieving the most impressive chart placing at No.4, followed by Dreamin' at No.8, and Suddenly, a duet with Olivia Newton-John from the film soundtrack of Xanadu, peaked at No.15. For whatever reason, the session that produced theSuddenly track, duetted with Olivia Newton-John, appears to have been recorded in a garage located in Los Angeles. Obviously the acoustics in the improvised studio presented serious problems with traffic noise levels outside. Compounding the technical problems was the recording method used of Cliff and Olivia taping their vocals simultaneously onto a pre-recorded backing track. It is thought that Olivia returned at a later date to re-record her vocal due to her track containing the noise levels as mentioned. The track was produced by John Farrar who played on the backing along with other musicians David McDaniel, Ed Greene, Michael Boddicker and Richard Hewson. October 1980: EMI Records release Cliff Richard's 79th single, Suddenly, on which he sings with Olivia Newton-John. The 'B' side is performed by Olivia alone: You Made Me Love You. The song eventually reaches the No.15 position, spending a total of seven weeks in the British charts."
Mike Read, Nigel Goodall & Peter Lewry (1995 - The Complete Chronicle)

"'When John [Farrar] wrote the duet for the [Xanadu] movie, we wanted someone to sing it with me,' says Olivia. 'Someone who was a well-known singer. Cliff had just had his first big hit in the States and I thought-- it would be great to have him because he gave me my first break in England. To have him sing with me now would be great!' 'I find it absolutely a pleasure to sing with Livvy,' said Cliff of the venture. 'To record Suddenly with her was a fantastic thrill! It doesn't matter that it didn't go top five in the charts, because sometimes you have to do things that you know are artistically the right thing to do.'"
Darren Mason (1999 - Olivia: One Woman's Journey)

"[Cliff] was also enjoying a new run of success in America. Dreamin', A Little In Love, both from the [I'm No Hero] album... and Suddenly, Cliff's duet with Olivia Newton-John from her own Xanadu film soundtrack, had given Cliff three records at one time in the Billboard Hot 100, something he had not previously achieved."
Peter Lewry & Nigel Goodall (July 2001 - liner notes for I'm No Hero remaster album)

"The song I sang with Olivia that I suppose was most successful was the song Suddenly. And I think Suddenly is one of the best pop songs ever."
Cliff Richard (April 2002 - Top Of The Pops internet interview)

 

Sorry about the quality of the 2015 performance of the song. Here is a better version:

 

Heres cliff back on US tv on The Midnight Special, hosted by his good friend Olivia

 

Very interesting. I didn't know any of this.

 

Thank you - some nice tracks from Cliff and Olivia there. Two from his then-forthcoming album "I´M NO HERO" - "DREAMIN´" and "EVERYMAN", and, of course, their duet "SUDDENLY". (The latter sounds like playback, but the others sound live.)

 

One show that Cliff made multiple appearances on in the states was SOLID GOLD. Here he is as a special co-host with Dionne Warrick

 

Robert Porter´s "THE CLIFF RICHARD SONG DATABASE" is a goldmine.

 

Here he is doing Devil Woman from that same show