AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Cliff Richard

Artist:Cliff Richard
Song:We Don't Talk Anymore
Album:Complete Hits





Back in the late 50s, Cliff Richard was probably the biggest pop star in England. He may have been bigger than Elvis. John Lennon said Richard was the first British rock & roll star. But that never translated to US stardom until the late 70s when We Don't Talk Anymore was one of his two US top ten hits. Like a lot of artists from the 50s and early 60s, Richard's career was killed by the emergence of The Beatles in 1964. Richard's answer to this was to turn to Christian music. He even starred in the 1967 Billy Graham produced film Two a Penny. And he had the TV variety show It's Cliff Richard on the BBC from 1970-76. EMI Records thought Richard could be repackaged as a contemporary singer. Richard's old pal Bruce Welch of Richard's backup group The Shadows convinced Richard to do that. The end result was the 1976 single Devil Woman. Not only was it a hit in England but it reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. But Richard didn't like the song because of his Christian faith. So he went back to recording Christian music. In 1979, Welch again convinced Richard to record secular music. And this time he brought session bassist Alan Tarney to help. He had played on previous Richard recordings. Tarney wrote We Don't Talk Anymore. The song topped the British chart and reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was one of the first videos to be played on MTV. The success got him a role in the 1980 film Xanadu. We Don't Talk Anymore was his final US hit. But Richard continues to be very popular in England. This 2CD comp from EMI Europe is a good intro to his music. He was knighted in 1995 so he is now Sir Cliff Richard. He released his 100th album last year and it was recently announced that along with Tom Jones, Richard will open for Morissey shows in Brooklyn and Los Angeles this spring. Here's the video for We Don't Talk Anymore by Cliff Richard.