Sir Cliff ’s latest CD release? It’s in the magazine section
HE HAS never been one to stay out of the charts for long.
And now Sir Cliff Richard wants to make it into the hit parade this Christmas – using an innovative idea to do so.
The singer, 82, is releasing a festive album in a magazine, saying he has to ‘embrace everything that is new’.
Speaking to Ken Bruce on BBC Radio 2 yesterday, after an exclusive first play of his festive single Heart Of Christmas, he said: ‘I’ve never had a magazine released but it will be in the supermarkets actually.
‘We wanted to have the CD in it or on it but we can’t have it on the front cover because that doesn’t count in the counting of the chart numbers – but you can have it on the inside...
‘You have to embrace everything that is new. I would never have thought of putting a CD in the middle of a magazine, but if it sells records then terrific.’
SIR CLIFF INTERVIEW IN TOMORROW’S WEEKEND
Christmas With Cliff was recorded in Miami and includes ten classic Christmas tracks and three new songs.
Sir Cliff, the only artist ever to have a top five album in eight consecutive decades, told the Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine that artists his age ‘don’t get the opportunity to compete with young people’.
He said: ‘If it goes to No 1 I’d be absolutely thrilled at my time of life but it doesn’t matter. Competition’s good.
‘It’s different today though, because for some inexplicable reason people like myself and others of a certain age, we don’t get the opportunity to compete with young people because our records aren’t played on the radio so much.
‘So I’m hoping I might get some help from radio this Christmas and the youngsters will have to compete with us.’ Sir Cliff enjoyed UK Christmas chart success with Mistletoe and Wine, which took the number one slot in 1988, and Saviour’s Day, which took the title in 1990. That’s not forgetting I Love You, with backing band The Shadows, which was Christmas number one in 1960.
Asked if he will stop making music, he told Bruce: ‘Stop is a good word. I might stop one day. I don’t want to retire.
‘Once you’ve retired you feel you’ve got to stay away and if you do want to do something it’s called a comeback.
‘And every time I hear somebody has done a comeback I’m thinking they’ve run out of money.’
But he does have plans to slow down, joking: ‘You’ve got to be a bit dignified when you’re 82.’
Next month, Sir Cliff will appear in a BBC2 special at Abbey Road Studios, performing a mix of Christmas classics, new songs and his best-loved hits.