Olivia Newton-John - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1971-1974

As I've mentioned previously, I have a musical associate who has kindly passed on to me some recordings from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops" that are otherwise extremely rare and often unbootlegged until now. He gave me some of those featuring Australian singer Olivia Newton-John from the early 1970s. So I tried to see if I could find enough material to make an entire BBC album out of it. To my surprise, I found enough for three volumes. Here's the first one.

I doubt Olivia Newton-John needs much in the way of an introduction, considering she's one of the best selling singers of all time, with over 100 million records sold. She first became a star in Britain in 1971 with the songs "If Not for You" and "Banks of the Ohio" both reaching the Top Ten there. So it's not surprising that's when she first starting performing for the BBC. The ultra-rare "Top of the Pops" I previously mentioned are tracks 1 through 5, plus 8 and 13. Some other songs appeared on that radio show, but I checked and they were the same as the record versions. Just playing the record versions became the general trend on that show around 1973, so there are no other performances from her after that year. 

Note that four of these seven had BBC DJ Brian Matthew talking over the music at times. So I did my usual thing and used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of the talking. That's why four songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Those seven songs by themselves wouldn't be enough to make up an album. So I went digging to see what else I could come up with. I got lucky and found a fan site called "Only Olivia." Here's the URL:

https://www.onlyolivia.com/

It has information of probably every BBC TV show appearance she did, so I was easily able to find most of those on YouTube. That's why I found enough for two albums made up of radio and TV sessions, plus another one consisting of a concert. "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is from the Harry Secombe Show in 1972. "Close to You" is from a BBC TV movie called "The Case." Tracks 9 through 12 are from another BBC TV movie, "The New Fangled Wandering Minstrel Show." That one co-starred Newton-John with singer Georgie Fame, so that includes two duets by them. Note that for some of these songs, including all the ones from the BBC TV movies, were never released in any form on record.

The last three songs are from another BBC TV show, "Clunk Click," in 1974. Like everything else on this album, these performances are officially unreleased. For most of the songs other than the Top of the Pops and TV movie ones, there was audience applause. I used the MVSEP audio editing program to get rid of most of that, so those songs would fit in with the ones without applause.

The bonus track, "It Must Be Love," is a duet with singer Labi Siffre of a hit song he wrote. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't as good as the rest, so that's why that one is a bonus track. That comes from a short-lived BBC TV show hosted by Newton-John called "Moods of Love," in 1974. There will be more about that show in the next volume.

This album is 44 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Don't Move Away (Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard)
02 Help Me Make It through the Night [Edit] (Olivia Newton-John)
03 Banks of the Ohio [Edit] (Olivia Newton-John)
04 Love Song [Edit] (Olivia Newton-John)
05 What Is Life [Edit] (Olivia Newton-John)
06 Take Me Home, Country Roads (Olivia Newton-John)
07 Close to You (Olivia Newton-John & Cliff Richard)
08 Just a Little Too Much (Olivia Newton John)
09 All I Ever Need Is You (Olivia Newton-John)
10 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Olivia Newton-John & Georgie Fame)
11 Scarborough Fair (Olivia Newton-John)
12 Yeh Yeh (Olivia Newton-John & Georgie Fame)
13 Let Me Be There (Olivia Newton-John)
14 Long Live Love (Olivia Newton-John)
15 Have Love Will Travel (Olivia Newton-John)
16 Angel Eyes (Olivia Newton-John)

It Must Be Love (Olivia Newton-John & Labi Siffre) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9nQn19VM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/w180YB7zCBPndHw/file

The cover photo shows Olivia Newton-John while on the BBC TV show "Presenting Nana Mouskori," in 1974. A couple of performances from that show are on Volume 2 in this series.