Juice Newton (born Judith Kay Newton; February 18, 1952) is an American pop and country singer, songwriter, and musician. Newton has received five Grammy Award nominations in the Pop and Country Best Female Vocalist categorieswinning once in 1983as well as an ACM Award for Top New Female Artist and two consecutive Billboard Female Album Artist of the Year awards. Newton's other awards include a People's Choice Award for "Best Female Vocalist" and the Australian Music Media's "Number One International Country Artist".
Newton has several Gold and Platinum records to her credit, including Juice, Quiet Lies and her first Greatest Hits album. During the 1980s, she charted 14 top 10 hits across the Billboard Country, AC, and Hot 100 charts, with many of the recordings achieving crossover success and six of the songs hitting the No. 1 position.
Early life and education
Newton was born in Lakehurst, New Jersey. She is the daughter of a Navy officer. she attended Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California. During this time, she performed folk music in some local coffeehouses. She then formed a folk-rock band with guitarist and songwriter Otha Young and toured bars in Northern California with her band.
In late 1977, Newton went solo, continuing to record for Capitol, and until 1982 Silver Spur remained the name of her backing band. Newton also sang backing vocals for three tracks on Bob Welch's platinum solo debut album, including his hit "Ebony Eyes".
Near the end of 1977, "It's a Heartache" became Newton's first solo record and a major hit in Mexico, where it was eventually certified Gold, and in 1978, she released it in the United States. “It’s a Heartache” was the first of Newton's eleven singles to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. Also in 1978, The Carpenters' version of the Newton/Young-penned song "Sweet, Sweet Smile" reached the Top 10 on both the Country and Adult Contemporary charts, and No. 44 on the Billboard Hot 100.
These two singles became her biggest sellers in the United States, each earning an RIAA Gold certification. (In 1981 and 1982, when these singles were certified, the RIAA standard for Gold singles was "more than 1 million copies sold"; in 1989, RIAA lowered the standard to 500,000 for Gold single certifications.) The songs were also sizable hits in Canada, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, and other countries. For example, "Angel of the Morning" peaked at No. 1 in Canada and No. 43 in the UK Singles Chart in 1981. While "The Sweetest Thing (I've Ever Known)" did not receive a U.S. certification, the song's popularity propelled album sales from Gold to Platinum, and the recording remained in the Top 40 (of the Hot 100) for 18 weeks. (The song "Dirty Looks" was written by Dave Robbins and Van Stephenson, who would later become part of the Country group Blackhawk in the 1990s. The pair also wrote Newton's 1984 country single "Restless Heart.")
According to a 1984 front-page article in Billboard magazine, changes at Capitol led Newton to return to RCA. The 1984 album Can't Wait All Night continued with a rock-oriented sound. The launch single, "A Little Love," and the title track became Newton's final charting pop singles to date, reaching No. 44 and No. 66, respectively, while "Restless Heart" made No. 57 on the country chart. "A Little Love" became Newton's seventh and final Top-10 hit on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, reaching the No. 7 spot.
From pop to country
Newton had always been moderately popular in country music; she responded to her waning popularity in the pop market by targeting her next album, 1985's Old Flame, solely to country audiences. The strategic move was a success; the album revitalized her career, reached No. 12 on the Billboard album chart and featured six Top-10 country hits, including the No. 1s "You Make Me Want to Make You Mine", "Hurt", and "Both to Each Other (Friends and Lovers)" (with Eddie Rabbitt), none of which (unlike her previous efforts) appeared at all on the pop charts.
1990s to present
In 1994, Newton contributed the track "Lovers of One Day" to an Édith Piaf tribute album which also included songs by Pat Benatar and Donna Summer.
In 1995, Newton recorded a double album of pop duets (which was slated to be sold via infomercial), but the project was riddled with legal issues, resulting in a low-impact, "accidental" release of the "Platinum & Gold" series of duets in the early 2000s (the CD set was released without Newton's permission). Subsequently, bootleg CDs including most of the duets turned up on U.S. store shelves as Gold & Platinum, Volumes 7 and 8. Those CDs also contain 1995 solo versions of three of Newton's pop hits: "Angel of the Morning", "Love's Been a Little Bit Hard on Me" and "Queen of Hearts". Newton's duet partners included Willie Nelson, Melissa Manchester, The Pointer Sisters and Frankie Valli. In 1998, Newton released The Trouble with Angels, a collection of seven re-recorded hits and three new songs, including the single "When I Get Over You". The 1998 effort was quickly followed by American Girl in 1999, which was Newton's first album of all-new material since 1989 and featured the single "They Never Made It to Memphis". The collection featured tracks written by Otha Young, Freddie Mercury, Nanci Griffith, Tom Petty and Newton herself.
Every Road Leads Back to You (which consists of live material and a bonus EP of four studio recordings of original songs) was released in 2002 with an accompanying DVD. American Girl Vol. II, which was originally sold exclusively at cdbaby.com and at Newton's live shows, was released in 2003 and reissued in 2006 and again in 2011 by Brookside Records. In the mid-2000s, Newton also contributed tracks to the albums An All-Star Tribute To Cher ("Reason to Believe") and An All-Star Tribute to Shania Twain ("Come On Over").
On November 15, 2007, Newton released The Gift of Christmas, her first Christmas album. The 12-song album includes a new version of Newton's "Christmas Needs Love to Be Christmas" and "Mary's Boy Child", as well as a special Christmas version of "For Believers", an Otha Young-penned song first recorded in 1983 for the Dirty Looks album.
thumb|Juice Newton, San Diego, 2009
On August 6, 2009, Newton's longtime musical partner Otha Young died of cancer. The pair worked together for 37 years.
In 2010, Newton's Duets: Friends & Memories album was released by Fuel 2000. The album contained duets performed with Willie Nelson, Melissa Manchester, Frankie Valli and others. One single ("Funny How Time Slips Away") was released.
In 2011, Fuel 2000 released Juice Newton: The Ultimate Hits Collection, which included her own version of the Carpenters' 1978 hit "Sweet Sweet Smile", which Newton and Otha Young wrote in the '70s.
In 2012, BGO Records issued a two-CD set containing Newton's three 1970s Capitol albums: Come To Me, Well Kept Secret and Take Heart. This marked the first time these albums have been available in the CD format. With the release of this set, all Newton's 17 studio albums have been issued on CD.
In the 2016 film Deadpool, Newton's version of "Angel of the Morning" was used for the opening credits montage. As a result, the track re-charted on the Billboard Country chart, reaching No. 43, and also hit No. 3 on Spotify's World Music chart. In 2020, Newton's version of "Angel of the Morning" was featured in the film Promising Young Woman.
Personal life
Newton bought a thoroughbred gelding named Puppy in 1983 She also played polo herself.