Olivia's Physical At 40

In the latter part of last month, the long awaited deluxe edition of Olivia Newton John's iconic 1980 Physical album was finally issued by Primary Wave Music. The album is now available in the U.S, and in the UK from later this month, as a 2CD+DVD digipak 40th anniversary set, which includes the original album, 21 bonus tracks and a DVD of the original video album (the first of its kind, that won a Grammy for "Video of the Year" in 1983), and the Olivia In Concert television special that was filmed over two nights at the Weber State University Hall in Utah in October 1982, during her Physical tour of North America, both of which have been remastered in both sound and picture, and are released here on DVD for the first time. Although many of us had the original vinyl LP, beautifully packaged in a gatefold sleeve, with inner bag featuring photos, song lyrics and album credits, and seen the TV specials, and owned the VHS, Beta and Laserdic releases of the DVD content, they have never been seen in such outstanding picture and sound quality as they do on this new 40th anniversary set. 

 

The front and back of the original inner bag for the 1981 vinyl

If we go back 40 years, the tracks for Physical were recorded between October 1980 and June 1981. Upon its release in October 1981, it went top ten in eight countries around the world including the States, but quite surpisingly in the UK, only managed to reach #11. It provided Olivia with three hit singles including the title track, Make A Move On Me and Landslide. The title track and lead single, released one month before the album was an immediate hit with over two million copies shipped to the U.S alone and had a chart stay of ten weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 - the longest run of any song in the 1980s, and overall equalled Elvis Presley's Hound Dog in 1956. It contained Olivia's most assertive and sensual vocal ever with lyrics like... "There's nothin' left to talk about/unless it's horizontally..." It was enough to get the record censored and banned by a number of radio stations.

One of the original master reel tape boxes for the 1981 vinyl

Taking a closer look at the new Deluxe Edition, the original 10 track album has been expanded with six bonus tracks on the first disc and a further fifteen on the second disc, all remastered from the original master tapes by Vinny Vero. The bonus tracks (many new to CD) include a duet with Barry Gibb from 1984, plus material from the soundtrack of Olivia's 1983 film, Two of a Kind, plus Heart Attack and Tied Up that were recorded for her Greatest Hits Vol. 2 album in the U.S, and included on her 20 Greatest Hits in the UK, both put out on the back of Physical's success. As one would expect on a set like this, there are plenty of alternate mixes and single edits, plus a couple of live recordings that first appeared as B-sides on a couple of 1983 UK singles.

 

The 1983 UK singles with live B-sides, Physical and Jolene 

For those who are wondering if there any outtakes from the Physical sessions, the answer is no. According to comments made by Vinny on Facebook, there were no demos sung by Olivia or unreleased songs from the Physical sessions. "In fact, there are only a small handful of unreleased recordings across Olivia’s entire career and even fewer demos. For the first ten years of Olivia’s career, she was contracted to record and release two albums a year. That’s a total of 20 songs a year. Part of Olivia’s success was due to worldwide visibility. She toured, did television appearances, and hosted her own specials. That didn't leave a lot of time for her to be in the studio. So she and John Farrar had to be economical with studio time. John would prepare arrangements and recordings while Olivia was on the road. Then she would return home to work in the studio on the songs John had prepared. Olivia often lived with a very full schedule".

The DVD content is as good as can be expected. As Vinny explained in another FB  comment, "the footage has been cleaned up and color corrected, but it hasn’t been upscaled due to the way it was originally shot, and Blu-ray wasn’t an option because the footage would have been a bit pixelated. There are certain limitations. I was able to locate the original 1" videotape masters and use them as the source material".

Deluxe Edition Postscript: Thoughts from Olivia

It’s hard to believe that it has been 40 years since Physical was first released and I am thrilled that it’s getting this beautiful 40th anniversary Deluxe Edition. I am so proud of this record as it not only allowed me to try new things musically, but it became such a part of pop-culture history. It also gave me the chance to work (again) with fellow Aussies – my amazing friend, songwriter and producer John Farrar and Steve Kipner, who co-wrote Physical. I remember being so nervous that I had gone too far with the title song’s cheekiness that I told my manager at the time, Roger Davies, to pull it off the album.  He laughed and said ‘"Luv, it’s too late it’s gone to radio and is climbing the charts" I was banned for Physical – can you imagine? – I can actually say I was banned! That song is a lullaby compared to what’s on the radio today!

In her personal note from the CD booklet, Olivia reminds us that some anniversaries come and go, passing without fanfare. But others are really worth acknowledging. Physical at 40 happens to be to be one worth celebrating. This album is a significant milestone to be sharing with us again. "Thank you all for making my musical journey a magical experience. I am filled with immense gratitude knowing that some of the songs on this album have woven themselves into the soundtrack of our lives - bringing back some wonderful memories. Many people have made countless creative contributions throughout the years as Physical travelled from song concepts to recording studio, from radio play and music stores to chart positions and concert tours. But most of all, l have enjoyed singing - from my heart to yours".

Afterword

Having been a fan since 1971, I am often asked which is my favourite Olivia album, and my answer is always Physical, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to be asked to contribute to the Deluxe Edition, and have my name included in the special thank you credits. My involvement however was very different to my past inputs on CD album projects, in that I was asked to supply scans of her single picture bags and sleeves from around the world, which were originally intended for the discography pages in the CD and vinyl booklets. One of my favourites is shown below.

Olivia's First Album Revisited

Back in the 70s, me and my wife (now ex-wife) had this habit of buying an album each whenever we went shopping for a new album. Back in November 1971, she bought Tapestry by Carole King, and I chose Olivia Newton John's self-titled first album! By the time her album was released, Olivia had already come to British pop prominence with two top twenty singles, that were both featured on the album. She had also recorded a duet with Cliff Richard the year before, done the backing vocals on the Shadows version of Cliff's The Day I Met Marie on their From Hank, Bruce, Brian and John album in 1967, and was appearing regularly on Cliff's BBC-TV Saturday night series, It's Cliff Richard! One year after her album hit the shops, she was touring the UK as a support act with Cliff and the Shadows, who with John Farrar, had reformed as Marvin, Welch & Farrar. But Olivia's climb to fame had started a few years before, not that I was very aware of it, or even who she was! 

In 1966, Olivia released her debut single on Decca Records, a cover of Jackie De Shannon's Till You Say You'll Be Mine, which is almost unrecognisable as an Olivia Newton-John record that sank quietly into oblivion. Four years later in 1970, she won an audition to join the manufactured group Toomorrow as the lead singer. They made a film, which was a sort of futuristic new take on the Monkees, and released an accompanying soundtrack album, both of which turned out to be a critical and commercial disaster.

Photo call for the Toomorrow film and album, London 1970

After these failed attempts to launch her career, manager Peter Gormley (who also managed Cliff, The Shadows and Frank Ifield) signed her to Festival Records in Australia to make an album that was simply titled Olivia Newton-John when released by the Pye International label in the UK, but in Australia and the U.S, released on the Interfusion and UNI labels, was titled after the successful lead single, If Not for You. Production on the album started in early 1971 at the legendary Abbey Road Studios that had been made famous by The Beatles. If Not For You was the first song she recorded for the album, but didn't really like it, even though she later praised its production. At the time she was far from convinced it would suit her. She simply didn't think it was her type of song and admitted to having a little trouble being convincing in putting it over, but because everyone in the studio was so enthusiastic about it, she eventually came round to liking it. 

In her memoir, Don't Stop Beleivin', she recalls Abbey Road was where she spent her days with her dog Geordie at her feet. "There was a moment when he actually knocked the mic stand during a guitar solo in If Not For You. We left the sound on the album and it still makes me smile when I hear it. It also makes me smile when I remember that The Beatles were in the next studio with George Martin recording their new album. I was lucky enough to meet them all as Bruce was good friends with the most famous band of all time. In fact, he told me that Paul offered him his publishing on a song, but first he would want to give it a listen. Paul pulled his guitar out of his car boot and played a few bars of the song to Bruce, who turned it down. It had a different working title then, but it was Yesterday!"

Olivia at Abbey Road Studio 2, 1971

Although the album featured all cover versions, it would be a mistake to think these are all mere covers, warned most reviewers and music critics at the time of its original vinyl and cassette release, the production and arrangements by Bruce Welch and John Farrar are innovative and worthwhile. As Joe Viglione from AllMusic noted years later, when the album was released on CD, "there is a moving version of the traditional American country song, Banks of the Ohio. The interpretation of Richard Manuel's In a Station is respectful and intuitive. Music from Big Pink was only three years old when this recording was pressed, and it is one of the few albums to survive the hype and get better with age. Olivia dipping into the Big Pink songbook was a stroke of genius. Label mate Elton John released Leslie Duncan's Love Song on his Here and There live album, but that version doesn't have the sensitivity of this spiritual reading. Both Kris Kristofferson tunes, Me and Bobby McGee and Help Me Make It Through the Night, have arrangements that bring new life to what had became bar band favourites in the early 70s. Where Are You Going to My Love? was covered by the Brotherhood of Man and the Osmonds, but finds its niche here, as does the superb version of Duncan's Lullaby. Tom Rush's No Regrets and Gordon Lightfoot's If You Could Read My Mind are well done, but it is Olivia's cover of Bob Dylan by way of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass which garnered her first top ten hit. If Not for You brought Olivia the attention she deserved. The musicianship by Lou Reed/David Bowie sessionman, Herbie Flowers along with Dave Richmond, John Farrar, and the ever present Brian Bennett is top notch. Hearing Livvy sing so many familiar tunes, and performing them so well, is utterly charming." 

Pye Press Release for Love Song,  June 1971

There were five other songs recorded at the sessions that didn't make it onto the album during the album's creation process, mostly due to the running times for a vinyl LP. In those days, a 17 track pop album would have been unheard of, but of course there were other reasons they weren't selected for inclusion. As the album had evolved into what was essentially a covers album, Pye Records felt they didn't fit in with the the rest of the album and would be best relegated to B-sides. I first heard the acetate demos of the discarded tracks a couple of years ago, which included The Biggest Clown, It's So Hard To Say Goodbye and Would You Follow Me, before the remakes were recorded. The finished masters were first released on the flip sides of her first three singles from the album, If Not for You, Love Song and Banks of the Ohio. The other two, Game of Love and Round And Round were passed on completely and never remade. To this day, they have never surfaced in any form. There are, of course, bound to be different takes and alternate versions of all the songs recorded for the album. It's very rare for an artist to lay down the master take first time, although three years later in 1974, the same year she represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, Olivia did exactly that with I Honestly Love You. She did three takes of it in all, but it was take one that ended up as the master take and the version that was released.

When the album was released in the UK, the front sleeve had a full size 12 x 12 head and shoulder shot of Olivia that was printed on a matt texture finished card with softened colours that became a 70's cover art trademark. The untextured white card back sleeve was black and white, and featured two photos of Olivia recording the album at Abbey Road Studios, plus the usual side 1 and 2 track list with songwriter and album credits, but unlike the Australian issue didn't have any sleeve notes. What the sleeve did however was set the pattern for her future albums to always have a full size photo adorning the front cover. She was so photogenic that every one looked like the photographer had just pointed his camera at her and snapped. What is surprising though, is that despite the album winning rave reviews, producing two hit singles, and tipped to be a sure fire winner, it still failed to make the UK album chart. 

The Australian Sleeve Notes

Olivia Newton-John is the girl Cliff Richard chose to join him on his first duet record - Olivia is also the girl Harry Saltzman chose for the starring part in his film Tomorrow. Now Olivia Newton-John has started her solo career on record with a world-wide hit in the form of Bob Dylan's If Not For You. 

Oddly enough Olivia wasn't born into a showbusinesss family (in fact her Welsh-born father had an academic background and her German-born mother was the daughter of a Nobel Prize winning physicist) but somehow showbusiness entered Olivia's blood at an early age. By the time she was five her family had moved from Wales to Australia and it was there in Ormond College, where her father became Master of the College, that Olivia whiled away the hours making up tunes on the family grand piano.

She also entertained friends with her own musical comedies, and by the time she was twelve years of age, at her sister's insistence, she entered a local cinema contest to "find the girl who most looked like Hayley Mills".

Two years later she and and three other girls started a singing group called The Sol Four. But when The Sol Four began interfering with school work the act was disbanded and Olivia then began singing on her own in a coffee lounge owned by her sister's husband.

It was a customer who suggested to Olivia that she enter a contest being held by Johnny O'Keefe. Olivia won the contest but because she was at school at the time it was more than a year before she could enjoy her prize - a trip to London. It was soon after arriving in London that Olivia formed a double act with another Australian girl, Pat Carroll.

"We sang and danced, did a lot of Club work and had several spots on BBC Television," recalls Olivia. It was, in a short space of time, a successful combination, until Pat Carroll's  Visa ran out and she was forced to return to Australia.

Happily Olivia stayed, made solo records and even became part of the Tomorrow group. Now signed to Festival Records International, Olivia's interests away from showbusiness are "listening to records and being anywhere where there is sun. I'm also mad about my two red-setter dogs and horse riding". Olivia's latest single is Banks of the Ohio/Love Song.

From the album cover photo shoot by David Steen

With thanks to Jeff Point for his help and sharing pieces of his collection,
 including a mammoth amount of scans and other information.

The Story of Elvis UK3

As some of you know, l was asked sometime ago to contribute details and background stories to all of the Elvis CD projects I worked on from 1996 to 2004 for Sony, BMG and other third party labels for a new book that was being put together by John Townson and Gordon Minto, and has taken almost six years to research and produce. That book is Elvis UK3, which was launched as a digital online flip book this week. 

The book follows their previous works, the groundbreaking Elvis UK, published in the pre-digital era of 1987, and the self published Elvis UK2, published 15 years later in 2002. Both books were extremely well-received by collectors, earned critical acclaim, and have become invaluable reference sources for Elvis collectors all over the world.  This latest reference work is bigger and more comprehensive than either of their two original works. 

The new book comprises 1400 pages (containing over a million words), and features 4,000 plus high quality black and white and colour illustrations, many of which were provided by my good friend Tony King whose photo archive is probably one of the largest in the world, and has been utilised by many Elvis authors, book publishers, FTD and Sony. The book also provides the definitive guide to Elvis’s UK compact disc releases, and details the development of the medium from the 3 CD set The Legend, which was the world’s first ever Elvis compact disc in 1983, in meticulous and unprecedented detail.

 

 

 

Every single, RCA, BMG, FTD and third party album (all 450 of them!) issued up to 2005 are written about individually in fascinating detail, arranged in chronological order, carefully cross-referenced, while charting and describing company and industry developments along the way. It has been painstakingly researched over many years, and features many contributions by former RCA/BMG personnel who helped with key background information, along with many others, who like myself, have contributed to some of the CD releases featured. In my case they include The Hillbilly Cat, Artist Collection (including discarded artwork and omitted liner note passage), the 2002 JXL remix of A Little Less Convesation, the final batch of Millennium Master sets (Elvis 50s, 60s, 70s, Hits) and the Live Greatest Hits.

The book also includes sections on various artist CDs containing Elvis material, as well as company promos, presenters and BMG in-house CDs. The huge song index is presented in forensic detail, indicating exactly where each master (and any known outtakes) can be located and, in the case of live performances, when and where they were recorded. 

And in what is almost a first for such a project, this incredibly detailed book is presented using Flip technology for use on your own digital device – a computer, laptop, iPad, smartphone, Kindle and tablet. Once you have the link, accessing the whole book is simple. The system allows the reader to access any part of the book in seconds thanks to a very sophisticated, but easy to use, range of navigational tools. Hardback specialist reference books of this sort have become extremely expensive to buy and post, and of course are notoriously difficult to handle and store. Not so with Flip. The book can be accessed on any device and has the advantage of being portable: it can go where you go – and once on your device, it does not deteriorate at all.  Another major advantage is that the price to buy such a book is much cheaper than an equivalent hard-copy would have been, and as there are no prohibitive post and packing charges to factor in, it is readily available to anyone interested, wherever they are in the world. 

As a bonus, the authors have compiled a unique digipak CD to give away with the book, that includes an 8-page illustrated booklet with extensive liner notes detailing the rationale for the content. Beyond The Legend includes 22 UK single chart entries, plus the 1956 Truth About Me interview, not included on the original 1983 Legend set, and will be sent out to all UK buyers free of charge. Overseas fans however will be asked to pay for post and packing costs.

 

 

Anyone wanting more details of this magnificent and authoritative reference work should visit the website where many more details are available, including the option of accessing some free sample pages to try out, as well as how to buy the book.

Footnote

 

Many readers and contributors will find lots of interesting facts and behind the scene stories in the book. For me personally, one of the most fascinating was for the 1992 album From The Heart. I was intrigued to read the back story to the release as I knew Lee Simmonds (who compiled it) from his days of running the RCA International catalogue, during which time, we became friends and allies during my days as a struggling graphic artist. He was among my first encounters with RCA at Bedford Avenue in London. Among other things, he introduced me to Roger Semon, when Roger was a part time salesman and was already loosely involved in the early years of the Elvis catalogue, got me and my ex tickets for the 1984 Bucks Fizz tour and was always giving me freebie albums! Lee and me remained in touch when he moved to EMI, QED and later to Sanctuary Records, when Roger was MD! Beyond Elvis he was responsible for the marketing and promotion of the 1981 Glen Campbell Live album, which featured my gatefold sleeve artwork. In his office he had the original illustration that was used on the cover of the Elvis 56 Sessions Volume 2 album (as shown above). As readers will discover, one of Lee's Elvis projects at QED was The Hillbilly Cat for which he asked me to do the liner notes, and which became the first Elvis album I wrote a liner note for.

 

Postscript

Back in 1989, I was sitting in a meeting room at Blandford Press in London, with friend, writing partner and co-author, Peter Lewry, waiting for editor Stuart Booth to arrive. We were there to discuss our book project on Cliff Richard's recording sessions. While we were waiting we browsed the selection of books that were displayed around the room, and the one that caught our eye was Elvis UK by John Townson, Gordon Minto and George Richardson. We had both heard about the book when it was first published two years earlier, but the hefty retail price of £45 made it a pretty prohibitive buy that neither of us could afford at the time, even though it was probably the one Elvis book we wanted most. Now in our publishers office, and well aware they were the same publisher that had published this mammoth work on Elvis' record releases, we now had the chance to take a closer look, and wow, the information inside was quite staggering, even for the most serious and ardent Elvis collector. What we found in this book was something else, there were things listed that were completely new to us, and what we discovered took us completely by surprise. Did RCA UK really make that many goofs in the marketing of their crown jewel artist? According to this book, yes they did, and it had been going on for years, long before I started collecting Elvis back in 1963.

Further Reading

Elvis - The Man and His Music (No. 116, 117, 118): Elvis UK Revisited by Gordon Minto.

My Life in Music - An Interview with Vic Rust

Back in 1997, when Titanic was released into cinemas, I remember seeing an interview with the film's director James Cameron in which he said there is no point in retelling a story unless you are going to cover new ground! Cliff told me much the same when recording a cover version of an original hit, whether one of his own or by another artist. It has to be different to what's gone before. That is certainly true of Vic Rust's book on Cliff's recordings, which was published almost twenty years after me and Peter Lewry had researched, written and published our book on Cliff's recordings sessions. What Vic's book did was go one stage further by literally discussing and analysing every song Cliff had recorded in detail, something the sessions book didn't cover! The result was a very different book.

Although most would consider Vic a researcher and writer, he himself considers himself a musician with good reason! In a recent conversation I had with him, he told me why, and when looking back on his past, it's easy to understand.

As Vic told me, he grew up with music all around – quite literally. "My father, Brian, was the foremost vintage jazz and popular dance music discographer, who worked from home, had a weekly radio show on the fledgling Capital Radio, and regularly wrote sleeve notes, articles and reviews for a wide variety of labels and artists and genres. The point is that I can’t really remember a time when there wasn’t some sort of music – usually his beloved jazz – playing as the soundtrack to my youth."

Vic was born in the year when Cliff Richard’s Summer Holiday was packing them in at cinemas across the country, and Gerry and the Pacemakers were at number one with How Do You Do It? (curiously enough, his twin sister has no interest in performing music, although she does like listening to pop music. Vic's musical tastes are wide and varied, so maybe this adds a footnote to the nature versus nurture debate?)

"Because of my dad’s job, I was steeped in music from birth, so it came as no surprise to me (on reflection) that my future would be welded firmly to the art. My earliest clear musical memory was overhearing a record that my dad happened to be reviewing, and which stopped me in my tracks as I listened enthralled. I crept into my dad’s study and sat on the shabby visitor’s chair and asked if he could play it again. And again. I loved the sound of the guitars, the timbre of the lead singer’s voice, the blending of the exquisite harmony vocals and the perfect rhythm... That record was Blue Turns to Grey by Cliff and the Shadows and it holds a special place in my heart because it set me on the course that has culminated in what I’m doing today - researching and writing!

"My upbringing was unconventional from the point of view that my dad worked from home and drip-fed me music, when I went to school, it was a source of immense confusion to realize that no-one else’s father in my class did the same thing, but it also helped me to understand how fortunate that, by dint of hard work and steel-eyed focus, he was able to make a living out of doing what he loved. And it sowed the seeds for me to consider it as a sideline in my later life, although it was not something that I was immediately conscious of. Instead, I became a voracious consumer of the records that my parents had in their collection, from the performances of classics of Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninov, Debussy and so on to the comedy gold of Allan Sherman’s parodies, Flanders and Swann, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Anna Russell and Victor Borge.

"And, in between, I listened avidly to the radio, swept up in the joy of the welter of popular music, and especially rock and roll and its derivatives. At the same time, there were some fantastic books being published, such as The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles. I read it from cover to cover, such was the thrall the information had over me, and I started looking for patterns and cross-referenced information, writing lists of the bits of details that weren’t in there, such as the composers of the titles. It was my first toe-dip into the world of research (in the days when the local library was the source rather than the ease of the internet today).

At the same time, it was established that I had a rather good treble voice. Inevitably, I was pushed by my mother to audition for the local church choir – hated that bit, but I loved the performance of some of the most powerful choral pieces in the world. As I started secondary school, it was obvious that I was going to join the school choir, and I was deemed to be good enough to be asked to be part of the more elite Motet Choir, which afforded me my first journey out of England as we toured Germany.

"At home, music enveloped me every waking hour as usual, not the least because I had taken up learning to play the piano, clarinet and guitar – although not simultaneously! And my dad still received records and tapes on a regular basis to review. Once he’d done that, he passed them over to us and I would happily sit listening to them, reading the liner notes, the composers, the music publishers, copyright notices, everything was important and interesting to me! I remember when World Records produced a six-disc boxed set called The Cliff Richard Story, that was all I played for a fortnight, as I was introduced to not only Cliff’s early work, but also to the Shadows’ witty and wonderful instrumentals.

"But I also found another skill, which would help me in my future career – I could identify what an instrument was, even in an ensemble performance. My dad recognized this and I was pulled in to help him in his research for his books on jazz and dance music. “Was that a pizzicato violin or a banjo?” I remember my dad smiling with pride when I was able to identify the instrumentation. I also helped him sift through poorly-written session cards from RCA and EMI that were falling apart to pluck out the key pieces of information. There was nothing so exciting as seeing my name written in a proper book for the first time!

"I’ve always been a sucker for a great harmony and especially where they are performed using the human voice (this is why Cliff is especially appealing – he does such a great line in vocal harmony). So I jumped at the chance to be a founder member of a barbershop group (there were around twelve of us, so think Kings Singers), which was called The Calico Consort (after a piece we performed at the first concert called Calico Pie and because of its alliterative qualities). What set this apart from the school choirs was that it was more intimate – no instrumentation to support us and the opportunities for solos. It was also cheap to put on gigs!

"In the summer of 1981, just as the incumbents were about to fling themselves into higher education at university, the group went on tour to Germany. It was a great experience (even though I had severe laryngitis on the last day) and we were sad to bid farewell to the Calico Consort. Then I had the idea of going into the recording studio to set some of our repertoire down for posterity. This was where my fascination with records and the recording process was given a further fillip. In the September, I had organized three evening sessions for the group at a local studio. I was in the role of performer, soloist… and producer. I just loved sitting behind that mixing desk and working through the tapes and putting the record, Patchwork, together. So much fun was had – particularly where I was concerned – we agreed to get together each year for performances and it spawned two further records with me in the production chair – Moonlight and Magnolia and Calico Christmas.

While I was at university in Colchester, naturally one of the clubs I joined was the University of Essex Choir, which put on a performance at the end of the first and second semesters. This was where I met Richard Cooke, who directed the performances and was also the newly-appointed director of the London Philharmonic Choir. I had subsidized vocal coaching from him and, as a result, when I applied to join the LPC after university (as far as I know) I was the only member who didn’t have to go through the audition process.

"What the experience afforded me opened up completely new and exciting worlds for me. I remember the first time I went through the stage door at the lovely Royal Albert Hall, performing at the BBC Proms, appearing on television for the first time, looking out at the audience at the Royal Festival Hall, singing solos… the adrenalin rush was phenomenal and I was smitten.

"But the best part of it was my involvement in so many different recordings, nearly all of them in Studio 1 at Abbey Road, and occasionally in the hallowed quietness of Studio 2, where the Beatles and Cliff and the Shadows had laid down the majority of their tracks until the seventies. I was fascinated and a little over-awed. It was this experience that fed into some of the plot of Puppet on a String.

Unfortunately, life kind of got in the way and, in the mid-nineties, I had to leave the choir. I was the Business Manager then, but rehearsing and recording and performing in London, living in Kent and having a day-job at Heathrow Airport was just too much stress and, after much heart-searching I left.

"I was in the Tonbridge W. H. Smiths when I found The Complete Recording Sessions by Nigel Goodall and Peter Lewry. I had maintained my interest in Cliff’s music and the minutiae of his recording process and resultant records, so it was as if this book had been specifically written for me.

"I wrote a couple of novels and then worked on The Moody Blues Encyclopaedia as an exercise in maintaining my interest in research and writing. It also gave me an unnecessary excuse to listen to music at every opportunity! Come 2009, the world was in financial straits and I took the opportunity to abscond from Heathrow and take redundancy.

"It allowed me to focus on my next project, which became The Cliff Richard Recording Catalogue, helping me to visualize Cliff and the Shadows recording in Abbey Road and how the records were developed. And that has largely been my life for just over a decade. Having interviewed Cliff on a number of occasions, Nigel invited me to submit the sleeve notes for Cliff's 2017 Stronger Thru the Years album as he felt I was better suited to write what Warners wanted than he was, which culminated in being asked to write the discography appendix for his 2020 autobiography, The Dreamer. I have made great friends with the Cliff community, and, in particular, with Nigel, who has been so helpful with background information from his time as co-curator of Cliff’s EMI back catalogue."

  

Vic is often asked if he has finished with his work on documenting Cliff's recordings! Like Ernst Jorgensen who looks after Elvis Presley's catalogue, the answer in no! Not as long as Cliff continues to release singles and albums, there will always be something to write about, and collect more information to add to what would be the fourth edition of his book. As long as there is a market for more editions of his most successful book, then his work won't be finished! And it's not just confined to Sir Cliff! He is currently working on an Olivia Newton-John recording catalogue, and along with me and Juliette from Leo's Den is involved with our joint plight to get Cliff and Olivia's long lost 1972 TV special, The Case, released on DVD and Blu ray. And despite his fascination to write about Cliff's recordings, he still considers himself a musician at heart, but now a musician who writes about music!

Vic Rust is the author of The Cliff Richard Recording Catalogue, and the editor-in-chief of the charity book, Thank You for a Lifetime – To Sir, with Love.

That's The Way It Was Bonus Blog

In September 1970, Ann Moses, then the editor of Tiger Beat magazine, conducted this exclusive interview with Dennis Sanders, director of Elvis - That's The Way It Is, which was then being completed for theatrical release that autumn. During the shooting of the film, he had contacted Ann as one of Elvis' fans and used her definition of being an Elvis fan in the picture. In return, he gave her this interview about filming Elvis, which Ann has kindly allowed me to reproduce it here as part of my two-part piece on the 50th anniversary of the film...

Ann Moses: When you were chosen to do the Elvis film, where did you begin? How much did you know about Elvis Presley?

Denis Sanders: I didn't know that much about Elvis. but I do know a lot about American music. I was not one of the earliest jazz buffs in this country. I have one of the major Jazz collections. Since I was twelve I have been collecting records.

Ann: So, you were really deep into music when Elvis first came out?

Sanders: Oh, I knew about Elvis! I liked him right from the very beginning.

Ann: So, where does one start when you make a movie? Did you look at any of his old films?

Sanders: No, mainly because the film that I'm doing is about Presley as an entertainer, with a quarter of it his show at the International. The other elements that I have chosen to emphasise were the putting together of a show and the fan phenomenon. In a way, its a film by one professional about another professional in another field. So I have no interest, really, in his personal life, I really don't. My interest is solely in Elvis as a performer and as a musician. And as an organiser of his show. And, as a matter of fact. I wouldn't even take an assignment of doing a story of the personal life of a professional like Elvis, because then we'd be arguing about my view versus all kinds of other people's views. I'd be in the same difficult position all biographers are in when it's an authorised biography. But really, in this case, its not a controversial film. Oh, there might be a few areas, like my view of Las Vegas might not be or coincide with everybody else's, but it is my view.

Ann: What about Elvis' contribution to the film? Did you sit down with him and ask him what he thought should be in the film? Or is it strictly your ideas?

Sanders: I told him the elements I was interested in. I told him I wanted to be privy in addition to the show and to the rehearsals and to the process of putting a show together. So would he try to. when I was shooting a rehearsal, organise that rehearsal in such a way that it would be a bit more lucid than if it just completely happened. It would completely happen, but where he felt he needed to make a comment he would, and to me that's not out of context of the film.

Ann: When was your first meeting with Elvis? How did it go?

Sanders: I met with him in his dressing room at MGM, surrounded by hordes of people - his contingent, the Colonel's contingent, my contingent. It was a summit meeting!

Ann: Did you get anything accomplished with so many people there?

Sanders: Well. I sort of got over next to him and while everybody was talking with everybody else, I sort of put my head next to his head and told him what I was going to try to do. And at that point all the other noise ceased and we could talk, and l had to use the time fruitfully!

Ann: Did you get the impression that he was excited about the film? So many of his films have been criticised, one disappointing script after another. There's no script at all for this one. Did he seem excited?

Sanders: Without question! In fact, he thinks it's the first film he'll approve of!

Ann: When you decided to do the film, why did you feel that fans had to be included?

Sanders: Because I feel you don't have an entertainer without an audience. I feel that they are completely interrelated. Some sense of his effect on his audience is as much a part of the drama as the entertainer himself.

Ann: Did you have any idea when you began that the fans would be like the ones you've put on film?

Sanders: No. I didn't know anything about Presley fans.

Ann: Where did you start?

Sanders: With two girl fans and they put me in touch with other girls who had been in fan clubs, or were in fan clubs, and then the whole thing snowballed. Part of the problem on a picure like this is not only to do what I'm saying, but to do it in a short period of time, because I didn't have too much time. Function as a detective, follow the leads, follow where all the lines run as best you can, at least locally. I could neither spend the money or the time to fly all over the world. I also wanted to get a cross-section. I didn't want to have just girls of 18. I also wanted everything from teenyboppers to old ladies. men, different nationalities, and I had to find them. I found you that way. I got in touch with you from a fan that said: "Go see Ann Moses, she's a fan."

Ann: Thanks! Will you be making any statements about the fans, like your opinion of them? Or will it be an objective view?

Sanders: I never work in generalities. The only generality I could say is that generally I don't think generalities are meaningful. The fans are all alive and they're talking. I try to choose a fan who can quickly, in the little time they have before the cameras, convey to the audience a whole sense of who they are. That the tip of the iceberg reveals the whole iceberg, or at least is sensed by the viewer. There is no narration. I don't say anything.

Ann: The early press releases on the film stated that the Elvis film was "going to be a Woodstock on Elvis." Do you think that's an accurate description of your film?

Sanders: The only picture like Woodstock is Woodstock! The only picture like Elvis is Elvis!

Ann: How have you found working with Elvis?

Sanders: Well, if I needed something, I always got it. I never abused it. When I asked, it was never for anything trivial. That's the secret of working with most people anyway. You don't use up your shots on trivial things, but you make it very clear that when you finally ask for something it's for something very important. So the lights are going to come up in the audience and it's going to bother him, but he's going to have to live with it and he did. He knew I had to have it. I didn't bother him for most of the week, once I had the lights up on opening night. And the final night we were shooting I just said I had to. I had to get the audience. I could have said: "I left you alone all week." but I didn't need to say that. And if Elvis was bothered, he'd say: "Kill it, kill the lights." And I'd kill it. That was the deal.

Ann: Do you feel you've caught the "real" Elvis or some portion of the "real" Elvis?

Sanders: Every time the cameras were rolling he knew it. He's very suave about it. He's made too many movies to not know whether the camera is on or off.

Ann: Will we have a glimpse of Elvis when he's not "on"?

Sanders: Yeah. I have a scene backstage opening night. It may be heightened a little by the fact that he knew the cameras were on but still his problems were bigger than my camera at that point. And that's true generally when you're doing a documentary. If you can be there when they've got to cope with something unexpected, then finally they are functioning as they would without cameras. As I say there's probably still some mixture of the sense of theatrics and what was really happening, except that what was really happening was really happening!

Ann: Are there any amusing incidents involving putting Elvis on film?

Sanders: Well, his boys razz him occasionally and at one rehearsal they were really kind of giving him the "business." I thought it was pretty funny. I sort of set it up. I said: "Let's go give him the business and I'll shoot it. "There was one line he was singing in rehearsal that went "I've lost you . . ." and they were razzing him and he started to sing "I've lost you . . ." and one of the guys said something like "You certainly have!"

Ann: When you finally got to the International. What did you want to record on stage?

Sanders: I wanted to get as varied a series of views of the performance as possible - close on his face and full figure, the orchestra itself, the girl singers, everything.

Ann: You had never seen Elvis on stage before. Did your opinion of Elvis change when you saw him perform?

Sanders: I think he's fantastic. I knew he was fantastic the very first time I saw him in rehearsal. I knew where he was. From then on I knew what I wanted to go after. He's got what Brando had at that perfect moment in his career where you couldn't anticipate Brando as an actor. That's what Presley has. The audience can't anticipate him.

Ann: Did anything unexpected happen to make you say to yourself "We have to get that" or hope we got that"?

Sanders: It would have to be "I hope we got that!" I'll tell you about something that got away from me which had to do with Elvis indirectly. I'm so sorry about it. You know when he kisses the ladies during "Love Me Tender." One gal had a hammerlock on him and he sort of pulled free and her wig fell off! It was a great movement but my camera wasn't rolling because they had just run out of film! She suddenly went from a blonde to a brunette! I wish I had that! That's the miss that breaks my heart the most!

Ann: After working with Elvis on this film, Would you like to make a scripted movie with him?

Sanders: I'd love to. It would have to be the right piece of material. Cast right, there's no question about it. I think the mistake with Presley would be to put him into things that are too close to his own personality, But if he could touch the part with his own life experiences, without too much difficulty, then I think he'd be sensational!

Ann: Would you call yourself an Elvis fan?

Sanders: If I were to use your definition, Ann which I filmed for the movie, "It's like falling in love and one day you wake up and you're an Elvis fan" then no, I'm not a fan! To the extent that I'm never a fan, I'd say, yes. I am a fan.

Ann: Would you pay to see his show again?

Sanders: Oh, sure! I'm a professional fan. He moves me as a member of an audience. I admire his great sense of theatrics, and so I'm a fan in that sense. But I don't fall in love with entertainers.

Ann: How much would you say Elvis contributed in the way of creative ideas?

Sanders: I don't know. He said a few things to me, but then things would filter to me through the Parker office. I have no first-hand knowledge. Obviously, I was given access through the joint discussions between Elvis and Col. Parker as to what they considered the proper elements of the film. I'm sure some thought was put into the creative matters. But it is difficult to assess how much creative thinking on time part or the Elvis Presley - Col. Parker group was instigated by Elvis himself. But Elvis does the whole show. He's it. He puts it all together. He's the captain of the ship.

Ann: You said you thought Elvis was going to be proud of his film?

Sanders: I think he will. It's going to be one hell of a picture!  

 

Interview previously published in the 2014 That's The Way It Is Deluxe Edition booklet

Read Ann's fantastic article Yes, I Was In An Elvis Movie here

With thanks to Tony King for the photo of Elvis with Dennis Sanders and the booklet scan