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The death of her older sister from brain cancer in 2013 was the starting point for Olivia Newton-John’s new album Liv On, the latest chapter in an acting and musical career that spans five decades. A collaboration with Canadian singer Amy Sky and Nashville veteran Beth Nielsen Chapman, Liv On tackles challenging topics – coping with the loss of a loved one, the importance of end-of-life-care and the often unpredictable process of healing – with a bracing directness. In this instance, grief is the word.

Flanked by Sky and Chapman at the Celtic Connections folk festival in only their second live concert together, Newton-John expertly channels her palpable film-star charisma to create an atmosphere where such emotional and potentially distressing issues can become something cathartic and even celebratory. A musical sparseness – the trio’s harmonised voices are variously accompanied only by an acoustic guitar and a piano – also helps safeguard against a descent into schmaltz.

All three are consummate performers in their own right. Sky put Maya Angelou’s inspirational Phenomenal Woman to music more than a decade before Beyoncé incorporated it into her stage shows, and she delivers a heartfelt rendition here. Chapman appealingly revisits This Kiss, the curveball country-pop smash she wrote for Faith Hill. But perhaps the warmest response is for Newton-John’s 1974 hit I Honestly Love You. After a slightly incongruous Pharrell cover, Newton-John welcomes Phil Cunningham, a Celtic Connections fixture, to the stage to add some plaintive whistle to their finale, Immortality. Despite the heartbreaking subject matter, Cunningham looks delighted to be the crowd’s Danny Zuko proxy.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/25/olivia-newton-john-amy-sky-beth-nielsen-chapman-liv-on-review

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MIRROR MIRROR 

Olivia Newton-John on how she hopes chemotherapy will soon become a thing of the past !

Singer Olivia Newton-John beat cancer in 1992. Here she tells how she has kept in good health since winning her cancer battle.

"I was always pretty health conscious. I exercised and ate healthily throughout my twenties and thirties, but I’d had some problems with lumps in my breast for a few years.

When I discovered a tiny lump in 1992, I had a bad feeling about it. I saw my doctor and had a mammogram and that didn’t show anything. But I insisted there was something there and had a needle biopsy.

While I was waiting for the results, I flew to see my father who was dying of liver cancer in Australia.

I came back to America as I had a tour to prepare for, and then I got a message to call my doctor. On the same day, I got the call that my father had died. So it all came at once.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer , which was a big shock. To suddenly be faced with a life threatening illness, when I had a young daughter, Chloe, was terrifying. And I lost my dad to cancer too.

Read more at http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/olivia-newton-john-how-hopes-9679428