The Story of Olivia Newton-John’s First Single

Till You Say You’ll Be Mine (1966)

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

You may or may not know that I’m a fill-in announcer for the excellent Melbourne community radio station, PBS 106.7 FM. For one such fill-in, I presented a retrospective of Australian female singers. The third track I played was Olivia Newton-John’s first-ever single, “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine”.

How Olivia came to record her first single is a pretty interesting story.

Olivia was born in England but emigrated with her family to Melbourne, Australia as a six-year-old in 1954. She began performing with friends aged about 14 and a year later made her way to network television where she became well-known as a singer with a sweet but powerful voice.

Here’s Olivia performing on the Australian music television show, Boomeride, in May 1965. Olivia performed three songs live, rather than lip-synching, which was common practice at the time.

That same year, Olivia won a talent contest hosted by Australia’s King of Rock ’n’ Roll, Johnny O’Keefe. The prize…