{"id":13575,"date":"2017-12-05T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T10:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=13575"},"modified":"2017-10-19T10:21:14","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:21:14","slug":"olivia-newton-john-returns-to-live-performance-with-all-hits-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/05\/olivia-newton-john-returns-to-live-performance-with-all-hits-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia Newton-John Returns to Live Performance with All-hits Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Olivia Newton-John has been a pop star for more than four decades. She got her professional start on Australian TV and radio, and cut her first single in 1966. Newton-John made a name for herself with the release of her first solo album, 1971’s If Not For You<\/i>. On that record and several that followed, the singer established herself as a first-rate interpreter of other songwriters’ material. In the mid 1970s she scored a nearly unprecedented ten consecutive number-one singles on the Adult Contemporary chart.<\/p>\n

She would go on to blockbuster success onscreen in 1978’s Grease<\/i>, and achieved a kind of cult status with her role opposite Gene Kelly in 1980’s Xanadu<\/i>. Following a bout with cancer in the 1990s, she placed greater emphasis upon recording more of her own songs. Newton-John now ranks as one of the most successful recording artists in history, with more than 100 million records sold.<\/p>\n

Asked which of her many records is a favorite, Newton-John is initially nonplussed. \u201cI’ve never really thought about it,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t listen to my music, so I\u2019ve never sat down and listened to a whole album.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after thinking for a moment about the 30-plus albums she has recorded and released, Newton-John names her 1994 album, Gaia: One Woman’s Journey<\/i>. \u201cThat was the first album that I totally wrote and co-produced myself,\u201d she recalls. \u201cIt was right after I had breast cancer for the first time, and it was very, very personal to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year Newton-John released Liv On<\/i>, a collaborative album with Texas-born Beth Nielsen-Chapman and Toronto-based Amy Sky. Focused on grief and healing, the project was inspired by the death of Newton-John’s sister Rona, who died from a brain tumor. \u201cI wrote a song for her in her memory and sent it around to my friends and family,\u201d Newton-John says. \u201cThey came back and said, ‘Oh, that\u2019s lovely. Do you have any more songs like that?’\u201d<\/p>\n

Nielsen-Chapman had written a kind of grief anthem, \u201cSand and Water,\u201d and Sky had recently lost her mother. \u201cWe all were in kind of a phase of understanding what this was about. Both wonderful songwriters \u2013 who are dear friends of mine \u2013 agreed to do it,\u201d Newton-John says. \u201cWe recorded the album in Las Vegas when I was between shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, Newton-John released Friends for Christmas<\/i> with Australian pop singer John Farnham; it’s Newton-John’s fourth holiday-themed album. \u201cThat’s always a fun thing to do; I love collaborating,\u201d she says. \u201cI like doing duets, and I like recording with other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newton-John was forced to suspend her tour earlier this year when she learned that her cancer had returned and spread. But now after a period of treatment, she’s energized and ready to return to the stage. \u201cI’m really good,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love to sing, and I’m very lucky,\u201d Newton-John says. \u201cI’m grateful that people come to see me, and I’m lucky that I have so many hits I have to leave some out!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Olivia Newton-John has been a pop star for more than four decades. She got her professional start on Australian TV and radio, and cut her first single in 1966. Newton-John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[1619],"class_list":["post-13575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-olivia-newton-john","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13575"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13577,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13575\/revisions\/13577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}