If Not for You, the album that followed, revealed the path Newton-John would take in the early ’70s, splitting the difference between covers of AM Gold staples and tracks from the folk and country world (the Kris Kristofferson–penned “Me and Bobby McGee,” which Newton-John performed with a slippery drawl, the murder-ballad staple “Banks of the Ohio”). 1 on Billboard’s “Easy Listening” chart with her second single, a cover of folk titan Bob Dylan’s besotted “If Not for You” Newton-John’s version took cues from the cover that appeared on George Harrison’s All Things Music Pass with a grinding slide guitar acting as a counterpoint to Newton-John’s lilt. Newton-John was a regular chart-topper in the States throughout the ’70s, her lithe soprano adapting well to the soft pop sound that was popular on that era’s fuzzed-out AM radios. True to her word, her pop heyday transcended any attempts to musically pigeonhole her.
Just putting the word ‘honestly’ into the mix made it even more poignant.”Įstablishing that personal, everyday connection with her audience was not only important to Newton-John but a crucial aspect of country music, the genre she was slotted in by accident early in her career. “In England, we just do what we like and don’t worry about whether it’s country or pop or whatever,” she told the Memphis Press-Scimitar in 1974. In her 2018 autobiography, Don’t Stop Believin’, Newton-John, who died this week at 73, recalled the reaction she had to finding the song while sifting through demos with her eventual longtime collaborator John Farrar: “It was so simple, with a meaning that was deeper than the ocean … I could certainly relate, and I knew that everyone would be able to make those words fit their own personal story of love and perhaps even loss. Before Olivia Newton-John did the hand jive to “You’re the One That I Want” and hit the gym with “Physical,” the British-Australian singer’s calling card was “I Honestly Love You,” a delicate ballad from 1974 co-written by Brill Building alum Jeff Barry and Australian impresario Peter Allen.
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