Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

When many — if not most — people think of Olivia Newton-John, the songs that first come to mind may be her hit duet with John Travolta, “You’re The One That I Want (from ‘Grease’),” or her Grammy-winning hit song, “Physical,” which became an anthem of the early 1980s fitness craze. But Olivia Newton-John’s musical career is as varied as it is voluminous.

The artist so nice they named her thrice, Olivia Newton-John was born Sept. 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England. At age five, Newton-John moved with her family to Melbourne, Australia, where her father was offered a professorship at a university there. 

As a teenager, she began performing and competing in talent contests, which eventually landed her a recording contract. Her first forays into recording saw Newton-John performing renditions of songs by Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Dolly Parton, John Denver, Kris Kristofferson and others. Newton-John’s 1973 recording of the song, “Let Me Be There,” written by English musician John Rostill, earned Newton-John her first Grammy Award — for Best Female Country Vocal Performance — in 1974. We’ll feature this song as our Classic Americana pick this week.

Following her celebrated work in country music, Newton-John found further success recording mellow pop songs. In 1978, her career took another leap forward when she was cast as Sandy in the motion-picture adaptation of Grease.

Newton-John’s career continued to be highlighted by hit songs that gained popularity in the jukebox and at the box office. She took time off to raise her family, then returned to performing later in life.

Beyond music, Olivia Newton-John was an activist who worked for environmental causes and for cancer treatment and cure research. Newton-John had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, which forced her to take time out from performing to attend to treatments. After a long period of remission, the disease returned in 2017, and Newton-John died in 2022 at her home in California.

During her lifetime, Newton-John received multiple awards, including four Grammys, and she was inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association’s Hall of Fame in 2002. In 1979, she was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II, and in 2019, was upgraded to Dame Commander (DBE).

In 2023, Olivia Newton-John was posthumously inducted into the Women Songwriters Hall of Fame in a ceremony in Washington D.C.

External Links

Olivia Newton-John – official site