Chatting to my good friend Ajay Dasani at a Dhamal Group (the fantabulous golf group I’ve been part of for the past four years) lunch a few days ago about the blog. He started throwing out some interesting names I had yet to write about. One name immediately set off a train of memories and I knew I had to write about him next – Cliff Richard!! I remember a period of three or four years, when it felt like it was mandatory, by law, to play “Congratulations” on Forces Request. Saccharine sweet and cheesy as it gets, it was the way for Gentleman Cadet XYZ to celebrate the fact that some young belle had fallen in love with him. And, guilty pleasure that it was, all of us sang along, to well, uh……celebrate two young hearts finding love and secretly hoping we might find a reason to request that song someday☺️. I bet none of us ever knew the full lyrics of the song – we just knew the first two lines and the chorus, and boy, did we sing along!  This song was actually Cliff’s come-back #1 of the late 60s – he hadn’t had one for a few years when the Beatles took over the charts in the mid 60s. Cliff performed it at the Eurovision Song Contest as the British entry, losing by one point to some long-forgotten Spanish entry. Amazingly the song was chosen for Cliff to sing by an audience poll on Cilla Black’s show. Cliff sang six songs asking the audience to pick their favourite one which he would duly sing for the Eurovision Song Contest. They picked “Congratulations”. Cliff sang it with gusto, strutting the stage in an interesting frilly outfit that, I’m sure became the inspiration for Mike Myers’ in the “Austin Powers – Man Of Mystery” movie! 😁. Oh, and one more piece of trivia – that excellent bass guitar you can hear on the song? It was played by one John Paul Jones – yup the man himself, who would be a part of Led Zeppelin in the future!

“Devil Woman” came out in 1975 was Cliff’s second comeback single. He hadn’t had any hits since the late 60s and this one was Cliff reinventing his sound from the very sweet, innocent 50s sound that never really outgrew. I first heard it on “In The Groove”, the daily 30 min music show on Yuva Vani, back when I was in class 8 I think. Very groovy (pardon the pun) & atmospheric. Loved it immediately– though for some obscure reason I confused it with Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” for the longest time🤦🏽‍♂️. “she’s just a Devil Woman with evil on her mind / beware the devil woman / she’s gonna get you/ she’s gonna get you from behind”. It turned out to be Cliff’s biggest hit in the US, getting to #6, finally getting a breakthrough after almost 19 years of performing and cutting #1 hits in the rest of the world. He’s sold over 250 Million records globally, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time❤️.  It’s an abiding mystery why the yanks never really got Cliff. 🤔

Born in Lucknow, and originally called Harry Webb, Cliff was a hit machine in the UK, right from his debut, way back in 1958. His stage name Cliff Richard was picked for him on the basis of – “Cliff” being a (terrible) pun on Rock. And Richard, as a tribute to Little Richard 🤦🏽‍♂️. (I suspect these might have been the same guys who selected the name Engelbert Humperdinck for Arnold Doresy 😂 ) .

The name change clearly was a lucky charm as his first single, “Move It” went straight to #2. Recorded with his backing band, The Drifters (more on that in a minute), it’s a fantastic song and is thought to be the first ever non-US Rock ‘n Roll hit. Very much influenced by Little Richard and Elvis, it’s an absolute classic.

Hits followed came one after the other – in fact in the five years between Elvis and the Beatles, Cliff was the biggest selling artist in the UK. In late ’58 though, there was a small hiccup. The Drifters were gently reminded by lawyers that there was a very successful US group by the same name in the US and those guys were getting quite miffed at being mistaken for a small Brit backing band😂. So, The Drifters became The Shadows. Yup those guys! Featuring the guitar genius Hank Marvin and all those fantastic instrumental hits like Apache and Foot Tapper, which were #1s in their own right. They were Cliff’s backing band!

Cliff’s first #1 was Living Doll quickly followed by Travellin’ Light, Please Don’t Tease, and one my personal favourites, Theme For a Dream. They all were staples on Forces Request and over the years became so embedded into my consciousness that I just automatically know the words when the songs ever come up. Same as you guys, I’m sure.

Chris was such a good-looking guy, and modelled as the British Elvis, he was huge draw for the audiences, especially the girls. And so, like Elvis, he soon made the move to the movies. The Young Ones was his first movie. It was smash hit, and, of course the title song went to #1 in the UK. Next came the very cute Summer Holiday, with it’s title track going to #1 as well. Do you remember I’ve told you about an uncle who came back from the US and had a treasure trove of old movies on VHS ? – he had the movie Summer Holiday too. A bunch of lads (Cliff and The Shadows themselves) drive a London bus from London to Paris on holiday and meet up a bunch of girls …. I’m sure you can guess the rest. Not only was it a fun movie – it made London buses look cool! 😁 Of course, I’d heard Summer Holiday on the radio many times before that, but it was really nice to see the movie and get the context of the song. Other hits from Summer Holiday were Bachelor Boy, The Next Time and Dancing Shoes, all songs that Philip Neelam introduced to all of us in his fabulous voice on Force’s Request.

In 1964, Beatlemania swept everyone away, including Cliff. He still had top 10 hits through the 60s, but the huge smash hits eluded him – till Congratulations in 1968. And then as the decades changed and music tastes shifted, there came there was another fallow period till 1976. That’s when Cliff reinvented his sound with Devil Woman (though, there were some nice singles in between , including Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha). Somehow Devil Woman didn’t make it to #1. It took till 1979 for another #1 “We Don’t Talk Anymore”, a melancholic 70s pop smash about breakups, that has a fantastic chorus. And then, we kind of lost Cliff, though we got a few nice songs – Carrie, Suddenly (with ONJ from the movie Xanadu – one of fav movies that no one else likes!) and Wired For Sound. Maybe I just finally outgrew Cliff at that point. Decades later though, listening to his old stuff brings back sweet memories of transistor radios under the pillows and Philip Neelam’s dulcet tones coming over the airwaves. And, unbidden, that same smile comes right back to my face!