12 | Canada South | October 2016 www.canadasouthmagazine.com

PHOTO BY DENISE TRUSCELLO

Happy. Honest. Humble. That pretty much sums up the incomparable Olivia Newton-John. Truth is, you really don’t have to look that hard

to recognize those traits in the prolific Gram-my-winner. It’s evident from the way she holds herself. You see it in the way she’s approached music over the last five decades. And it stands out in her many philanthropic efforts.

But it may be most obvious when you expe-rience Olivia in person, particularly when she’s onstage, in her element, doing what she abso-lutely loves—performing.

Spring 2016. Indio’s Fantasy Springs Re-sort. Olivia stands gracefully underneath a heavenly array of spotlights center stage. The house is packed. At one point during the in-candescent concert, the lights and the mood shift. Olivia smiles—that genuine grin that has captured many a magazine cover. Suddenly, the famous Aussie-raised performer is bathed in ethereal amethyst and silvery hues. Fitting. Because the band cues up a love song she sang from the 1978 blockbuster “Grease.” (Yes. That one.) Olivia gently cradles the mic … her vocals dreamy, the lyrics heartfelt.

And then it happens. The moment arrives.

She belts out the chorus to the iconic song, “Hopelessly Devoted to You.”

“But now, there’s nowhere to hide …”Hearts pound. (Well, at least mine did, how-

ever judging by the amount of people who rose to their feat during the crescendo in the music, it’s clear I was not alone.)

Many of us are privy to the lyrics that follow in the famous song. To be sure, “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” which Olivia, as the charac-ter of Sandy, crooned in “Grease,” embedded itself into the fabric of music history. Funny enough, the song and the scene almost never make it into the film; it was added later. Still, it remains one of most soul-stirring ballads to ever find its way into a movie musical. Later, when the song was nominated for an Academy Award and Olivia performed it onstage during the Oscars’ telecast, the audience cheered. Her powerfully rich vocals were flawless.

That spring evening in Indio was no dif-ferent. Nearly 40 years later, the singer was impeccable. The good news is that Canadians and locals in Coachella Valley will have an op-portunity to experience some of Olivia’s magic this fall when she hits the stage in Enoch, Can-ada on Nov. 11, followed by a performance at

McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert on Nov. 18. In between, her Las Vegas residency has been extended through the remainder of the year, and her numerous philanthropic endeavors and other matters of heart continue to capture attention as well.

It is the latter that propels the two of us deeper into a conversation about the mysteries of life and the strength many of us hope to pos-sess during its more challenging passages.

“I like to make people realize that their mind is just as important to their healing as the stuff that is being done to the body,” Olivia tells me about a topic thoroughly dear to her—good health. Not light conversation by any means, but wonderfully significant. All of it sparked by the arrival of Olivia’s new album “Liv On,” on which she tackles the often unspoken topic of grief—its impact and moving through it. The album features a winning trifecta of talent as Nashville’s Beth Nielsen Chapman and Amy Sky, a popular Toronto-born singer-songwrit-er-actress-television host, perform on their own and alongside Olivia as well.

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PHOTO BY DENISE TRUSCELLO

Curiously, the project be-gan when the three began sharing openly about their own experiences with grief. Olivia’s sister, Rona, died due to complications of brain cancer in 2013. Beth, like Ol-ivia, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and tri-umphed thereafter, is also a breast cancer survivor—a.k.a “thriver.” And Amy’s work as a spokesperson and advo-cate for mental health—or “mental hygiene” as she calls it—certainly stands out. In 2006, Amy went public with her struggles with depression and postpartum psychosis, a severe form of postpartum depression that affects mil-lions of women. Later that year, she became one of the faces of the “Transforming Lives Public Awareness” cam-paign sired by Toronto’s Cen-ter for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. Not long afterward, giant posters of Amy were installed in bus shelters around the city.

For each performer, col-laborating on the topic of grief seemed like the perfect next step in their creative and personal evolutions.

Live On“I had written a song for my sister, Rona, and asked Amy if she would help me finish it and put it down … as a way of me expressing my grief,” Olivia says of the genesis of “Liv On.” “We started talk-ing about grief—she recently lost her mother– and then Beth, who lost her husband … I thought, what an amaz-ing collaboration to make this CD on loss and grief, and learning to move through it.

“You know, very often, people are not understand-ing when others are going through grief. They want you to get over it. Actually,

it’s a process. It’s different for everybody.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Olivia embarked on a creative venture with the hopes of raising the level of awareness about important health issues. Back in 1992, several decades after she en-tered the entertainment busi-ness—and four Grammys, several films, an Emmy, and a People’s Choice Award later—she embarked upon a very public path of defeating her breast cancer. Enter: “Gaia: One Woman’s Journey.” The uplifting album released in 1994. Other outings, such as 1998’s “Back With a Heart,” 2000’s “One Woman’s Jour-ney,” 2005’s “Stronger Than Before,” and 2006’s “Grace and Gratitude,” all touched upon the themes of empow-erment, self-esteem, healing, and love.

“Liv On” follows similar suit, with songs like “My Heart Goes Out to You,” “Im-mortality,” and “I Will Take Care of You.”

“People just need to un-derstand more about grief,” Olivia says, with more than a hint of conviction in her voice. “I’ll give you an ex-ample. A fan came to my show, a really sweet woman, and she had lost her son a week before. And I was a little surprised she came, but she said, ‘I came because your songs help me; they make me feel good and they help be healthy.’ And she went on to tell me, ‘You know, I went back to work about a week after my son had been killed and people at work told me to get over it.’”

She pauses.“And that … took my

breath away. How could anybody be that cold and uncompassionate, especially to somebody who had lost a child? And I thought, there seems to be a lack of under-standing on what kind of

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process grief is; when you lose someone. Di-vorce is like a death and so is losing your health, or a job, or a pet. You can go through terrible grief from these things and people don’t un-derstand that can affect your whole body. You need to support each other … to say, ‘You know it’s going to be okay,’ and have a cry.

“Knowing that people understand and that you can talk about it is so important.”

“Liv On,” which boasts 11 tracks, was re-leased in early October. Some of the songs, like “Stone in My Pocket,” find all three perform-ers singing together. Quite divine, actually. It also illuminates one thing very clearly: There’s nothing like the force of three ambitious health advocates—let’s just say muses—to showcase the depth and power of grief … and the importance of allies during its incarnation in one’s life.

Ah … life.Olivia’s life. Let’s talk about that.

Twist(s) of FateWhen the conversation turns to the subject of career, Olivia chuckles. Maybe because it seems unfathomable to her—and perhaps to many of her fans, too—that 2016 year marks the per-former’s 50th year in show business.

“Yeah … that is unbelievable.”How does she feel about that?“Oh, I’m very grateful for it. I say it every night,

but I really mean it—I am grateful that I am still standing on stage and people are coming to see me,” she says. “That’s pretty amazing after 50 years of performing. The fact that I’m still learn-ing. Every night I learn something new. You never stop growing or learning. It’s wonderful.”

Born in Cambridge, England, in 1948, Olivia was youngest child of Professor Brin Newton-John and Irene, who happened to be the daughter of Nobel Prize winning physicist,

Max Born. The posse moved to Melbourne, Australia, when Olivia was 5. Music always played a significant role in her life.

“It’s all I know how to do,” she says, with a melodic laugh.

Big breaks happened. The first one arrived after she won a talent contest on a popular tele-vision show dubbed, “Sing, Sing, Sing.” The perk: Olivia was given a trip to London. Things shifted dramatically after that. By the time she hit 15, she spearheaded an all-girl group (Sol Four) and began appearing in local weekly pop music programs in the early 1960s. A col-laboration with her Melbourne pal, Pat Carroll (now Farrar), led to the creation of “Pat & Ol-ivia”—the ladies toured army bases and clubs throughout the UK and Europe. Her first single (for Decca Records) arrived in 1966, a version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine,” but it would be her 1971 recording of

16 | Canada South | October 2016 www.canadasouthmagazine.com

COVER STORY

FRONT AND CENTEROlivia Newton-John in front of the Cancer Wellness Centre, located in her “home” of Australia.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OLIVIANEWTONJOHN.COM

a Bob Dylan cover song, “If Not For You,” co-produced by fellow Aussie and friend, John Far-rar, that changed everything.

Enter: Her U.S. album debut with “Let Me Be There.” The title track became Olivia’s first Top 10 single. Accolades followed—an honor by the Academy of Country Music (Most Prom-ising Female Vocalist) and a Grammy Award

(Best Country Vocalist).The 1970s were profoundly good to Olivia—

and Olivia to the music scene.Her singles, “I Honestly Love You,” “Deeper

Than The Night,” A Little More Love,” traced her evolution as a singer capable of crossing genres, however by the closing act of “Grease”—the spandex, the spandex! (and that duet with John Travolta à la “You’re The One That I Want”—the world witnessed a remarkable transformation in the performer. It didn’t stop there. Other movies followed—“Xanadu” with its killer soundtrack (“Magic,” “Suddenly,” and the title song) and “Two of a Kind” (also starring John Travolta and an outing that spawned an-other hit single, “Twist of Fate.”) But it was back in 1981, upon the release of the single “Physi-cal,” from the album of the same name, where we saw it: Olivia had officially shed her Coun-try Music persona and morphed into a stunning provocateur. The title track topped the charts for 10 consecutive weeks—Billboard Magazine christened it No. 6 on its Top 100 Songs of all Time list; in 2010, the magazine cheered that “Physical” was “The Sexiest Song of All Time.”

One-hundred million albums sold later, Ol-

ivia’s appeal appears to be everlasting.“Singing for me is … well, it’s from my

heart,” she reflects. “It’s my way of express-ing myself. As a performer, if I feel I can reach people, that’s wonderful. I’ve been very lucky with the songs I have been given over the years. John Farrar (married to Pat) has written some amazing songs for me and the lyrics have been palpable. I’ve written songs for myself—my environmental songs. They communicate something with the audience and then … they can say they had fun, or were moved, or that it made them feel good. I love that.”

She also loves something else: Giving back.

A Little More Love

“I’ve been given so much in my life and I am in a position now where I can give back and that feels even better,” Olivia says of her phil-anthropic ties, the most notable of which is the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Research Centre (at Austin Hospital) and the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute.

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Both organizations are based in Australia. The former, considered one of the best in the world, implements new treatments to help stop cancer from spreading and occurring. Its Wellness Centre offers innovative programs of support—from massage and meditation to mu-sic and art therapy. The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute has many notables, however its six core research programs are significant for how well they investigate and implement treatments for a wide range of can-cer types, including breast, bowel, liver, lung, melanoma, and brain cancer.

“It helps create something of value,” Olivia says of the hospital. “That’s been a passion for me because I’ve been through breast cancer myself so I understood what was needed in pa-tient care and what was necessary for people to recover, which is not just attacking the cancer cells in the body, but the mind and the spirit of the person going through it.

“In time, we will be able to transform the kind of treatment going on now to a more nat-ural therapy for the body.”

Another noteworthy endeavor Olivia spear-headed was Liv Aid, a breast self-examination aid that assists women to exercise breast self-exams correctly (liv.com). She also served as the national spokesperson for the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC), which was founded after the death of her daughter, Chloe’s, best friend from a rare childhood cancer.

And then there is Gaia Retreat & Spa, the healing retreat Olivia created 10 years ago and which has now morphed into an award-win-ning healing outpost.

She is first to admit that she cannot do all of the work alone. Her husband John Esterling, a re-nowned herb specialist, has been a vital support.

“It’s been wonderful with my husband, be-cause he’s been working with herbs that he’s brought back from the Amazon Rain Forest, so together, that’s been an incredible support for me and for the wellness center,” she adds.

“I’m trying to make it more than just a can-cer center, but with different therapies and a place that can be loved by the patients. It’s so important.”

Actually … it’s so Olivia.

Olivia Newton-John takes the stage at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18, at McCallum Theatre, 73000 Fred Waring Drive, Palm Desert. Visit mccallumtheatre.com.

Stay up to date on all things ONJ at olivianewton-john.com. Learn more about Gai Retreat & Spa at gaiaretreat.com.au. Discover all facets about the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute at oliviaappeal.com.

A portion of every one of the tickets for Olivia New-ton-John’s Las Vegas show goes to the wellness cen-ter at the hospital.

18 | Canada South | October 2016 www.canadasouthmagazine.com

COVER STORY Parting ThoughtsIn which we play a little word association with Olivia Newton-John.

Canada South: Play with us. Say what-ever comes to your mind. Let’s start with … the song “Sam.”

Olivia Newton-John: “Oh, it makes me think of John Farrar, and his wife Pat, who used to sing with me. And their son, Sam, who was named after the song. It’s one of my favorite songs ever.”

John Travolta.“Amazing friend. Incredible actor. A lega-cy with ‘Grease.’ We’ll always be close be-cause of that. I have great respect for him as an actor and I learned a lot from him making the movie.”

‘Sordid Lives.’[Laughs] “Fun! Hilarious. I love playing that role [of Bitsy Mae Harling] in the film. Del Shores is really a dear friend of mine. It also makes me think of my sister. Because if it hadn’t been for Rona, I wouldn’t have met Del, and I wouldn’t have seen the play, and just jokingly said, ‘If you ever want somebody to play the guitar player, think of me.’ And he did. That was really a step out from what people expect from me and I like to surprise people.”

Where do you feel most at home?“Wow. Hard question. Well, Australia is my ‘heart’ home but really anywhere I am with my husband and family and daugh-ter Chloe, I am at home. So, we can be anywhere in the world. We just landed in Vegas and we have dog and the cat in the back, and my husband is driving and ... I am home.”

Something people may not know about you?“Well. We’ll probably keep that that way, then?” [Laughs]

Some of the best advice you’ve been given about life?“Oh Gosh, live in the moment. Find joy in the moment. And: You can’t think too much about the future or the past. Be-cause you have no control over that. Be here now. I think I pretty much do that.”

Some of the most interesting things you’ve learned about yourself lately?“Oh gosh …”

I know, it’s like therapy, isn’t it?“It is like therapy. I have to pay you after this. [Laughs]. Well, I am forever learning how grateful I am with my life. Every day.”

And in the song ‘Magic,’ you sing, “Have to believe we are magic ...’ Do you believe in magic?

“Of course. [Laughs] I experience it every day.”

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PHOTO BY DENISE TRUSCELLO