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The Review - BOOKS
Published:
28 August 2008
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The
young one
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Living idol – 50 years in the making of a
national institution
The story of pop’s Peter Pan
is wholesome even after all this time but his flaws are
somewhat glossed over, writes Allan Ledward
Cliff
– An Intimate Portrait of a Living Legend. By
Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred. order
this book
Virgin Books £8.99.
AS a
confused child, Sir Cliff Richard was exposed to vicious
racist bullying “fresh off the boat”.
Harry
Webb’s early life – his dad worked under the Raj –
was a mixed blessing. The abuse for his exotically tanned
skin among the austerity of post-war Britain was in sharp
contrast to the hormonally-charged welcome from female
teenagers when he later took to the stage.
The Webbs,
perceiving hostility from a country standing on its own
two feet, fled to Blighty. After leaning on family and
squeezing into spare rooms, they finally settled in a
council house in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.
Cliff has
always been the bullies’ easy target in the schoolyard
that is pop. He hates swearing and drunkenness, is a
devoted Christian and has an upbeat effervescence that the
rest of us warped souls can only dream about.
His
annual celestial offerings have further damaged his
credibility. But there are many generations completely
unaware that Cliff was arguably our first rock’n’roll
star.
Two great English institutions – Cliff and
Woolies – will come together on September 8. His new
single, Thank You For A Lifetime, goes into Woolworths
stores across the country. Both represent throwbacks to
another era, and both refuse to go away.
Sir Cliff is
aiming to get to the top of the charts in his sixth decade
in music by flogging ye olde compact discs.
He was set
on the road to stardom after playing with schoolmates at
the 2i’s coffee bar on the Soho skiffle scene of the
1950s. It led to his early hits such as Move It and a
string of more pedestrian, family friendly hits.
Cliff
became a multi-tasking showbiz star as successive managers
pushed him towards acting. His feelgood, innocent movies –
Summer Holiday (1963) and The Young Ones (1961, filmed at
Finsbury Park Empire) – were eclipsed by the Beatles’
edgier productions that more accurately reflected the
1960s psychedelic scene.
He later enjoyed under-rated
chart and Eurovision success in the 1970s and early 1980s
before, more recently, moving into acting in musicals.
He
is very much a performer rather than a songwriter – his
songs have largely been “found” for him. But his
over-riding motivation has never been credibility as an
artist – it’s been longevity. This obsessiveness has
set the course of his whole life. And it has led to our
perverse fascination with his sexuality.
Cliff has had
female encounters throughout his life and came close to
marriage on a number of occasions, but has remained a
bachelor boy. His mother, Dorothy, played no small part in
this. She helped unravel more than one romantic
entanglement for the sake of her son’s career –
tactics Cliff seemingly approved of. “Don’t get too
fond of Cliff, he’s got his whole career ahead of him,”
she told one suitor.
Drummer Tony Meehan, from Cliff’s
backing band The Shadows, observed: “Cliff had such a
close relationship with his mother that I think it
precluded any chance ever of there being a girlfriend.”
Cliff turned to religion after the death of his
father; he became involved in Billy Graham’s evangelist
movement – his holy moment of clarity came at a friend’s
flat in Finchley. And it has compromised his career ever
since.
“I planned to give up showbusiness
completely,” he later admitted, before thousands of fans
campaigned for him to “stay in showbiz!”.
When
Cliff goes on tour, satisfying his army of loyal fellow
pensioners, it wouldn’t be a great shock to see Tim
Ewbank and Stafford Hildred fighting their way to the
front to launch their underwear at the pop legend. Their
anodyne portrait of Cliff is entertaining, and doesn’t
shirk the big questions we all ask of this mysterious
figure of fun.
But they are staunch defenders of even
his biggest errors. For example, Cliff was blacklisted by
the UN for touring Apartheid South Africa; he moved in on
his band-mate’s girlfriend and he released Saviour’s
Day – just a few of the “crimes” that his
biographers brush off as innocent mistakes punctuating a
puritanical lifestyle.
Latterly Cliff has grown bitter
as the music industry shifts ever further away from the
hit parade system that he knew as a teenage Elvis fan. His
Woolies arrangement harks back to a time when England was
loveable and innocent – not unlike Cliff himself.
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Your comments:
Best
article I've read for a very long time.
N
Harris
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