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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice.

[0:01] Tim Rice: Welcome to episode 17 of my podcast, Get On to My Cloud!

[0:16] Tim Rice: I'm recording this episode of Get On to My Cloud shortly after the opening of a concert version of Jesus Christ Superstar in the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, which at the time of this recording, 23rd of August 2020, I haven't yet seen.

[0:31] Tim Rice: The show has had terrific reviews, which from my point of view is very nice.

[0:35] Tim Rice: But much more important is the fact that the director Tim Sheader and the entire company of this superstar have brought live theatre, albeit in largely concert format, back to London, while plenty of COVID-19 restrictions are still in force.

[0:51] Tim Rice: Of course, they followed all the rules and regulations, but have clearly demonstrated that with imagination, talent and determination the show can go on.

[1:01] Tim Rice: They've also demonstrated the public's longing for a return to sanity and theatrical-based live entertainment.

[1:09] Tim Rice: So, as my thank you to Tim Sheader and his team, I thought I'd play the very first recording of any track from Superstar, the Murray Head single, released on the 21st of November 1969, billed simply as Superstar from the forthcoming rock opera Jesus Christ, which was recorded way before most of the rest of the allegedly forthcoming opera was even written.

[2:04] ♪ Musical number: "Superstar" — performed by Murray Head ♪

[5:45] Tim Rice: The wonderful Murray Head, plus the Trinidad singers, the Grease Band, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber Orchestra.

[5:51] Tim Rice: Nearly 51 years old, that recording.

[5:54] Tim Rice: Yikes.

[5:55] Tim Rice: I did bang on about the original JC Superstar Recordings in Get Onto My Cloud No. 7 if you want more info about that early recording, but I wanted to mark my enormous appreciation for the Regents Park Open Air Theatre's achievements this month.

[6:07] Tim Rice: And what better than the first recording of a piece by me and Andrew that started it all for us.

[6:13] Tim Rice: Before I was lucky enough to become involved with Disney animation in the early 90s, I hadn't written very much for cinema.

[6:21] Tim Rice: JC Superstar had been filmed in its entirety by the great Norman Jewson in 1973.

[6:26] Tim Rice: But apart from that, I'd only occasionally contributed lyrics to songs for movies.

[6:31] Tim Rice: The first two were thanks to Andrew being invited to write the score for the complete film.

[6:37] Tim Rice: The first of these was Gumshoe, the directorial debut of Stephen Frears, a picture starring Albert Finney as a bingo hall caller, whose fantasy that he is a private detective drops him out of his depth into serious criminal activities.

[6:50] Tim Rice: We wrote a retro rocker, retro even in 1971, entitled Baby You're Good For Me, which was sung at the end of the film by Roy Young, whom I'd first come across when I was Pond Life at EMI Records, when Roy was keyboard's man with Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers.

[7:07] Tim Rice: In fact, the first top ten hit recording session I ever attended was Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rouser's cover of the Beatles track Got to Get You Into My Life.

[7:15] Tim Rice: Roy's track for us, Baby You're Good For Me, was never actually released as a single, nor is there, as far as I know, an album of the Gumshoe score, but the movie's available on DVD and doubtless gettable on one or more apps somewhere.

[7:29] Tim Rice: It's a good picture, with a great cast backing up Albert Finney, including Billy Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, and Maureen Lippmann.

[7:36] Tim Rice: And it was Stephen Freer's directorial debut.

[7:39] Tim Rice: Then Andrew was asked in 1974 to write the score for the Odessiphile, starring John Voigt, based on the bestseller by Frederick Forsyth and directed by Ronald Neeme.

[7:49] Tim Rice: The movie was set in late 1963, and a new Christmas song was required which had to be reminiscent of that era.

[7:56] Tim Rice: We wrote a number entitled Christmas Dream, which was more than reminiscent of Elvis' 1961 hit Wooden Heart, even down to a verse in German, almost too reminiscent.

[8:06] Tim Rice: This number was issued as a single, and I was thrilled to know that Perry Como would be recording it.

[8:12] Tim Rice: Perry's version limped into the bottom of the Billboard Hot 100, our first chart action in America since Superstar three years before.

[8:12] Tim Rice: Brilliant though Perry Como was, I don't think Christmas Dream was my finest hour.

[8:25] Tim Rice: I do recall that the opening couplet, a rather cringe-making, Watch Me Now, Here I Go, All I Need's a little snow, was misinterpreted as a reference to cocaine in certain circles.

[8:35] Tim Rice: But even this unintentional bid for hip acceptance failed to boost sales.

[8:41] Tim Rice: But it still gets played once or twice every Christmas.

[8:49] ♪ Musical number: "Christmas Dream" — performed by Perry Como ♪

[10:42] Tim Rice: Most recently covered by the late Terry Wogan and Aled Jones.

[10:46] Tim Rice: An interesting combination.

[10:48] Tim Rice: The next screen action I got was a commission from Robert Stigwood in 1975 to write a song for a TV movie of John Osborne's play, The Entertainer, that he was producing with music by the triple Oscar winner Marvin Hamlisch.

[11:01] Tim Rice: Osborne's story of a fading vaudeville song and dance man had been filmed originally back in 1960, starring Lawrence Olivier.

[11:09] Tim Rice: This new version was to star one of my favorite actors ever, Jack Lemmon.

[11:13] Tim Rice: Marvin and I wrote The Only Way to Go, which Lemon sang in the film, and the song was subsequently covered by two other giant names of the entertainment world, George Burns and Bing Crosby, no less.

[11:25] Tim Rice: Here's Bing from his final album.

[11:48] ♪ Musical number: "The Only Way to Go" — performed by Bing Crosby ♪

[14:16] Tim Rice: Still a thrill to hear Bing singing my words. Almost as magical for me as Elvis doing the same, when Andrew and I managed to get a song of ours included on the final album released during his lifetime. I wrote again with Marvin Hamlisch when another legend, Lauren McCall, needed a couple of songs for her 1981 movie The Fan. But for me, my most exciting venture into film soundtracks pre-my Disney work began with a phone call out of the blue from James Bond music maestro John Barry. I'd met John a few times, but hadn't got to know him that well, partly because he lived in America a lot of the time. So I was very surprised and of course delighted to receive an invitation to write the words for the next James Bond film song.

I asked John what the next Bond epic was to be called, hoping for a romantic title along the lines of The Spy Who Loved Me, or Diamonds of Forever. This didn't sound to me like a title that could inspire romantic, exotic, or even dramatic action. Erotic possibly, maybe that's what they had in mind, but clearly not, because John then said, although it's the title of the movie, they don't want the song to be called Octopusy. Phew. It's up to you, he continued, to choose a title, and John wisely suggested that I submit half a dozen titles to the producers. There was a pretty good chance they would like at least one of them, and they would feel that because they'd chosen it, they would retain enthusiasm for it and even like it.

So that's what I did, having been given a vague outline of what the Octopussy storyline was. The title they chose for my six possibilities was All Time High. And that title was used in the movie Publicity, quote, James Bond's all time high, screamed the posters with pictures of my favourite Bond, Roger Moore, in various poses with an apparently eight-limbed Dawn Adams and sundry weaponry. To my enormous regret, I cannot recall any of the five rejected titles and cannot even find a copy of my letter to Cubby Broccoli and his team, which presumably listed them all. But everybody seemed happy with All Time High from the kickoff, and my other suggestions were clearly filed under Not Wanted on Voyage.

I actually think now that it would have been more interesting to have written a song called Doctor Pussy, which could have been sexy and suggestive, like Don Black's brilliant lyric for Diamonds of Forever. Tastefully suggestive, of course. Anyway, All Time High it was, and the next question was, who's gonna sing it? For a while Laura Branigan was in the frame. She'd had some recent international hits, notably the massive seller Gloria. She was a terrific singer and had had considerable success throughout the eighties. I thought she was an excellent candidate. I also couldn't see why the incomparable Shirley Bassey wasn't considered. In the end, the choice was Rita Coolidge, apparently the favourite of both Cubby and Barbara Broccoli.

I was very happy with Rita Coolidge. I sort of did some research by reading an early screenplay and by visiting the Octopussy set at Pinewood, where I watched some of the actual shooting, although I spent more time having a fascinating lunch with the charming Roger Moore, whose double seemed to be doing more work than Roger that day, as there were quite a few sequences in which Bond was only visible from behind. The soundtrack was recorded in London in April 1983, and I breezed along to one or two of the sessions to meet Rita Coolidge and Phil Ramone, who was producing the song. According to Wikipedia, Rita recalled some years later that I turned up late with the lyrics, which I don't remember, but I suppose is possible.

But the atmosphere on the session was good, and everyone seemed confident that this was another Bond smash. To be honest, it didn't turn out to be one of the most celebrated of the Bond songs. Although the film was as successful as most Bonds had been, All Time High didn't really set the charts alight, certainly not in the UK, where it peaked at a less than inspiring 75. It staggered into the American Top 40, but really paid off in the US Adult Contemporary charts, where it was number one for four weeks. It never looked likely to pick up even an Oscar nomination, let alone an Oscar. But if truly sensational Bond songs such as Diamonds of Forever and Goldfinger hadn't won Oscars, there wasn't going to be much hope of All Time High getting one.

For some reason, it seems somewhat easier for Bond songs to nab awards in recent years. But All Time High's had a few interesting cover versions, notably one by Jarvis Cocker, and every time I've heard it sung live, it seems to go down as well as any in my repertoire. It's certainly one of my top earners, and as it was probably a bit dated in 1983, hasn't really dated any further at all. And at the end of the day, I can say I wrote a Bond song, which, I'm glad to say, features on most of the James Bond greatest hits albums, even if it was not really one of the greatest. But in my twilight years, I've got quite fond of it.

[19:24] ♪ Musical number: "All Time High" — performed by Rita Coolidge ♪

[22:08] Tim Rice: That was Get Onto My Cloud, episode seventeen. Written and presented by me, Tim Rice, and produced by Peter Holtz.