Cliff Richard is one of the most successful British musicians who created rock and roll long before Group The Beatles. For five decades in a row, he had one No. 1 hit. No other British artist has achieved such success.
On October 14, 2020, the British rock and roll veteran celebrated his 80th birthday with a bright white smile.
Cliff Richard didn't expect him to be making music in his old age, even performing regularly on stage. “Looking back, I remember how I thought I was unlikely to live to 50,” the musician joked on his website.
Cliff Richard has performed on stage for over 6 decades. He has recorded over 60 albums and sold over 250 million records. This made him one of the UK's most successful musicians. After receiving the award in 1995, Cliff was knighted and allowed to call himself Sir Cliff Richard. "It's very nice," he said in one of his rare interviews with ITV last year, "but there's no need to use that title."
Childhood Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard was born October 14, 1940 in Lucknow (British India) to an English family. His real name is Harry Roger Webb. He spent the first eight years of his life in India, then his parents, Roger Oscar Webb and Dorothy Marie, returned to the UK with their son Harry and his three sisters.
A concert by the American rock and roll band Bill Haley & His Comets in London in 1957 sparked his interest in rock and roll. As a schoolboy, Cliff became a member of the Quintones, which were very popular at school concerts and local performances. He then moved to the Dick Teague Skiffle Group.
One evening, when they were playing Five Horseshoes, Johnny Foster proposed to the guys to become their manager. It was Foster who came up with the stage name Cliff Richard for Harry Webb. In 1958, Richard had his first hit, Moveit, with the Drifters. With this record, he was initially one of the few Britons who tried to jump on the bandwagon of rock and roll. But a year later, his hits Living Doll and Travelin' Light topped the charts in the UK.
The beginning of Cliff Richard's career
By mid-1961, he had already sold more than 1 million records, received two "gold" records and starred in three films, including the musical The Young Ones. “I dreamed of being like Elvis Presley,” said the musician.
Harry Webb became Cliff Richard and was originally marketed as the "European Elvis". The first single Move It became a hit and is now considered a milestone in British rock music. Long before The Beatles Cliff, performing with the backing band The Shadows, became the nominal leader of rock and roll in the country. “Before Cliff and The Shadows, there was nothing to listen to in British music,” John Lennon later said.
Cliff Richard released one hit after another. Hits like Living Doll, Travellin' Light or Please Don't Tease have gone down in rock and roll history forever. Gradually, he changed course to pop music, and his songs sounded softer. The singer also tried his hand at filming the musical film Summer Holiday.
Wherever Cliff Richard appeared, young fans greeted him with enthusiasm, and not only in his homeland. He topped the German charts with the single Redlips Should Be Kissed, the German version of Lucky Lips. In the late 1960s, he even recorded two German-language albums: Hierist Cliff and I Dream Your Dreams. Song titles such as O-la-la (Caesar Said to Cleopatra) or Tender Seconds remain iconic to this day.
Creativity after the 1970s
By the mid-1970s, success had become somewhat moderate. But in 1976, he hit the US top 10 for the first time with Devil Woman. And he became the first Western pop singer to appear in the Soviet Union.
Later, We Don't Talk Anymore, Wired For Sound, Some People and the Christmas song Mistletoe and Wine were popular. In 1999, the artist again topped the charts with The Millennium Prayer, a prayer to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. It was no longer associated with rock and roll.
In 2006, Cliff Richard set his new record. With the single 21st Century Christmas, he reached number 2 in the UK charts. Since 2010, fans of the artist could count on a new album almost every year. In October 2010, Bold as Brass was released. And next year - Soulicious (in October 2011).
On November 15, 2013, Cliff Richard, now over 70 years old, released his 100th album with The Fabulous Rock 'n' Roll Songbook and returned to rock and roll.
At the end of October 2020, the musician’s anniversary album Music… The Air That I Breathe is being prepared for release. It will contain the best and favorite hits of the singer. It should be a combination of pop music and nostalgic rock and roll.
Personal about Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard is a committed Christian. His songs include many Christian titles. He published a book of 50 Bible stories for children. The musician also played the title role in the Christian film Two Penny in 1970. The artist began to take an active part in evangelism and performed with the American preacher Billy Graham. In his personal life, he devoted himself to many charitable organizations, which he stated in an interview during the awarding of the title "Knight of the Crusade to Jesus."
Sexual orientation and criminal charges
The media have been discussing the artist's sexual orientation for decades. In his autobiography, published in 2008, he wrote: “It annoys the hell out of me how the media speculates about my sexuality. Is this someone's business? I don't think my fans care. In any case, sex is not a driving force for me.
On August 14, 2014, British police raided Cliff Richard's home in Sunningdale and announced that they were bringing charges of "sexual nature" in the early 1980s against a boy who was not yet 16 years old. The singer dismissed the allegations as "completely absurd". In 2016, the police stopped the investigation.
In the summer of 2018, he won a reputational damage case against the BBC.
Cliff Richard later called the allegations and subsequent reports "the worst thing that's happened to me in my entire life". It took a while to recover from the horror, but now he feels great. “I can be happy that I am 80, I feel good and can move,” says Sir Cliff Richard. Regarding his career, he said, "I think I'm the happiest pop star that ever lived."
Awards:
- In 1964 and 1965 the artist received the Bravo Otto award from the youth magazine Bravo.
- In 1977 and in 1982 won the Brit Awards for Best British Solo Artist.
- 1980 - for his musical merits received the Order of OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire);
- In 1993, he received the RSH Gold Music Prize in the Classics category.
- He was knighted in 1995 for his philanthropic services.
- 2006 - received the National Order of Knighthood of Portugal (Ordens des Infanten Dom Henrique).
- In 2011 he received the Honorary Award of the German Sustainability Award.
- In 2014, the Golden Compass Media Award was presented by the Christian Media Association.
Hobby musician Cliff Richard
In 2001, Cliff Richard harvested the first harvest from his winery in Portugal. The red wine from his vineyard is called Vida Nova. This wine received a bronze medal at the International Wine Challenge in London as the best of over 9000 wines. All wines have been blind tested by experts.
Cliff sells his perfume under the name Devil Woman.
During the cold season, Cliff Richard likes to stay at his villa in Barbados. He even provided it for rest to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
According to media reports, he recently bought a luxury apartment in New York.
His The Great 80 Tour of the United Kingdom, which was due to take place on his birthday this October, has been postponed by one year due to the coronavirus pandemic. "I'll be 80 when the tour starts, but when it's over I'll be 81," joked Cliff Richard on the TV show Good Morning Britain.
