Search - Olivia Newton-John :: Indigo: Women of Song

Why no U.S. release? Once again, Amazon.com to the rescue!

John Jenks | West Hollywood, CA | 10/05/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As if my life weren't gay enough, I found myself at the Greek last summer when a friend of a friend chanced into a set of unexpected comps to Olivia's summer barnstorm across North America with an orchestra and a few rock pieces. Well, I'll sit through anything on a comp ticket (including Heart - and not when they were good, either!), and besides, what could be lovelier than a cool summer night under the stars, the air fragrant with eucalyptus, as Olivia charmed her gym-toned faithful with her enviable string of gold singles that is the soundtrack to our childhoods? For free no less! Newton-John told us she'd recently spent five days with producer Phil Ramone in a Malibu studio recording an album described as a tribute to the girl singers who either inspired her or whom she just plain admired, and the three selections she performed that evening - Anyone Who Had a Heart, Cry Me A River, and Alfie - were among the evening's most enchanting. Yet Indigo: Women of Song would enjoy no U.S. release. Once again, Amazon.com to the rescue!



Anyone looking to Indigo for definitive reinterpretations of these classics will surely be disappointed. It is not Olivia's intention to, say, out-Streisand Streisand, for to do so would be disrespectful to those whom she means to honor. She instead merely wants to share with her audience the music that made her want to sing professionally in the first place, including some numbers that began her journey to icon status. She sang Summertime, for example, on her first ever television appearance at age 15. Her Anyone Who Had a Heart doesn't need to eclipse Cilla Black or Dionne Warwick; it appears because it was the song she performed in the finals of a televised Australian talent contest that won her a trip by ship to London in 1966. The rest, as they say, is history. We forgive her for not even ATTEMPTING a glass-shattering Minnie Ripperton Maxell Moment on Loving You because the liner notes reveal that Ripperton was the first woman Olivia knew to die of breast cancer, a fate that the eternally youthful Australian managed to dodge herself in the early 90's.



In a career marked with hit after hit and achievement after achievement - from unwittingly ticking off Nashville's old guard after country music's establishment embraced a foreign pop singer, to the enduring popularity of Grease, to giving the aerobics craze of the 80's a theme song, Physical, whose racy video winks at gym queens disappearing into a steamroom together, thus ensuring its recurrent status on gay bar playlists everywhere - Newton-John's catalogue does not boast a career-defining, non-soundtrack studio album worth owning, which probably explains why the artist is oft-anthologized (enough with the greatest hits packages already!). Nothing in the league of, say, Tapestry, Nick of Time, Dusty in Memphis, Jagged Little Pill, Blue, or The Broadway Album. But while Indigo: Women of Song does not elevate Newton-John to Serious Chanteuse status, at least it won't sound dated in ten years.



SERVING SUGGESTION: Dolly Parton's tribute to hits of the 60's & 70's, Those Were The Days."

Olivia-Indigo...A pleasant surprise

Gary D. Shull | Atlanta | 01/18/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I was thrilled to receive, listen to, and thoroughly enjoy the likes of Indigo. Olivia's voice and multiple styles of singing are just wonderful. I love to hear Olivia sing, and Indigo offers a fantastic delivery of music. I love Indigo....one of my favorite albums to come along in a while. Thank you Olivia.

Douglas,

Atlanta, Georgia USA"