By Martin Jones.
Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was lauded for her pop success and her starring role in the movie Grease with John Travolta. But several years earlier Newton-John already had huge success in the country music market. In 1973 she won the Grammy for Best Female Vocal Performance; in 1974 she won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocalist, as well as the Country Music Association Award for Female Vocalist and the Academy of Country Music Award for New Female Artist; and, in 1975, she won the American Music Award for Favourite Country Album.
‘“It was our song it was her song but it’s over…”
The song ‘Please Mr Please’ didn’t enter my consciousness until Joe Pernice covered it in one of his early Australian shows. I remember Sophie Best exclaiming, “That’s an Olivia Newton-John song!” (Which sent me to Pernice’s first recordings in the Scud Mountain Boys, some of my favourite music of all time).
‘Please Mr Please’ barely troubled the charts in Australia when it was released in 1975. Different story in Northern America. It reached Number One in Canada, and in the USA Billboard charts it reached Number Three in the Hot 100, Number Five in the Country Singles and Number One in Easy Listening. A blatant appropriation of American Honky Tonk culture, written by an Englishman and sung by an Australian, ‘Please Mr Please’ was the culmination of a surprising and controversial infiltration into the hallowed ground of American Country Music.
The Country Music Association’s founding premise in 1958 was to keep country music pure; to prevent the infiltration of rock ‘n’ roll. When Olivia won Female Vocalist Of The Year in 1974, she raised eyebrows and ruffled feathers. Look at the titleists either side of her winning year: Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton – Nashville Royalty. Olivia remains the only non-American to win the CMA Female Vocalist of the Year.
Heads of Nashville convened and formed the Association of Country Entertainers (ACE) in response, to lobby on behalf of traditional country artists. (It fell in a heap when John Denver won Entertainer of the Year the following year and Charlie Rich infamously burned the envelope with Denver’s name in it).
But not all the country music stars were against Olivia. Dolly Parton’s sister Stella wrote a song, ‘Ode to Olivia’, in support and played it to Dolly who remarked, “Oh Lord, Stella, don’t let Porter [Wagoner] hear that!” (Olivia recorded a great cover of Dolly’s ‘Jolene’ some years later, reportedly with Dolly’s blessing.)
In her autobiography Loretta Lynn provided a candid perspective on Olivia’s CMA win.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to win (Female Vocalist Of The Year) in 1974 because my own record company, MCA – it changed its name from Decca – had two women up for the same awards – myself and Olivia Newton-John. She’s an English girl who grew up in Australia and never appeared in Nashville. But she had three hit records in 1974, and a lot of people were saying she was gonna win something.
“Some of my fans were upset because they said she wasn’t country. But her records had kind of a country sound to ‘em , and they also sold big on the “pop” charts….
“That didn’t bother me any, but a couple of female singers were sitting around the dressing room on the night of the awards, griping ‘cause Olivia Newton-John didn’t even come to America for the awards. She was on tour in Spain somewhere. Well, all I could remember was me winning the top female singer’s award in England four years in a row and how nice people were to me there. So I told the girls to cut it out. I hate to hear all that jealousy coming out. Anyway, Olivia Newton-John did win the Top Female Vocalist Award. I don’t think the applause was very big, and some of the Nashville people were still grumbling backstage….
“I’ve got no complaints. Look, she walked off with the Grammy Award for 1974 pop music. When you’re hot, you’re hot, that’s all.”
Olivia herself remained undeterred, continuing to record crossover country-pop, and even recording a full album, Don’t Stop Believin’, in Nashville with some Nashville A-List players.
Two years later, a little movie called Grease came along and changed everything…
But back to ‘Please Mr Please’. Listen to Welch’s original recording. The tempo is wrong. The delivery is detached from the pathos of the story. Now listen to Olivia’s take. Of course the voice is great, but listen to her sell the story – the transition from setting the scene; listening to the jukebox with “good Kentucky whisky on the counter” surrounded by friends to slowly sliding into utter heartbreak. Then the moment she breaks: “some button pushin’ cowboy plays that love song, and here I am just missin’ you again.” An epic punchline with perfect delivery. Thank you, Olivia.