Cliff Richard
The singer who brought rock and roll to Britain before the Beatles, then kept scoring hits for decades after they split. Born Harry Rodger Webb in Lucknow, India, on October 14, 1940, he cut Move It in 1958, a record often described as the first authentic British rock and roll song. With his backing group the Shadows, he dominated British pop in the years before Merseybeat. The films carried the voice further: Expresso Bongo, The Young Ones, Summer Holiday, and Wonderful Life. When his Christian faith drew the music toward the middle of the road, the hits kept coming anyway.
America never fully came around. He placed eight singles in the US Top 40. Devil Woman reached No.6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976 and went gold. We Don't Talk Anymore followed it into the Top 10 and became the biggest-selling record of his career worldwide. At home the numbers are harder to argue with: fourteen UK No.1 singles, the only artist with a No.1 in five consecutive decades, and third among the best-selling acts in UK singles chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley. He was knighted in 1995. In 2020, Music... The Air That I Breathe made him the first artist to reach the UK album Top 5 in eight consecutive decades.
Articles on Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard & Olivia Newton-John – I’m Leaving It All Up To You
She Was There to Promote Her New Single — He Joked He Was Twice Donny Osmond's Age — and Then They Performed the Donny and Marie Hit Together Anyway
Cliff Richard – Devil Woman
In 1975 he failed to reach the British chart at all for the first time in seventeen years, and the record he made next became the biggest American hit of his life.
Cliff Richard – The Best Of Me
Cliff Richard – Summer Holiday
Cliff Richard & The Shadows – Fall In Love With You
Tea-room romance with a backbeat—Cliff and the Shads bottle young London in two and a half minutes