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1970/71 were Christie's glory years,
the group winning award after award, including:
 Carl
Alan Award: Best Vocal Record 1971
Ivor Novello Award: Most Performed Song
Hit Discs Award: Japan
Hit Song of the Year: Brazil
Citation of Achievement 1971
BMI Award USA: National Popularity
Plaque Award: Norway
Ireland Spotlight Award: Most Popular Group
Voted 7th World's Best Group, Germany, 1971
Top British Group in the UK charts, 1970/71
The song
Yellow River garnered six gold
records in the UK, and gold records in Japan, France, Brazil,
Germany. San Bernadino won
the group three gold records in the UK.
Hitting
No 1 in 23 countries and No 2 in several others, Yellow
River sold so many copies around the world that it
just about single-handedly made CBS Record the biggest label
in 1970.
This report
is reprinted from the US music paper Billboard Magazine,
November 1970, when the single was still selling and starting
to make an impact in the USA:
"CBS Records
has experienced its best sales performance since setting
up as an independent in the UK five years ago.
Some samples
of this worldwide pattern of sales success are Simon and
Garfunkel from CBS in the US and Christie from CBS in the
UK.
Exports to Europe and Commonwealth countries
had been particularly good, especially with Christie’s
Yellow River which had become
a hit in 17 markets, including the rarely penetrated South
American field.
With US sales taken into consideration, Yellow
River is expected to be a 2,000,000-plus seller."
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That
was then, this is now. In 1970, well-known UK media
personality Jimmy Saville, along with colleague Tony
Blackburn, presented Christie with gold records for
their successes with Yellow River
and San Bernadino. Jimmy
had something in common with Jeff Christie and Paul
Fenton: they were all local Leeds lads who had made
good.
In early 2005, the trio caught up again
at a dinner party for a mutual friend. Long-time fans
who remember Jimmy will be happy to know he's healthy
and staying well. |
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In 1969/1970, Australia actually banned records from
foreign artists. That didn't stop Yellow
River from being a hit
once, but twice .. the song was covered in Australia by
local bands called Autumn and Jigsaw, and each version made
the charts. Curiously, the writing credits for the song
were attributed to a "G Christy". Despite this,
Christie did tour Australia after the ban was lifted in
1971, and showed the fans how Yellow
River should have been sung.
The song Yellow River
has been covered by a multitude of artists, including the
obscure and the famous. Versions have been recorded by luminaries
such as REM and Doyle Lawson, to outfits such as Mexican Mariachi
bands, brass bands and Peruvian pan pipers!
For a listing of artists who have covered Christie's
songs, click here.
Vic Elmes married
Dee Anderson, daughter of Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, creator
of the Thunderbirds and other "supermarionation"
series. Because of this connection, Vic was able to get a
foot in the door of the Anderson stable, and was commissioned
to write theme music for some of its shows, the most notable
of which was Space:
1999, with its "space disco" feel and electric
guitar work.
One of the most widely-read British newspaper strips
in the 70s was Andy Capp, featuring the escapades of a habitual
pub-goer. Such was Yellow River's
popularity that the song even featured in one of the episodes.
Jeff Christie started playing at 13 years of age, and at
17 won a talent contest at Bradford in its Stars of Tomorrow
contest. At 18, he and his group won another talent show,
organised by Thames TV to back up its promotion of the Batman
TV program.
At Bogota's International Stadium in 1973, Christie broke
the record pulling in 30,000 fans, 6000 more than supergroup
Santana, Brazilian superstar Roberto Carlos, and a rising
star named Julio Inglesias.
In 1970, actor/director Lionel Jeffries offered Jeff
a part in the film The Railway Children, provided Jeff cut
his long hair. Jeff declined and a few months later, Yellow
River was released.
The movie itself turned out to be quite successful, and
it has become one of the most loved family British films
of the 70s ... so Jeff could well have become a famous movie
actor as well had he accepted the part!
Yellow River was adopted by
Stanford High
American Football team as the theme song for the Clash of
the Titans Super Bowl at California's Rose Bowl Stadium in
1977. |
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There are two versions
of Inside Looking Out on the
Repertoire release of Christie's
first album. Included is the single version of the song,
but on first hearing, there appears to be no difference
between this and the album version. So what's the deal?
Well, the
single version is actually a mono recording, while the album
rendition is in true stereo. Back in the days of AM radio,
vinyl singles were often recorded in mono for better compatibility
with airplay.
Purists
will appreciate the inclusion of this track, but then again
it could be argued that all the other mono versions of Christie
songs could have been added too. A more interesting inclusion
would have been the mono version of Down
The Mississippi Line from the original Yellow
River single, which was a distinctly different version
to the album one.
While on
that subject, the version of Most
Wanted Man In The USA on the Repertoire For
All Mankind album is not the vinyl version. The song
you hear on the CD comes without horn accompaniment, which
was featured on the original 45 record.
The mono waveform for Inside
Looking Out.
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| Jeff's musical ability has been utilised
in producing other bands and writing and performing jingles
for radio and television, the most famous being British Telecom's
Yellow Pages advertisement which has been used for 20 years.
Jeff also had to turn down an opportunity to write and record
a Coca-Cola jingle due to the band's heavy touring commitments
in 1970/71. |
Has there been anywhere Christie hasn't toured? They
were far and away the most travelled pop band in 1970-71.
They've been to Europe, Scandinavia, the Iron Curtain
countries, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, Africa, South
America and Central America - not to mention their own
homeland in the UK.
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| Christie were in fact the first British
group to tour South American and Central American countries
(Mexico, Guatamala, Honduras, Costa Rica, etc). |
| In Argentina, Christie were so famous that
the TV networks gave them their own TV show, a 90 minute documentary
and spectacular with resident orchestra and dancing girls.
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Christie set the pop
world alight in more ways than one. Back in
the 70s, a Dutch company released a line of
matchboxes which featured pictures of the top
pop stars of the day. Of course, Christie was
included!
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Christie hit world headlines in 1972 following a riot
during torrential rain in Zambia's Dag Hammersjkold
Stadium, when the group were forced to abandon the concert
due to danger of electrocution.
Legendary US band leader Ray Coniff asked Jeff to write
songs for his new album at a high society party during one
of Rio's Carnivals. Other artists who wanted Jeff's songs
include Cliff Richard, Long John Baldry, James Last, Jackie
Wilson, and Peter Noone.
On the first South American tour, Christie disembarked
from the plane to a Beatlemania-type reception from their
fans, with a brass band playing Yellow
River on the tarmac.
Christie are believed to be the first
Western pop group to have played behind the Iron
Curtain, in Yugoslavia and Poland at the Sopot Song Festival
in 1970, televised via satellite to 200 million viewers in
the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries.
Russia's local pop music industry developed as
a result of the publicity given to the festival, with homegrown
bands influenced by the performance of Christie. |
 Jeff
Christie and Paul Fenton collaborated on some great songs
when they were at Gil Markle's Long
View Farm, when Paul was recording there with his flamenco
group Carmen. Gil (pictured left) no longer runs a recording
studio, but did keep many of the demos that Jeff and Paul
worked on. One of the songs, Movin'
On, has been featured on Gil's site for some time,
and he has recently added another: Ba
Ba Boo Ba, an ad-lib song that Jeff composed based on
drum rhythms that Paul used to sing out loud. Read more about
it, and listen to the demo, here.
The piece has now been used as background music for a video
promoting Gil's travel business, as well as another of Jeff's
songs, Tonight. Read more about
the incredible legacy that Gil has left here. |
| Before Christie was formed, Jeff (with his
band The Outer Limits) toured with Jimi Hendrix in the last
of the mammoth pop package tours, which also featured
Pink Floyd, Amen Corner, The Nice and The Move. |
 The
Who performed around the UK in 2006, and among the licensed
merchandise for the gigs was this t-shirt, which reproduces
a cover of a 1970 issue of New Musical Express. That same
cover has a pointer to a Christie article
inside the paper about Christie "going into hiding"
to rehearse (top left-hand corner). Jeff himself loves the
early Who music, with Jeff's Outer Limits often playing the
sort of progressive music The Who excelled in, so he was quick
to buy a few copies for himself. |
| Mark Knopfler once
wrote an article on Christie! |
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