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MY LIFE, MY WAY by CLIFF RICHARD

Published by Headline Review / Published 1 November 2008

No one has a career lasting 50 odd years without being driven and determined, especially difficult when you are often better known for your virtuous off stage life than your chart toppers.

Having been born in India as plain Harry Webb, to parents who were forced to move back to England in 1948 following India's gaining of independance, Cliff was by his teenage years heavily into rock n roll, had formed a band called The Drifters (later to become the Shadows after drafting in Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch) and was singing in the coffee shops of London, most famously the 2i's (which at the time had already been the launch pad for the careers of Tommy Steele and Terry Dene) and then by the age of seventeen was the most popular singer in England thanks to the amazing success of his first single Move It.

Until the Beatles came on the scene to change things forever, Cliff and the Shadows were untouchable, number one hits by the bucketload, sell out tours and classic movies like The Young Ones and Summer Holiday. By the mid sixties though Cliff had embraced Christianity and was appearing in the Eurovision song Contest. The seventies marked something of a revival with the likes of Devil Woman, Miss You Nights and We Don't Talk Anymore but for the last couple of decades Cliff has been king of the Christmas single. What many people don't realise is that Cliff is the only artist to have a number one single in every decade since the 1950's and has outsold both The Beatles and Elvis!!

Co written by journalist and TV broadcaster Penny Junor, My Life, My Way is more a journey through a life than a straight forward chronological biograph, not one for kiss and tell anecdotes (the closest Cliff gets to revealing anything of his love life is mentioning in passing his relationship with Sue Barker) but he does admit to one shocking fact - he is afraid of spiders.

Cliff Richard is a real legend of the music industry, an icon to be treasured, one of the few British rock n rollers from the earliest days still actually with us and whilst he might not have smashed up any hotel rooms or got involved in any of the other foibles of the rock scene, he still absolutely has a place in the pantheon of rock and roll music. Cliff we salute you!

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