Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John skillfully made the transition from popular country-pop singer to popular mainstream soft rock singer, becoming one of the most successful vocalists of the '70s in the process. The transition itself wasn't much of a stretch -- her early-'70s hits "I Honestly Love You" and "Have You Never Been Mellow" were country only in the loosest sense -- yet the extent of her success in both fields was remarkable. As a country singer, her first five charting singles all went Top Ten in the U.S.; as a pop singer, she had no less than 15 Top Ten hits, including five number one singles, highlighted by "Physical," which spent ten weeks at number one in 1981-1982. Newton-John's sweet voice suited both country-pop and soft rock perfectly, which is what kept her at the top of the charts until the mid-'80s. After 1984, she was no longer able to reach the Top 40, partially because of shifting musical tastes and partially because she was unable to successfully record sexy dance-pop, no matter how hard she tried. Nevertheless, her '70s and '80s hits remained soft rock and adult contemporary staples into the '90s, when she was no longer recording frequently.

Although she was born in Cambridge, England, Newton-John was raised in Melbourne, Australia, where her father was the headmaster of Ormond College (her grandfather Max Born won the Nobel Prize for physics)