MCA 2133
Producer: John Farrar
Track listing: Have You Never Been Mellow / Loving Arms / Lifestream / Goodbye Again / Water Under the Bridge / I Never Did Sing You a Love Song / It’s So Easy / The Air That I Breathe / Follow Me / And in the Morning / Please Mr. Please
March 15, 1975
1 week
With If You Love Me, Let Me Know, Olivia Newton-John became a pop sensation, but her appeal wasn’t limited to the pop market. That album also topped the country chart, and Newton-John had scored top 10 country singles with “Let Me Be There,” ” If You Love Me (Let Me Know),” and “I Honestly Love You.” She had also collected a Grammy Award for best female country vocal and a Country Music Association award for female country vocalist of the year in 1974.
Newton-John’s victories raised the ire of some country performers, who didn’t consider her music authentic country. “I created a controversy in Nashville, because I was an Australian girl, produced by an Englishman and an Australian, singing country music that wasn’t written by me,” she says. At the time, however, the singer was sheltered from the controversy. “I was on the road in a bus with my band touring the Midwest, kind of getting established on the college circuit. I didn’t really hear about it for a long time. My manager didn’t tell me about it, which was good, because it would have been upsetting to me. I don’t like people to think badly of me when I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Newton-John’s third American album, Have You Never Been Mellow, was recorded at EMI and Abbey Road studios in London with Beatles engineer Tony Clark, but it had little to do with the Fab Four. Instead, the singer continued to mine the country-pop field. “Goodbye Again” and “Follow Me” were penned by fellow country-pop crossover artist John Denver. Newton-John had scored a 1973 British hit with her version of Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads,” and in 1975 she would duet with Denver on his “Fly Away.”
Newton-John’s longtime friend John Farrar once again served as producer and wrote the album’s title track. “He played it for me on guitar. He always wrote on guitar,” she says. “He has always written incredible melodies and lyrics. That song is a classic. It would still work now.”
The singer first worked with Farrar when she was only 15 on the Australian
TV program “Go Show.” Farrar played guitar in the band, while Newton-John and Pat Carroll were featured singers. Newton-John and Carroll later performed together as Pat & Olivia. Eventually, Carroll and Farrar married.
Following the success of If You Love Me, Let Me Know, Newton-John and Farrar had a newfound confidence. “We started doing more of John’s material,” she says. Farrar also co-wrote the song “It’s So Easy.”
It was the title track, however, that helped Newton-John garner her second consecutive Number One album. On March 8, 1975, “Have You Never Been Mellow” became her second Number One single. A week later, Newton-John had another chart-topping album.
The album that Have You Never Been Mellow replaced at the top was Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. Ironically, Newton John’s first American chart single, peaking at number 25 in 1971, had been a cover of Dylan’s “If Not For You.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of March 15, 1975
1. Have You Never Been Mellow, Olivia Newton-John
2. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan
3. Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin
4. Phoebe Snow, Phoebe Snow
5. What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, Doobie Brothers