81. Always Guaranteed released
September, 1987Perhaps his most important album since
I'm Nearly Famous in 1976, Always Guaranteed was the album that thrust Cliff back into the charts after his run in
Time and would go on to sell more than 1.3 million copies to become his highest selling studio album ever.
The idea for a 'definitive Cliff Richard album' came to Cliff after he heard Michael Jackson's
Thriller, and Alan Tarney was brought in to write and produce all of the songs.
Always Guaranteed went on to produce four singles, the most he'd ever released from an album, including the No.3 hit
Some People.
82. Cliff's highest selling album of all time is released
November, 1988
Capping off his third decade in the music industry was a compilation album featuring his most memorable hits from 1979 to 1980 which would become Cliff's highest selling album of all time.
Quickly rising to the top of the charts upon release, Private Collection went on to be certified platinum four times in the UK for sales of over 1.2million copies, and was to produce Cliff's biggest UK hit single of the decade.
83. Mistletoe & Wine becomes Cliff's first Christmas-themed No.1
November, 1988At the same time Private Collection was rising up the charts,
Mistletoe & Wine also began to catch on, eventually climbing to the summit where it stayed for five weeks.
Mistletoe & Wine not only went on to become the highest selling single of the year, and the
twelfth highest selling of the eighties in Britain, but it became a Christmas standard that would make Cliff and Christmas almost synonymous in Britain for years to come.
84. Cliff becomes the first British artist to release 100 singles
May, 1989
For his landmark 100th single Cliff chose a song written by David Foster and Richard Marx called
The Best of Me.
While the song was kept of No.1 by Jason Donovan, there was some romanticism in the fact that it peaked at the same position as first single
Move It way back in 1958, and it was also heralded by the press as a significant landmark.
85. The Event takes over Wembley Stadium
16 June, 1989
To celebrate his thirtieth anniversary in show business, Cliff commandeered Wembley Stadium for what would be the largest dates of his entire career.
While Cliff was initially worried that he wouldn't be able to fill the stadium, all 72,000 tickets for the first concert sold out in the first weekend and a second show was soon
scheduled which also quickly sold out. Despite these impressive numbers, Cliff gave up his own slice of the ticket sales to plow back into a show which he wanted to turn into an 'event' for his fans.
Cliff divided the show into various parts, including a version of The Oh Boy Show featuring original cast members, a Shadows reunion, reggae band Asward, and his own set at the end of the show, and over ninety performers and musicians were on stage at one time or another. To help make the show run, three thousand people from ticket takers to crowd control had to be employed, but it was the 144,000 people who bought tickets to the shows that helped life the proceedings from that of a mere concert to a bonafide
Event.
86. Stock, Aitken and Waterman give Cliff his first dance hit
August, 1989
For the past few years the songwriting/production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman had been dominating the British charts with danceable pop tunes recorded by artists such as Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. By 1991 they had seen fifty-two of their songs reach the top ten, making them the most successful production team in British chart history.
While receiving an award for Rick Astley's hit Never Gonna Give You Up at the Ivor Novello awards in April 1989, Cliff leaned over to the group and said, 'If you ever come up with another song like that, give me a call.' In no time they had whipped up a hit called
I Just Don't Have The Heart, which ended up placing No.3 on the UK singles charts and No.2 on the dance charts. It also managed to top the charts in the Philippines.
87. Cliff appears at Knebworth
30 June, 1990
One of the largest crowds Cliff has ever performed to was the 120,000 people present at the Knebworth concert set up in aid of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre for providing music therapy for handicapped children and the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology.
Cliff and the Shadows appeared in this concert that was beamed to ninety per cent of the world and included stars such as Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Pink Floyd and Phil Collins.
88. Cliff overtakes Elvis' chart record
August, 1990
It took him thirty-two years, but in 1990 Cliff finally surpasses Elvis' record of fifty-five British top ten hits with
Silhouettes. It would take him another eight years to overtake Elvis' amount of weeks spent in the singles charts.
89.Fiftieth birthday for Cliff
14 October, 1990
Riding high on perhaps the highest wave of success since the early sixties, Cliff approached his fiftieth birthday in the same way as he had his
fortieth; with relative indifference.
Another similarity was that Cliff was also performing on the night of his birthday, however this time he was having a special birthday concert at the much-larger 12,000 capacity Birmingham N.E.C. After the concert he held a
Champaign party with friends and family, where he was presented with a gift by Elton John's manager on behalf of the star which was a £15,000 diamond brooch and fifty-two bottles of vintage wine.
90. Cliff embarks on record-breaking From A Distance tour
1 November, 1990
Launching him well and truly into his fourth decade in showbusiness was Cliff's record-breaking
From A Distance tour.
Starting in Birmingham, and winding its way through Birmingham, Aberdeen and London, this tour set records for most sold out nights at Wembley Arena (18 nights and 216,000 people) and the NEC in Birmingham (12 nights to over 145,000 people). Overall the tour sold 420,000 tickets across Britain, firmly establishing Cliff as one of the most popular live acts in the world, with a stage show that heralded in a new era of high-tech
elaborate Cliff concerts.
The tour and successful accompanying album were estimated to have generated £22million in 1990.
