Tony Christie . . . Amarillo (Sedaka, Greenfield)

I first met Neil Sedaka in 1970 on a visit to Don Kirshner‘s office in New York in a quest to find the next single for Tony Christie. One of the songs he played me was Amarillo and I took it. In November 1971, Amarillo became a huge hit all across Europe but, incredibly, rose no higher than no. 18 in the UK. The post-millennium reissue mimed by Peter Kay was the best selling U.K. single of 2005 selling more than 1,000,000 copies and still the song resonates to this day: