When
 |
Where
|
Articles/Reviews
|
| October 10, 2004 | Richmond Times-Dispatch | "Manilow giving up his life on the road but not on his music" by Melissa Ruggieri, promoting Barry's concert at the MCI Center (Washington, DC), 10/14/2004 |
|---|
| Barry Manilow is tired. He is raspy and hoarse after capping 11 concerts in a row, bolting for numerous planes and chatting with several journalists each day about his final tour. Can you blame a guy for calling an end to the rigors of the road? But wait, Barry. Is this really it or is this a Cher neverending-goodbye kind of farewell to touring? "Yeah, this is the end," he says quietly on the other end of the phone. Any particular reason? "Listen to my voice. Would you want to do this?" he asks, his clipped New Yorker accent still intact despite years of living in California. Manilow, 58, isn't being sarcastic. He loves performing live, but it's grueling. And with this tour being staged in-the-round in arenas instead of the more intimate setting of a theater, the workload is doubled. "It's a lot of people showing up to see if I'm still breathing," he says with a chuckle from his manager's office in New York. "But the audience seems to be enjoying it." Those who caught Manilow's 2002 tour - which played to a sold-out Landmark Theater - might remember the emphasis on his then-new album, "Here at the Mayflower." That album, his first original recording for the jazz-based Concord Records, sold nearly 200,000 copies. The same year, his "Ultimate Manilow" hits collection landed in the CD players of more than 2 million fans. Released a few weeks ago is Manilow's 43rd album, and newest baby, "SCORES - Songs From Copacabana and Harmony." It's an anomaly in the pop music landscape, the "personal renditions" of the songs Manilow wrote for his "Copacabana" and "Harmony" stage shows. "Copa" opened in London in the early'90s and, says Manilow, currently has 100 touring companies on the road, including four in India. "Harmony," based on the true story of Germany's "Comedian Harmonists," has seen various fits and stops in its attempt to reach Broadway, most publicly last year when its Philadelphia debut was yanked by producers at the 11th hour after the show's $7 million in capitalization costs fell through. "What I learned about Broadway musicals is that mounting one is not for the faint of heart," Manilow says. "The producer was just ... ineffective. He disappointed everybody at the last minute, and at the last minute told the truth, and the truth was dreadful. Everybody had believed in him, from attorneys to agents to actors. Nobody really knew that the guy had not really raised the money he said he had. It was the worst of times. This gem, this diamond, this fantastic piece once again suffered at the hands of somebody. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the show, the acting, the directing. It's a jewel that we have in our hands." But Manilow's "Harmony" luck has changed. The show is back. The cast is still intact. ("Not one person left. They waited on us the whole year," Manilow says with a tinge of amazement.) And now? "Now we're just waiting for a theater to open up in New York. It's about real estate now. It could be tomorrow; it could be next month. But we're first in line for the first one open." The decision to make the "SCORES" album was an obvious one for Manilow, who has nothing but love for Concord Records, which, in turn, allows him to express his artistry rather than seek a giant radio hit. Manilow initially sought advice from the "fancy-schmancy business people in the music business" about what type of album to record, but he wasn't impressed with their suggestions. "The advice I got was to make one of those standards albums that Every. Singer. Is. Doing. One of those dreadful standards albums where nobody knows what they're doing and they do 'As Time Goes By' badly," Manilow says. But no naming names, cough, cough, Rod Stewart? "No, I'm not naming anyone," Manilow says with a laugh. "There are about 12 of them out there that I try to run over with my Range Rover. It is just so bad. And it's the safe way out. I didn't take the safe way out. I never do." Earlier this year, Manilow was asked to be a guest judge on "American Idol," which meant listening to a cadre of upstarts potentially butcher his beloved hits. He agreed to the stint under the condition that he be allowed to work with the contestants for a couple of weeks before the show. What he found wasn't particularly surprising, but still disheartening. "I could not imagine sitting at a table with Simon and Paula and Randy listening to [the contestants] do a karaoke version of 'Can't Smile Without You.' I would slide under the table. And with my songs, if you don't watch out, you really do get 12 karaoke songs," Manilow says. "You can do that with Elton [John]'s songs, because 'Philadelphia Freedom' is 'Philadelphia Freedom' and it's great. But with mine, I've always been on the fence about being one-half hip and one-half cheese, and if [they] did the cheese version, I would be under the table. I would die. I would slit my wrists. So I worked with each one of them for two weeks." The result? Well, don't get him started. "I did see potential. But I also saw people who didn't know what I was talking about. My first question was: Who are you singing to? And they would all look at me. And I would say: Are you singing 'I Made It Through the Rain' to your mother? To your friend? To God? Because if you tell me who you're singing to, I can give you an arrangement that enhances who you're singing to. . . . I thought their renditions of my songs were good. I did; everybody did. But nobody seems to talk like this anymore." Something else that makes Manilow cringe because it doesn't exist anymore is the craft of songwriting, an all-but-forgotten art in an era of Pro Tools and computerized production. "There are young people singing great, and I think they're making records that sound really interesting. But where is the next Burt Bacharach? I can't find him. Where is the next Sting? Where is the next Prince? Where are the guys who write great lyrics and catchy melodies? "When I hear young people doodling in one bar with 3 billion notes, it's because there's not much to sing, so they have to fill it up. People do send me outside material, but I listen to it and I say, 'I can't sing that. First of all, it's grammatically incorrect. Second of all, it's awful.' If you were a young person getting that demo, you'd wind up doing nothing but vocal acrobatics. You yell a lot, and suddenly everybody thinks you're great. But the songwriting just isn't there anymore." Manilow's passion for the discussion of songwriting is so intense that after 15 minutes of talking, his voice is suddenly much less hoarse, his demeanor excited - or, perhaps, incensed - about what he perceives as a betrayal to his craft as a songwriter. Maybe he's leaving the road, but it's fairly obvious that Manilow's heart hasn't left music. IN CONCERT: WHO: Barry Manilow. WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday at MCI Center in Washington. TICKETS: $38-$128. INFO: (804) 262-8100 or www.ticketmaster.com. |
| October 8, 2004 | Philadelphia Daily News | "Barry Manilow, happy to be back in Philly, where it all started" by Jonathan Takiff, promoting Barry's concert at the Wachovia Center (Philadelphia, PA), October 9, 2004 |
|---|
| Some of Barry Manilow's happiest memories are linked to Philadelphia. Also some of his worst. Still irrepressibly enthusiastic and bright-eyed, "but with little bags under them," he cracked, the old-school, 57-year-old pop balladeer happily recalled that Philadelphia audiences "saved" his career exactly 30 years ago when he came to play the Bijou Cafe as a headliner. (Barry had previously performed in the same Lombard Street club as musical director and spotlighted soloist with Bette Midler.) "Just the week before, I was literally ready to retire," Manilow recalled in our recent chat, prompted by his show tomorrow at the Wachovia Center. "I was playing at Paul's Mall in Boston, the lowest point in my life, the absolute worst. When I heard the place was later blown up, it made me so happy. I was opening there for [jazz trumpeter] Freddie Hubbard, me and my vocal trio Lady Flash, me in a frilly outfit, singing my commercials." At the time, Barry's main claim to fame was not yet "Mandy" and "I Write the Songs," but rather voicing and composing jingles for McDonald's and State Farm Insurance, among others. So he threw some into his show for comic relief and recognition value. "When Freddie heard us, he refused to go on. He said he wouldn't follow someone who sang commercials. So then he walked out on the [multi-night] gig, and the audiences stayed away in droves. And on top of that, the sound system was awful. So I was literally ready to give it up as a performer when my manager said, 'You've still got one gig booked at the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia, so go do it.' And that started my career. "Something flipped over at the Bijou and from that moment on, it never stopped. I'll never forget the people in Philadelphia who found me. They'd been to see Bette, had heard me sing my three songs in her show and were curious to see if I had more in me." By the end of the weeklong gig, Manilow was playing to full houses. "My mom came down from New York for one of the last shows and when they introduced me, everyone stood up. My mom thought there was a fire." Sixty-million albums later, and forever bucking the currents, this entertainer's fire still hasn't gone out. Ah, but at the opposite end of his Philadelphia-linked emotional spectrum was Manilow's poor fate with "Harmony," the third musical he's scored and, he swore, "the best thing I've ever been involved with." The show is intriguingly themed on the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, a show-biz sextet of cutups and singers (think Marx Brothers meets Manhattan Transfer). The group was huge in Europe between the first and second World Wars - until Hitler took all the fun out of being German and Jewish. "Harmony" was supposed to spend the end of 2003 trying out at the Forrest Theater on Walnut Street, the first pre-Broadway musical to land here in eons. "It would have been historic," Manilow ruminated, but there wasn't enough money to fund the production, which was abruptly and embarrassingly canceled in the midst of rehearsals. "Everything's OK now," reassured the composer. "We're back in business with a new producer. Bruce [lyricist/script writing collaborator Bruce Sussman] and I finally got the rights back. We just did a very successful workshop production in New York with the same cast." According to the artist, "Everybody still wants to do it, including the original director and production designers. So now we're waiting for a theater to open up in New York, and we'll get going again." Impatient to share his songs from the show - "which has been kicking around for almost six years" - Barry will be sure to feature some when he plays at the Wachovia Center in a show ominously (and inaccurately) titled "One Last Time." "It's amazing when I perform these songs fresh for people, and they get standing ovations. What's the joke about the Rolling Stones? Whenever they say, 'Now we'd like to do a new number,' the audience goes out for orange juice." Better yet, he's just released the album "Manilow Scores," which splits the load between "Harmony" highlights and his previous musical collaboration with Bruce Sussman, "Copacabana." That has enjoyed wide exposure as a filmed TV special and a touring vehicle, albeit with decidedly mixed reviews. "It was a show built on a three-minute song," he said of the latter. "It's not a bona-fide musical-theater piece, like the kind we revered as kids. But it's an adorable entertainment, filled with feathered, sequined showgirls. There are now 100 companies around the world doing it - four in India alone!" One might suspect that the new album's release has been timed to hype the "Harmony" stage show, as, say, Paul Simon tried to do with his "Songs From the Capeman" CD. "It sounds premeditated, but honestly it was just an artistic decision," Manilow said. "All my advisors who have their fingers out there in the world of pop music advised me to do an album of standards, like every other pop singer these days. But they're all doing dreadful versions of 'As Time Goes By' with no craft, no thought. I run over those discs with my Range Rover, whenever I can. I just couldn't do that." In fact, Manilow's latest disc for the jazz-rooted Concord label follows on the heels of several he's done as singer/composer with noted big band support, and one as producer/composer for jazz thrush Dianne Shurr. Those sets have all spotlighted classic-sounding but actually brand-new, easy-listening Manilow songs written in vintage 1930s, '40s and '50s styles. "If you really want to keep this music alive, put some thought into it," Manilow championed. And kudos for that. Barry Manilow, 8 p.m. Sat., Oct. 9, Wachovia Center, $49.25, $91.25 and $133.25. 215-336-2000. |
| October 7, 2004 | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | "Music Preview: Manilow is coming back to special town" by John Hayes |
|---|
| Since developing and launching a stage musical based on his hit song in Pittsburgh, Barry Manilow has developed a special relationship with the town. So when he records an album that includes songs from "Barry Manilow's Copacabana" and launches a new concert tour that stops in Pittsburgh tomorrow, the story has a local angle. "[CLO executive producer] Van Kaplan and the Pittsburgh people really got behind the show," Manilow says. "It was a great experience for all of us." The musical romantic comedy is now being performed by 100 companies, four of them in India, he says. But while his 43rd CD is titled "Manilow Scores: Songs From Copacabana and Harmony," it isn't a soundtrack. "I took all of the songs and used my arranging chops and redid them for myself," he says. "It's my rendition of these songs ... tailor-made for my style." Fans of "Mandy," "Weekend in New England" and more of Manilow's pop hits might need to push the pause button for a minute to wrap their heads around songs never intended for the radio. "They have work to do when they buy my albums," Manilow says of his fans. "I challenge myself, and, I must say, I challenge them. One year I'm introducing them to the Sinatra catalog, another year it's smoky jazz, another year it's show tunes -- of course, with pop songs mixed in -- and then I go into something that's a little more complicated." Retaining star quality for 30 years in the music business is no easy chore. Manilow says he's relied on his versatility to keep it interesting for him, and it's made him more interesting to his audience. While "Copa" continues to be performed around the world, his other musical, "Harmony" is poised to play Broadway, he says. The financing is nearly complete and the show is waiting for an open theater. The musical drama is based on what Manilow calls "the first boy band singing group," comedians and vocalists who were immensely popular in Europe in the 1930s. "They were innovators," he says, "[Collaborator] Bruce [Sussman] and I investigated them and decided to write a full Broadway musical based on their lives." But don't expect Manilow's Mellon Arena concert to be about Broadway. Performed in the round on a rotating stage, at least half of the songs will be hits. The tour, however, may be his last. "I'm not going to take a break from performing or making CDs or producing," he says. "I'm taking a break from the big, 10 semi-truck tour. That is over for me. But performing and making music? No, they'll have to kill me before I stop doing that." Barry Manilow. Where: Mellon Arena. When: 8 p.m. Friday. Tickets: $36.85-$131.62. 412-323-1919. |
| October 7, 2004 | Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | "Barry Manilow keeps the music coming" by Regis Behe |
|---|
| To borrow a line from one of Barry Manilow's songs, it looks like he made it. Made it as in surviving the fickle nature of the music business, which tends to view most performers over the age of 35 as ancient and irrelevant. Made it as in maintaining his icon status; witness his recent appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," where he was accorded a reception worthy of Justin Timberlake or Usher. And most of all, made it as an artist by transforming himself from a purveyor of pop songs to composer of Broadway musicals. "Though certainly not on purpose," says Manilow, who performs Friday at the Mellon Arena. "Those of us who can say we've reinvented ourselves, if you ask those people you think did, at least for me, I did not do that on purpose. I follow where my creativity takes me. That's it. The biggest lesson I've learned over the years is to not stop and sniff the trend machine." Manilow's latest project may be his most unusual, and it does have a distant correlation to a recent pop music trend. "Harmony," expected to open in 2005 on Broadway, is billed as a show about the world's first boy band, the Comedian Harmonists. If you've not heard of them, don't feel bad. The group was popular in pre-World War II Germany, performing on bills with Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich before being forced to disband by the Nazis. Manilow learned of the group through Bruce Sussman, who collaborated with the singer on his Broadway musical "Copacabana." Sussman forwarded to Manilow a copy of a documentary about the forgotten performers. "It was stunning," he says. "It was the story of this group that no one in America had heard of, and yet they were the most popular boy band ever in Europe, especially in Germany before the war. And we had never heard of them, and they were so funny and so young." Manilow and Sussman were able to track down some of the group's recordings even though the Nazis destroyed almost everything the Comedian Harmonists recorded, including 12 films, because three members were Jewish and they sang songs by Jewish composers. "But little by little, little bootleg records began to emerge," Manilow says, noting there are now Comedian Harmonist collections available on CD. On his new album, "Manilow Scores: Songs from 'Copacabana' and 'Harmony,'" the singer gives his fans a taste of the new material in seven lushly recorded songs. But arrangements for the stage version of "Harmony" will be "totally different," he says. "Some of them will be done by women, some of them will be done by choruses, some of the will be done the Comedian Harmonists, the six guys." What hasn't changed is Manilow's fan base. Or, to be more accurate, how it looks. "Ever since I began back in 1975, I've always looked out at the same-looking audience," he says. "I swear they haven't changed. It's always looked like that for me, a broad demographic of all sorts of family generations. It's always been like that for me. Only the dress code is more obvious than it used to be." And the audience still wants the same things it did almost three decades ago: the hits -- "Can't Smile Without You," "Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again," "Looks Like We Made It." At a show last week in East Rutherford, N.J., he was stunned, but gratified, at the reception to his best-known songs, and realizes what fans want and expect. "They're incredibly enthusiastic about the hits," Manilow says. "They really, really, really love it when I go into something that they know. They sing along louder than I sing. Even 'Mandy,' which is a very intimate song, this was 17,000 fans singing along. I got it, I got it last night. That's what they want, so I'm going to do as many of those as I can. Plus, for the fans who have seen the show year after year, I'm still throwing in album cuts, some from 'Harmony,' some from 'Copa,' some novelty cuts, whenever I can." 'An Evening with Barry Manilow'. When: 8:30 p.m. Friday. Admission: $36.85 to $131.62. Where: Mellon Arena, Uptown. Details: (412) 323-1919, or www.cc.com. |
| October 5, 2004 | Times Leader
(Northeastern PA) | "Still in top form, Barry comes back" by Alan K. Stout |
|---|
| Sometimes it seems like Barry Manilow is as much of a fixture at the Wachovia Arena as the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Manilow, who loves Wilkes-Barre and once played the F.M. Kirby Center on three consecutive nights, now plays the arena on all of his tours and has been there three times since 1999. And like the Pens, he always packs 'em in. On Monday, the '70s pop icon returned to the facility, this time singing from a stage located in the center of the arena before a faithful crowd of 8,600. He opened with "It's A Miracle" and followed with "Daybreak" and a medley of "Somewhere In The Night" and "This One's For You." "Hello, Wilkes-Barre - we're back!" he shouted. "You guys are always one of my favorite audiences in the whole country." Manilow also quickly displayed his self-deprecating wit. "I'm Barry Manilow," he said. "And this is what Clay Aiken will look like in 30 years." Though placing himself in the center of the arena was likely Manilow's attempt to get closer to his fans, it didn't always work, particularly from the lower-level seats, many of which had an awkward view of the stage. And no matter where you sat, Manilow's back was often to you. Plus, he was usually up on the island-style stage alone, leaving his impressive backing singers and excellent band out of sight. Still, what Manilow lacked in visual presentation he made up for in voice. He remains a remarkable singer and showed that he hasn't lost a bit of range during a performance of "Mandy." For the first half of the song, a vintage video clip from the early '70 showed Manilow singing the number. For the second half, he sang it live. Thirty years later, there was no difference in his vocal command. As is his tradition, Manilow brought a female fan to the stage to sing "Can't Smile Without You" and then offered a sturdy rendition of "I Made It Through The Rain." Though he complained about sound problems a few times throughout the night, the glitches were minimal and his piano sounded perfect during "Weekend In New England." He also showcased two new numbers from his forthcoming musical, "Harmony," and closed with "Copacabana," "I Write The Songs" and a few patriotic numbers. Near the show's end, Manilow said that though he wasn't certain, this might be his last tour, and that he likely won't be back. That's about as likely as the Pens not taking the ice next week. |
| October 3, 2004 | Times Leader
(Northeastern Pennsylvania) | "Mad for Manilow: Kera London, 8, proof singer's biggest fans can come in small packages" by Genelle Hoban |
|---|
| Singer-songwriter Barry Manilow has been captivating audiences since he first appeared on the music scene in the 1970s. Over the years, the now pop-culture icon has written the songs that make the whole world sing. Even its youngest residents. Take the local 8-year-old who just can't smile without the man. Kera London of Trucksville has been listening to Barry since she was in diapers, her family says. In fact, she is so smitten she has written him letter after letter, to no avail, and has never given up when those letters came back or drew no response. "My mother started playing it for her when she was being a fussy baby," Marisa London, Kera's mom, said of Manilow's music. "In the beginning I thought it was just my mom playing it, but then I realized it was Kera crying for her to put it on. After a while she wouldn't go to sleep without him being on." Some of Kera's favorite songs include "Could It Be Magic" and "Daybreak." "I like the rhythm of those songs," the third-grader said. "I like the way he sings. My Nana and my uncle Tommy like him, too. My Nana is kind of a big fan, but I am his biggest fan." Kera saw him in concert once, about five years ago, at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre with a few members of her family. "When it was over and I had to go, I began to cry," she said. "I started yelling for Barry to come back on stage. When he was picking someone from the audience to sing with him, I was jumping up and down trying to catch his attention. I yelled for him to pick me to sing 'I Can't Smile Without You' with him on stage, but he didn't." Regular fans know a Manilow concert tradition is for the artist to select a female audience member to sing the song with him. The performance is videotaped, and the chosen one goes home with the treasured evidence. While at the concert, Kera said, she stood the entire time because she was too little to see her hero while sitting down. She keeps her collection of Barry CDs, cassettes and videos at her Nana's' house, but her collages of Manilow concert posters and newspaper clippings stay at her own. "When I am watching the tapes of him in concert at my Nana's house, I sit really close to the television," she said. "I like to be very close so I can see him better. I would love to meet him, see him or even get a letter from him." Unfortunately, her mother says, numerous attempts to contact him have failed. Kera said she does like other artists, such as Shania Twain and Britney Spears, but Manilow will always be her No. 1. "We caught her many times singing and dancing to Barry Manilow in her room," Marisa said. "On an episode of 'Oprah,' they called people like Kera 'Fanilows.'" Not everyone in Kera's family, however, is a fan. "My sister, Rena, leaves the room or goes outside to play when I put anything having to do with Barry Manilow on," Kera said. "Somehow I never get tired of listening to him." Kera's family is surprising her with concert tickets for Barry Manilow's "One Night Live! One Last Time!" concert tomorrow night at the Wachovia Arena. "If I ever get the chance to meet him, I would tell him that I love him," Kera said. "If I ever get to see him in concert again I'm not going to cry, I hope. I would also want to sit in the front row." Kera said if Barry Manilow were to stop making music she would write him a letter and beg him not to. Barry Manilow's "One Night Live! One Last Time!" concert; 8 p.m. tomorrow; The Wachovia Arena, 225 Highland Park Blvd., Wilkes-Barre Township; Ticket prices: $42.25, $69.25 and $84.25; Call 970-7600 or access ticketmaster.com. |
| October 2, 2004 | Boston Herald | "The songs Barry writes are never out of fashion" by Amy Amatangelo |
|---|
| His name is Barry. And he is definitely a showman with a little more gray hair, but still with hip thrusts out to there. Barry Manilow brought his "One Last Time" tour to the Fleet Center last night. But even he'll admit that that title may be something of a misnomer. "Nobody believes me," he told the crowd of 13,200. "This is my last farewell tour. Come on play the game with me." After opening with "It's a Miracle," he said he was glad to be back for a weekend in New England. "I hear some familiar screaming. I see some familiar faces," he said. The perfectly coiffed singer was decked out in a snazzy purple three-piece suit to match his purple stage. With strobe lights and a piano that popped out from a trap door, the set had all the bells and whistles. But the show was all Manilow. His band was relegated to the side and his four back-up singers were only occasionally invited up to join Manilow on the stage. The incomparable performer worked his way through two acts of some of his greatest hits including "Daybreak," "Even Now," "Copacabana," and "Mandy." His vocals were strong, but his real strength is his innate ability to completely sell a song as if he was singing it for the first time. "I just hope they are ruined in elevators for years to come," he joked. He mugged for the crowd taking long applause breaks. "Let's just lock the doors and stay here," he teased after "Weekend in New England." After a costume change into another snazzy suit, he kicked off his second act with "I Can't Smile Without You." As he always does, he invited a devoted fan to join him on the stage for a little duet. This time the lucky lady was Linda, who told the singer this was her 35th Manilow concert and that she had been waiting 25 years for this moment. Linda, who not only kept her cool but sang all the lyrics in tune, should be very proud of herself. He ended the night with "I Write the Songs," and returned for a patriotic medley. To paraphrase Manilow's own lyrics, he is never out of fashion. |
| October 1, 2004 | Boston Globe | "There's been something about Barry: He's been dissed and dismissed, but Manilow has still got it" by By Joan Anderman |
|---|
| Barry Manilow is hot. This isn't a joke, or an ironic hipster reinterpretation of '70s soft rock, or a thinly veiled cry for help from a deranged critic. Manilow is back, big time. The truth is he never went away, although most people assume that Manilow retreated after the prime of his pop success to some lush suburban pasture where women of a certain age sway and weep and sing "Mandy." In fact, the decades following Manilow's hit-making years have been some of the most creatively fertile of his life. But that doesn't diminish the stunning reality that Manilow -- derided by critics, abused by comics, and roundly considered to be the schmaltziest songwriter to have graced the most forgettable era in pop music -- has in the last couple of years found himself smack in the center of popular culture. The rally began when "Ultimate Manilow," the singer's 2002 greatest hits collection and his 42d album, debuted at an astonishing No. 3 on the Billboard charts -- the highest chart entry of Manilow's career. His subsequent nine-month string of concert dates was one of the top-grossing tours of the year, according to Pollstar, bringing in more than $23 million. Last year, Manilow reunited with Bette Midler after 30 years for the Grammy-nominated "Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook." Television came calling -- first A&E, asking Manilow to host a Christmas special. Then Fox and NBC rang him up with the news that two of the season's hottest television shows -- "American Idol" and "Will & Grace"-- were planning to devote entire episodes to the man, his music, and an iconography that continues, against all odds, to grow."I don't know why this is happening," says Manilow, on the phone from his home in Palm Springs, Calif. "Maybe audiences are discovering what the longtime fans have always known. Maybe the music has been as good as I believed it was. It makes me feel like I wasn't crazy." Tuesday, Manilow -- who brings his One Night Live! One Last Time! tour to the FleetCenter tonight and the Providence Civic Center tomorrow -- released an album that he calls "the crown jewel" of his career: "Scores -- Songs From `Copacabana' and `Harmony.'" The album features Manilow singing seven tracks each from his two theatrical productions, the former morphed from the 1978 hit single of the same name and the latter a new musical, based on the true story of Germany's World War II-era vocal group the Comedian Harmonists, still on a rocky road to Broadway. The album was released by the tiny jazz label Concord, which Manilow joined in 2001 because "they offered me the freedom to do anything I want to do, and at this point that's what I want." Manilow had spent the 25 years prior at Arista, whose founder Clive Davis built a future for his label and a career for Manilow when, in 1974, he encouraged the young musician -- who was happily pursuing a behind-the-scenes career as an arranger, producer, and aspiring musical theater composer -- to record his own version of a minor UK dance track called "Brandy." "Clive spotted in me some sort of ability to perform," Manilow says. "He said, `What you need is a hit single.' I didn't know what a hit was, I had never listened to pop radio. He sent me this up-tempo song called `Brandy,' and I turned it down. I was the composer. And I sounded terrible singing it. "But he was so insistent. He believed so much in this song. So I slowed it down. I found the love song in this rock 'n' roll song. I changed the feeling of it, and I changed the name to Mandy [so as not to be confused with the Looking Glass hit `Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)']. I played him a piano and voice recording, and he said, `That's it. Just do that.'" "Mandy" was the first in a stream of hits for Manilow in the '70s: "It's a Miracle," "I Write the Songs," "Weekend in New England," "Looks Like We Made It," "Can't Smile Without You," and the list goes on. Manilow and his lush, romantic ballads were the scourge of music journalists from the start, and his reputation was so entrenched that the media hardly noticed that most of them were beautifully constructed pop songs. "It's easier for them to embrace an angry rock 'n' roller," Manilow muses, "than a guy with his heart on his sleeve." It's still profoundly uncool to like Manilow, let alone respect him. His music has no edge, his words offer no unique insights, and his flagrant fondness for swelling choruses, massive orchestrations, and old-school showmanship is just plain unfashionable. Truly, "I Write the Songs" is a bloated middle-of-the-road horror.But Manilow followed that song with "Tryin' to Get the Feeling," as lovely and sophisticated -- with a sublimely complicated melody and countless key changes -- as the former was pedestrian and bombastic. Manilow's searching, delicate arrangement on "Could It Be Magic," a reworking of material from Chopin's "Prelude in C Minor," is a model of craftsmanship. And love it or hate it, campy "Copacabana" accomplishes the admirable task of telling a full-length, sleaze-packed story in the space of three faux-Latin, disco-fied minutes. "I couldn't be prouder of that song," Manilow says. "I may have been raked over the coals, but it never stopped me from doing the best I could. And actually, those really negative reviews stopped about 10 years ago." Critics are indeed easing up. Rolling Stone recently pronounced him the showman of our generation. And the fans -- who make up a far more diverse and devoted cross-section than one might suspect -- are coming out of the closet. "Barry was the soundtrack to my heartbreak," says Kari Lizer, co-executive producer of "Will & Grace" and writer of last December's "Fanilow" episode, which found Will waiting in line all night to buy a ticket to a Manilow concert. "We got into a conversation in the writers' room and realized we all had that in common, this emotional reaction to Barry Manilow. That's when we got the idea for the `Fanilow' episode." Several months later, Lizer was watching "American Idol" and noticed an audience member holding a sign above her head that read "I'm a Fanilow!" Onstage, the contestants were singing interpretations of Manilow classics -- customized for each young singer by the musician himself, who was guest judge for Manilow night on "American Idol." "People are always saying that the white kids shouldn't sing this song and the black kids shouldn't sing that song, and Barry Manilow made that problem go away," says Nigel Lythgoe, executive producer of "American Idol." "When you're looking at writers at this moment in time, he's the one with the huge track record of ballads that cross over. What we hadn't anticipated is how good he would be with the kids. Elton John turned up for a morning and Gloria Estefan came for the afternoon, but Barry came in and spent time and worked with the kids, making sure they were singing songs that were right for them, trying new arrangements. He's a great diplomat and a generous spirit." Despite his success as a performer, producing, arranging, and writing for other artists is where Manilow's heart has always been -- from his earliest days working the bathhouse circuit with Bette Midler (Manilow conceived and produced her first two albums, "The Divine Miss M" and the self-titled followup) to more recent collaborations with Nancy Wilson, Dionne Warwick, and jazz singer Diane Schuur, for whom he wrote and produced 2003's "Midnight," a collection of new standards. Every album Manilow has produced for another artist has been nominated for a Grammy. "He really tuned in to me, to my life experiences, to my voice and my emotions," says Schuur. "There's a lot of humanity involved in what he tries to communicate, the love of life and the sorrow of life. I feel privileged to have worked with him." Manilow vows that this tour will be the last big one of his career. At 57, he prefers to spend more time at home and in the comparatively civilized confines of the recording studio. Although he'll sneak in a handful of new tunes, Manilow knows what the fans want to hear, and he claims to never tire of singing his big, beloved ballads. "They've become so much more to me than songs," Manilow says. "They've become very deep. I know it can't make any sense that `Can't Smile Without You' is deep. But to me they represent memories and people and joy. I'm grateful and honored to be able to sing it over and over again." Barry Manilow performs tonight at the FleetCenter at 8; tickets are $35, $55, $85, and $125. Call 617-931-2000; also, tomorrow at the Dunkin' Donuts Civic Center, Providence. Tickets are $37, $57, $87, and $127. Call 401-331-6700. |
| September 28, 2004 | The Belfast Telegraph | Barry Manilow: Ol' big nose is back: What? Barry Manilow fashionable? James Rampton meets the sultan of shmaltz to find out what went right. |
|---|
| A decade ago, Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits barely limped into the Billboard Hot 100. He was the singer that taste forgot: a perma-tanned, bouffant-haired relic of the Seventies; the last word in naff. But, earlier this year, he strode confidently into the upper reaches of the British album chart for the first time in 21 years, with his latest album, Ultimate Manilow. The resurgence has been sparked by artists of a younger generation who have queued up to pay tribute to Manilow's music. Take That's successful 1992 cover of "Could It Be Magic" started the ball rolling, and Westlife's version of his first hit, "Mandy", went to number one last year. He has just recorded One Night with Barry Manilow for BBC1, a good, old-fashioned Saturday-night showbiz extravaganza, and Rolling Stone magazine recently described him as "a giant among entertainers" and "the showman of our generation". Barry's back - and this time, he's fashionable. I'm having breakfast with him in the hotel where he's based during a flying visit. He is enjoying a tranquil morning, having already played to several thousand fans, first at Blenheim Palace Music Festival and then at BBC Television Centre for the recording of his special. He looks great: subtly highlighted hair, enviably toned skin, eyes that twinkle with what looks very much like mischief. He has a wry sense of humour, with his best gags aimed at himself. He laughs, for instance, about the occasion last year when he bruised his famous nose by walking, half-asleep, into a hotel wall. "My nose is obviously pretty tough," he says. "You should have seen the state of the wall afterwards..." Manilow seems laid-back about his sudden trendiness. "I've always been cool - it's just taken a while for the others to catch up with me," he says. "I've been both in and out so many times over the past 30 years that I don't get fussed about it any more." He breaks into a slow smile. "It's amusing, but I'm beyond that. I have a little piece of the pie. It's very small, but it's mine. No one else wants it, but I'll take it." It's been suggested that, in this uncertain world, Manilow's songs are "chicken soup for the soul". He doesn't demur. "I offer comfort," he says. "I know I don't feel like seeing the latest most-talked-about-but-angry new movie, or listening to this week's hippest-but-angriest rock or rap act. Many other people feel the same." But what continues to motivate him? Having sold 60 million albums, he can scarcely need the money. Nor, after winning three Emmies, two Grammies and a Tony, does he need to seek further accolades. No, he attributes his drive to nothing more complex than his love of music. Growing in Brooklyn up with his mother Edna - a Jewish garment worker - and his step-father, Willie Murphy - an Irish truck driver - he was immersed in music. His classmates at Eastern District High School selected him as best musician for his performances on the accordion. "You can't get out of Brooklyn if you're Jewish or Italian and you don't play the accordion first," he jokes. "They won't let you over the Brooklyn Bridge." His devotion to music has endured. "I have tons of cassettes and CDs and sheet music lying all over my studio that will never be heard. The process is the biggest turn-on. I'd be very happy still to be in a studio flat in Brooklyn making music. When you come from nothing - as I did - you either want to become a gazillionaire or do a job you're really proud of. I've always pursued the latter. When I got my first million-dollar cheque, I very quickly almost went bankrupt. That's how little I know about money." Manilow's infectious enthusiasm for his work extends beyond writing and performing his own songs. "I'm always looking for new ways to interpret old songs," he says. "I love finding new depth and different facets. Sondheim was very happy with my version of 'I'm Still Here', and gave me permission to re-write his lyrics. I'm going to call Shakespeare next!" But the biggest buzz he gets is from performing. "I want to give them their money's worth," he says. "All those guys spending an hour and a half playing their hits - I've never done that. I'd get bored. I like kibitzing [making comments] and playing around with the backing singers and inventing new medleys." The audiences love it. Fans packed into the studio at the Television Centre the previous evening appear to be hyperventilating before their idol has even appeared on stage. He finally does in a neat coup de th��tre - a screen depicting a 1974-vintage Barry singing "Mandy" rises to reveal the present-day version playing the same tune. That, and every other song, is greeted with the sort of whoopin' and hollerin' usually reserved for audiences at The Jerry Springer Show. Backed by a full orchestra and eye-wateringly energetic backing singers, Manilow treats the devotees to a rattling good night. Between songs, he majors in cheeky banter. Whipping out his accordion at one stage to play "Can't Smile Without You", he hams it up outrageously, wondering aloud: "Would Sting do this, I ask you?" The fans - fondly dubbed "Maniloonies" - lap it up. Many are from the Barry Manilow International Fan Club, which is thought to be the world's biggest. They sign letters to each other "with Manilove". On the Tube journey home, I bump into Angie from Essex and Elaine from Kent, devoted members of The Barry Army. This pair of fiftysomethings have followed to the letter the instruction on the ticket to "wear glamorous dress please". They are done up to the nines - Angie in a natty gold jacket, and Elaine in an equally fetching spangly blue dress. An hour after the gig the women are still on a high, their eyes burning bright from the exhilaration of seeing Manilow up close. Angie is proud to inform me that she has travelled as far afield as Los Angeles to see Manilow. Her finest hour was when he picked her out of the crowd in New York to dance on stage with him to "Can't Smile Without You." (Fans invariably turn up to gigs with banners urging their hero to "pick me" in terms more or less lewd). "Even though I've seen him in concert literally hundreds of times," Angie says, breathlessly, "it's still as exciting as ever." She vehemently rejects any suggestion that she might be taking her commitment to Manilow a little bit too far. "We're not fanatics," she declares in a tone that brooks no contradiction. "We're just music-lovers." Elaine nods her head. "When he played the London Palladium four years ago, I went to all 12 shows. People say to me, 'How can you go every night?' but I assure you every night is very different. Barry inspires total loyalty because of the way he completely gives of himself on stage." Manilow has come a long way from that studio flat in Brooklyn. He leads a very comfortable existence in California but avoids the showbusiness round of red carpets and parties, and likes nothing better than to stay at home and relish the peace and quiet. "My working life is so filled with noise," he says, "and home isn't." But Manilow never rests for long. He's already working away on Harmony, a musical about a troupe of singers struggling to cope in pre- war Germany, which opens on Broadway next year. Clearly, it's the work that keeps Manilow so vital. "I'm told I seem more comfortable with myself than I've ever done," he says. "Hey, you get to this age and you'd better be. This is no dress rehearsal. This is it, this is your life. When I meet other people my own age, I'm struck by how many look older than their years. They look as if they've given up. All the talk is of the past - the so-called good old days. I've never looked at life that way and don't intend to start now. I have an enormous sense of gratitude for being healthy, for continuing to be engaged with life and for remaining passionate about what I do. I'm one very happy guy." Five decades after he first picked up an accordion in Brooklyn, Manilow is happy still to be dreaming up new ways of making music. "The song 'I'm Still Here' means a lot to me," Manilow says, looking contemplative for a moment. "When I started out, I didn't imagine being here in one week, never mind 30 years. It's still the same; when I say goodbye on stage, I mean it. I don't imagine I'm coming back." But he won't be disappearing any time soon. "I've always got five ideas in the pipeline," Manilow beams. "I keep coming up with new ways of expressing my creativity. I'm lucky because people are still excited by what I do. As they carry me to my deathbed, I'll be saying, 'Can you just give me one more day to finish this song?'" 'One Night with Barry Manilow' is on BBC1 on Saturday at 9.10pm. 'The Ultimate Manilow' CD and DVD are out now. |
| September 27, 2004 | Playbill On-Line | "Scores From Manilow's 'Harmony' and 'Copacabana' to Be Released" by Robert Simonson |
|---|
| The scores from the Barry Manilow musicals Harmony and Copacabana will be released on CD Sept. 28 under the title "Manilow Scores." Harmony is the new Barry Manilow-Bruce Sussman musical about the Comedian Harmonists singing group, the Weimar-era singing group which splintered as the Nazis rose to power. The show, which was to have reached Broadway during the 2003-04 season, is now back on track. Private industry presentations were given in New York Sept. 9-10. Copacabana is the show that Manilow wrote with Sussman and Jack Feldman. It had a 14-month run on London�s West End and then an 18-month tour of the UK. It has also been staged in the United States, though not yet in New York City. The track list of the new album is as follows: Copacabana:
Just Arrived
Dancin� Fool
Who Needs to Dream?
Sweet Heaven (I'm in Love Again)
Bolero de Amor
This Can�t Be Real
Copacabana (At the Copa) 2005 Dance Mix
Harmony:
Harmony
And What Do You See?
Every Single Day
This Is Our Time!
Where You Go
In This World
Stars in the Night
|
|
