Cliff Richard - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 12-15-1979

Here's the sixth, and so far final, volume of Cliff Richard playing for the BBC. It's the only one in the series that's a concert. I say only "so far final" because I've seen evidence he did another BBC concert in 1982, but I can't find it. If anyone has that, please let me know.

This volume is very different from all the previous ones in this series. If you've been avoiding those due to Richard's square, mainstream reputation, you might want to reconsider. Richard had a knack for blowing with the musical winds of change. In the late 1970s, he went in more of a rocking and almost new wave direction, though still tempered by his usual poppy style. I just read some reviews of his 1979 studio album, and more than one person used the term "power pop" to describe it. In all honesty, when I heard the second song here, I had to stop and double check who I was listening to, because it didn't sound like what I was expecting from him.

Richard's seemingly constant stream of hits lessened some in the mid-1970s. But he had a big hit with "Devil Woman" in 1976, his first Top Ten hit in the US. Then he had another Top Ten hit in the US in 1979 with "We Don't Talk Anymore." That one made it all the way to Number One in Britain. So he was hitting a commercial peak at the time of this concert. (Naturally, he played both of those songs near the end of this concert.) His 1979 album "Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile" was also a hit in Britain, so he played a lot of songs from that album, including "Carrie," which was a Top Five hit in Britain.

But at the same time, Richard had a big backlog of hits to play, and he did lots of those too. However, as he pointed out at one point during the concert, he came up with new arrangements for many of them. For instance, the song "Do You Want to Dance" (a Richard hit in Britain in 1962) was changed so drastically that I almost didn't recognize it at first.

This album is an hour and 29 minutes long.

01 Move It (Cliff Richard)
02 Doin' Fine (Cliff Richard)
03 The Young Ones (Cliff Richard)
04 talk (Cliff Richard)
05 Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile (Cliff Richard)
06 talk (Cliff Richard)
07 If You Walked Away (Cliff Richard)
08 I'm Nearly Famous (Cliff Richard)
09 talk (Cliff Richard)
10 Theme for a Dream (Cliff Richard)
11 talk (Cliff Richard)
12 Spanish Harlem (Cliff Richard)
13 talk (Cliff Richard)
14 Did He Jump (Cliff Richard)
15 Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music (Cliff Richard)
16 Sci Fi (Cliff Richard)
17 Carrie (Cliff Richard)
18 talk (Cliff Richard)
19 Never Even Thought (Cliff Richard)
20 talk (Cliff Richard)
21 My Luck Won't Change (Cliff Richard)
22 Green Light (Cliff Richard)
23 talk (Cliff Richard)
24 Miss You Nights (Cliff Richard)
25 talk (Cliff Richard)
26 Do You Want to Dance (Cliff Richard)
27 Monday thru Friday (Cliff Richard)
28 Devil Woman (Cliff Richard)
29 We Don't Talk Anymore (Cliff Richard)
30 talk (Cliff Richard)
31 Summer Holiday (Cliff Richard)
32 Living Doll (Cliff Richard)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15833356/CliffR_1979_BBSessionsVolume6HammrsmithOdeon__12-15-1979_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken at a concert in Manchester, England, in December 1979, the same month as this concert.