Cliff Richard - The Rock and Roll Juvenile
On October 14th 2010 Sir Cliff Richard celebrated his 70th birthday.
The singer celebrated in style. During his birthday week he performed six sold-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall and released the album ‘Bold as Brass’, a collection of classic light jazz and swing covers.
The Peter Pan of Pop has started to show his age in the last few years but it took him bloody long enough...
He wasn’t quite 18 when he had his first hit, ‘Move It’, in 1958, but looked 18 by the time he was 25. He then looked 25 when he was 30 and when he hit 35 he remained there for about 20 years.
You get the picture. It’s probably the one he keeps in his attic.
And even although Britain’s biggest ever and most successful music artist is still recording and performing, it’s time for a Muirsical Reflection on the singer who brought rock and roll to the teen masses in the late ‘50s, much as Elvis Presley brought it to the world a couple of years earlier.
Harry Webb (as he was born) has said many times there wouldn’t have been a Cliff Richard if not for Elvis Presley and his first half dozen musical years were certainly similar - young rock and roll singer and pop balladeer, starred in light hearted musical movies and had the “smouldering good looks” as they were described.
His audiences were also predominately female - a trend that has continues to this day for the perennial Bachelor Boy.
But I’m not going quite as far back as that.
His early musical career, most of it shared with the band The Shadows, was highly significant in British rock and roll history (The Shadows feature guitarist Hank Marvin, an influence and favourite of many later six-string stars such as Peter Frampton and Gary Moore). Those first half dozen years or so are, for many, his defining period.
But you don’t survive six decades (and counting) in the music business without reinventing yourself, and after an under-the-radar decade from the mid ‘60s to the mid ‘70s when his lame middle-of-the-road pop was left standing by the Beatles explosion and changing fashions, he resurfaced in 1976 a very different performer. The signs were there in 1975 with the understated soft-pop of '31st of February Street.' A pretty good little album, but it failed to chart. Other than the hard-core Cliff fans, no one was listening anymore. But that all changed one year later...
Bruce Welch, Hank Marvin’s six-string partner in The Shadows was also a record producer and helped reinvent Richard for what became a decade long dominance as the U.K.’s best melodic rock performer, comparable to the American AOR acts of the same era.
Deciding he should be labelled a rock artist as opposed to a pop singer, Welch and others around him convinced Richard to make more serious records and pick only the very best songs available, some of which were later written for him or with him in mind.
The first album to come from this re-launch was titled, rather tongue-in-cheek, ‘I’m Nearly Famous.’ To this day it’s regarded as one of his finest records and arguably his best ever album.
It produced two huge hits - the rock edged ‘Devil Woman’ and the beautiful ‘Miss You Nights.’ The latter is very seldom out of his tour set-lists.
Devil Woman (from 'I'm Nearly Famous' 1976)
On October 14th 2010 Sir Cliff Richard celebrated his 70th birthday.
The singer celebrated in style. During his birthday week he performed six sold-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall and released the album ‘Bold as Brass’, a collection of classic light jazz and swing covers.
The Peter Pan of Pop has started to show his age in the last few years but it took him bloody long enough...
He wasn’t quite 18 when he had his first hit, ‘Move It’, in 1958, but looked 18 by the time he was 25. He then looked 25 when he was 30 and when he hit 35 he remained there for about 20 years.
You get the picture. It’s probably the one he keeps in his attic.
And even although Britain’s biggest ever and most successful music artist is still recording and performing, it’s time for a Muirsical Reflection on the singer who brought rock and roll to the teen masses in the late ‘50s, much as Elvis Presley brought it to the world a couple of years earlier.
Harry Webb (as he was born) has said many times there wouldn’t have been a Cliff Richard if not for Elvis Presley and his first half dozen musical years were certainly similar - young rock and roll singer and pop balladeer, starred in light hearted musical movies and had the “smouldering good looks” as they were described.
His audiences were also predominately female - a trend that has continues to this day for the perennial Bachelor Boy.
But I’m not going quite as far back as that.
His early musical career, most of it shared with the band The Shadows, was highly significant in British rock and roll history (The Shadows feature guitarist Hank Marvin, an influence and favourite of many later six-string stars such as Peter Frampton and Gary Moore). Those first half dozen years or so are, for many, his defining period.
But you don’t survive six decades (and counting) in the music business without reinventing yourself, and after an under-the-radar decade from the mid ‘60s to the mid ‘70s when his lame middle-of-the-road pop was left standing by the Beatles explosion and changing fashions, he resurfaced in 1976 a very different performer. The signs were there in 1975 with the understated soft-pop of '31st of February Street.' A pretty good little album, but it failed to chart. Other than the hard-core Cliff fans, no one was listening anymore. But that all changed one year later...
Bruce Welch, Hank Marvin’s six-string partner in The Shadows was also a record producer and helped reinvent Richard for what became a decade long dominance as the U.K.’s best melodic rock performer, comparable to the American AOR acts of the same era.
Deciding he should be labelled a rock artist as opposed to a pop singer, Welch and others around him convinced Richard to make more serious records and pick only the very best songs available, some of which were later written for him or with him in mind.
The first album to come from this re-launch was titled, rather tongue-in-cheek, ‘I’m Nearly Famous.’ To this day it’s regarded as one of his finest records and arguably his best ever album.
It produced two huge hits - the rock edged ‘Devil Woman’ and the beautiful ‘Miss You Nights.’ The latter is very seldom out of his tour set-lists.
Devil Woman (from 'I'm Nearly Famous' 1976)
Over the next 11 years Cliff Richard released ten studio albums that solidified his status as a serious hard pop/ light melodic rock artist and it became his most successful recording period, other than the original rock and roll years.
The melodic rock phase ended in 1987 with ‘Always Guaranteed’, although that album is probably better labelled soft rock. ‘Stronger’, released in 1989, was also a very successful album but the winds of musical change were heard on that release.
In a classic case of ‘if you can’t beat them join them’, Richard succumbed to the manufactured Stock Aitken & Waterman production sound on ‘Stronger’ and a number of the songs drifted into the synth-pop arrangements that were becoming fashionable as the ‘80s ended and the ‘90s began.
Just as '31st of February Street' had been a transitional album, 'Stronger' now played the same role, some 14 years later, as the next musical phase of Cliff Richard's career got underway.
Cliff Richard’s soft melodic rock period produced great album after great album, hit after hit. There were also two live albums released in that time, ‘Thank You Very Much’ (compiling the best of his 1978 reunion shows with The Shadows) and ‘Dressed for the Occasion’ featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Miss You Nights - Live (from 'Dressed for the Occasion' 1983)
The melodic rock phase ended in 1987 with ‘Always Guaranteed’, although that album is probably better labelled soft rock. ‘Stronger’, released in 1989, was also a very successful album but the winds of musical change were heard on that release.
In a classic case of ‘if you can’t beat them join them’, Richard succumbed to the manufactured Stock Aitken & Waterman production sound on ‘Stronger’ and a number of the songs drifted into the synth-pop arrangements that were becoming fashionable as the ‘80s ended and the ‘90s began.
Just as '31st of February Street' had been a transitional album, 'Stronger' now played the same role, some 14 years later, as the next musical phase of Cliff Richard's career got underway.
Cliff Richard’s soft melodic rock period produced great album after great album, hit after hit. There were also two live albums released in that time, ‘Thank You Very Much’ (compiling the best of his 1978 reunion shows with The Shadows) and ‘Dressed for the Occasion’ featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Miss You Nights - Live (from 'Dressed for the Occasion' 1983)
The harder rock highlight from this period was the 1979 album ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile.’ Cliff Richard wanted to make an “energy packed” rock and roll record and it's fair to say he succeeded.
It was the heaviest album he ever recorded, although it’s all relative.
No Cliff Richard album would ever out-rock the Scorpions for example, but ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile’ would be in many a rock fans collection if not for the fact they probably haven’t heard it, or shied away from it because the name on the cover was Cliff Richard.
And that’s a shame, because it’s the equal of, and better than many similar albums by hard rock artists such as Uriah Heep, who were producing their own brand of hard pop and melodic rock in the late ‘70s (with albums like ‘Innocent Victim’ and ‘Fallen Angel’).
Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile (from 'Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile' 1979)
It was the heaviest album he ever recorded, although it’s all relative.
No Cliff Richard album would ever out-rock the Scorpions for example, but ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile’ would be in many a rock fans collection if not for the fact they probably haven’t heard it, or shied away from it because the name on the cover was Cliff Richard.
And that’s a shame, because it’s the equal of, and better than many similar albums by hard rock artists such as Uriah Heep, who were producing their own brand of hard pop and melodic rock in the late ‘70s (with albums like ‘Innocent Victim’ and ‘Fallen Angel’).
Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile (from 'Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile' 1979)
Special mention should go to ‘Now You See Me… Now You Don’t’ from 1982.
The album was weighted heavily towards gospel rock (Richard had become an active Christian in 1964) but is usually regarded as one of the ten mainstream albums from this period. ‘Now You See Me’ successfully mixed rock, pop, gospel and ballad and was another strong release (Richard did record a full gospel album during this era, ‘Small Corners’, in 1978).
1983 saw the release of ‘Silver’, Cliff Richard’s 25th Anniversary album.
The limited edition version of ‘Silver’ included the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Silver’ record (this was way before CD’s took hold, kids) which was a collection of what were primarily covers (including a re-recording of ‘Move It’), to celebrate his rock and roll beginnings.
The album was weighted heavily towards gospel rock (Richard had become an active Christian in 1964) but is usually regarded as one of the ten mainstream albums from this period. ‘Now You See Me’ successfully mixed rock, pop, gospel and ballad and was another strong release (Richard did record a full gospel album during this era, ‘Small Corners’, in 1978).
1983 saw the release of ‘Silver’, Cliff Richard’s 25th Anniversary album.
The limited edition version of ‘Silver’ included the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Silver’ record (this was way before CD’s took hold, kids) which was a collection of what were primarily covers (including a re-recording of ‘Move It’), to celebrate his rock and roll beginnings.
'I'm Nearly Famous' and 'Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile' - two of the finest examples
of soft melodic rock and high energy rock and roll respectively.
1976 to 1987 wasn’t just his best era musically; it may well have been his best years vocally.
Richard’s voice matured with age and by his mid ‘30s to late ‘40s was perhaps at its peak; although that may have been something to do with the exceptional quality of the songs he was recording and doing vocal justice to.
He could also effortlessly slip into a falsetto to give another dimension to his voice, perhaps best exemplified on the “we don’t talk” highs incorporated in his biggest hit of that era, 1979's ‘We Don’t Talk Anymore.’
Sir Cliff still has a voice and a pretty damn good one at that, but it’s a thinner delivery these days, albeit with that distinct tonality and the almost trademark slow vibrato.
It may not have the richness of other elder vocal statesmen such as Tony Bennett (who continues to defy the vocal odds) but such is Richard’s love of performance and love of singing it’s hard not to conceive of him still performing when he’s in his ‘80s, just as Bennett has done.
Polished singer, but not the most prolific song writer. But then, he’s never had to be. And it’s not as if he hasn’t written the odd gem or two...
The auto-biographical ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile’ is his, and he wrote ‘La Gonave’ which, for me, was the highlight of the new songs featured on ‘The Rock Connection.’
That album, released in 1984, was a mix of rock and roll tracks (including some from ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Silver’) and contemporary melodic rock numbers. Hence the title.
La Gonave (from 'The Rock Connection' 1984)
of soft melodic rock and high energy rock and roll respectively.
1976 to 1987 wasn’t just his best era musically; it may well have been his best years vocally.
Richard’s voice matured with age and by his mid ‘30s to late ‘40s was perhaps at its peak; although that may have been something to do with the exceptional quality of the songs he was recording and doing vocal justice to.
He could also effortlessly slip into a falsetto to give another dimension to his voice, perhaps best exemplified on the “we don’t talk” highs incorporated in his biggest hit of that era, 1979's ‘We Don’t Talk Anymore.’
Sir Cliff still has a voice and a pretty damn good one at that, but it’s a thinner delivery these days, albeit with that distinct tonality and the almost trademark slow vibrato.
It may not have the richness of other elder vocal statesmen such as Tony Bennett (who continues to defy the vocal odds) but such is Richard’s love of performance and love of singing it’s hard not to conceive of him still performing when he’s in his ‘80s, just as Bennett has done.
Polished singer, but not the most prolific song writer. But then, he’s never had to be. And it’s not as if he hasn’t written the odd gem or two...
The auto-biographical ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Juvenile’ is his, and he wrote ‘La Gonave’ which, for me, was the highlight of the new songs featured on ‘The Rock Connection.’
That album, released in 1984, was a mix of rock and roll tracks (including some from ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Silver’) and contemporary melodic rock numbers. Hence the title.
La Gonave (from 'The Rock Connection' 1984)
If any popular rock band had written and recorded ‘La Gonave’, we’d still be talking about it 25 years later.
Great Cliff Richard song that it is, it’s not my favourite.
That award, certainly in relation to his rockier or up-tempo numbers, goes to ‘Cos I Love that Rock ‘n’ Roll’ written by Alan Tarney.
Tarney was a major song writer and producer for Richard in the 1980's and that song's lyrics are more relevant now than when first sung by Richard in 1981...
“But now it seems they're all so hooked on fashion,
the music's taken second place.
Everyone it seems has one obsession,
to beat the others in the race.
And it just don't feel right to me.
No, no, it just don't feel right to me.”
Indeed.
Cliff Richard has been ridiculed many times, for many reasons:
His faceless middle of the road pop, speculation over his sexuality (never married) and his habit of using his position to promote Christianity.
Cliff Richard however, probably cares not a jot:
He has set countless records and his record count isn't too shabby.
As he turned 70, he had sold more than 150 million singles and 250 million records worldwide. He is also the biggest selling singles artist of all time in the U.K.
'Cos I Love That Rock 'n' Roll (from 'Wired for Sound' 1981)
Great Cliff Richard song that it is, it’s not my favourite.
That award, certainly in relation to his rockier or up-tempo numbers, goes to ‘Cos I Love that Rock ‘n’ Roll’ written by Alan Tarney.
Tarney was a major song writer and producer for Richard in the 1980's and that song's lyrics are more relevant now than when first sung by Richard in 1981...
“But now it seems they're all so hooked on fashion,
the music's taken second place.
Everyone it seems has one obsession,
to beat the others in the race.
And it just don't feel right to me.
No, no, it just don't feel right to me.”
Indeed.
Cliff Richard has been ridiculed many times, for many reasons:
His faceless middle of the road pop, speculation over his sexuality (never married) and his habit of using his position to promote Christianity.
Cliff Richard however, probably cares not a jot:
He has set countless records and his record count isn't too shabby.
As he turned 70, he had sold more than 150 million singles and 250 million records worldwide. He is also the biggest selling singles artist of all time in the U.K.
'Cos I Love That Rock 'n' Roll (from 'Wired for Sound' 1981)
Cliff Richard. The Rock and Roll Juvenile. And still acting like he's 35.
What's he going to do when he grows up?
Ross Muir
November 2010
The audio tracks are presented to accompany the above article and to promote the work of the artist/s. No infringement of copyright is intended.
What's he going to do when he grows up?
Ross Muir
November 2010
The audio tracks are presented to accompany the above article and to promote the work of the artist/s. No infringement of copyright is intended.
