Tony Christie

SINGER Tony Christie – famed for chart-topper (Is This The Way To) Amarillo – talks to the Welwyn Hatfield Times ahead of his forthcoming concert dates in St Albans, Stevenage and Potters Bar.

IT’S in the Texas Panhandle, off the historic Route 66, before you even start.

Few people in the UK would have even have heard of the US city of Amarillo, let alone know the way to it, were it not for Tony Christie, the Doncaster-born singer who is now celebrating 50 years in showbusiness.

And had Bolton comedian Peter Kay not chosen to re-release Christie’s modest 1971 hit as a Comic Relief single in 2005 and propelled it to the top of the charts for seven weeks, chances are Christie might not be on a mammoth UK tour – including dates at the Wyllyotts Theatre in Potters Bar, the Alban Arena in St Albans and Stevenage’s Gordon Craig Theatre – in support of his new, critically-acclaimed album Now’s The Time!

“He [Kay] did me a favour,” admits Christie.

“He gave me the impetus to get back to the UK and carry on my career here. I had fantastic success everywhere else, but I couldn’t get a hit here.”

Despite a brief return to the spotlight in 1999 as the vocalist on The All Seeing Eye’s Walk Like A Panther (penned by Pulp main man Jarvis Cocker, who chose Christie personally), much of the 67-year-old’s success has been in Europe, where Amarillo reached number one in several countries on its original release.

That all changed after Kay’s intervention.

“I asked him why he chose that song and he said his mum used to have my albums and played them to him as a baby to put him to sleep,” Christie says, wryly. “A back-handed compliment.”

Tony Christie

Kay’s love affair with Amarillo did not, as fans of his sitcom Phoenix Nights will know, begin with the Comic Relief single.

The song also appeared in a 2002 episode of Kay’s Channel 4 comedy, set in a tacky Bolton nightclub.

But if it hadn’t been for co-star Paddy McGuinness’ inability to remember lyrics to another song, Christie might not, perhaps, be enjoying the revival he is today.

“Apparently it was either Amarillo or Green Door by Shakin’ Stevens,” Christie explains.

“But Paddy couldn’t remember the words to Green Door. So they went with Amarillo, because its just sha la la.”

The song certainly suits Kay’s sense of humour and love of all things slightly tacky about Britain.

An old fashioned knees-up of a tune, Amarillo is today a mainstay of wedding parties, discos and birthday celebrations all over the country.

Christie knows it, and is unapologetic about his admittedly old-school approach to entertainment, learning his trade as he did in the bars, pubs and clubs of South Yorkshire in the 1960s.

“Music people these days tend to dismiss us as cheesy,” he says of his fellow so-called ‘crooners’.

“They forget that’s how music was in those days.

“You had to be slick. You had to be able to talk to an audience and hold them.

“You couldn’t just shuffle on stage, play your songs and leave.

“Being a crooner in the 40s and 50s used to be cool.

“They used to call Sinatra and Dean Martin crooners, so it’s not that bad.”