Have You Never Been Mellow

Olivia Newton-John stood at the forefront of pop time and again, from her 1978 duet with John Travolta to ‘Physical’ in 1981. Yet her clean, fresh pop-country feeling in the first half of the 1970s suits this book particularly well. John Farrar, formerly of the Shadows and her producer from the beginning, brought a refined, British sensibility to the pop production. I still think that was part of the secret of her success.

Both this 1975 album and the single ‘Have You Never Been Mellow’ reached No. 1 in America, marking her first peak. The album has a consistent, attractive mood: alongside two Farrar songs are the Hollies’ ‘The Air That I Breathe’, written by Albert Hammond, Dobie Gray’s ‘Loving Arms’, written by Tom Jans, and Maria Muldaur’s ‘I Never Did Sing You a Love Song’, written by David Nichtern. In that sense, Olivia embodied the adult contemporary idea of the time in her own appealing way.