Music legend Barry Manilow still 'writes the songs'
By Jason C. Klose
In April 2020, Manilow scored his 36th top-20 Billboard Adult Contemporary chart hit with "When the Good Times Come Again" which peaked at #12 on the week of July 2. The song was originally recorded for his self-titled 1989 album and never released as a single. A fan made a lyric video for the song when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Barry found the video and posted it on his Facebook page, leading his management company to send the song to radio stations for airplay.
Just like so many music artists, Manilow, now 77, has had to reschedule concert dates for 2020 to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Personally, I can't wait to see the day when we can again have venues filled with audiences and great music. Whether that happens this year remains to be seen, but there can definitely be concerts with certain restrictions in place.
My interview with Barry in 2016 was one of the most enjoyable and memorable experiences I've had in my work in arts and entertainment. He was very gracious with his time, interesting and down-to-earth. I was also very impressed with his concert, which was one of the most exciting and uplifting shows that I've seen. I also treated my mom to this show, as she is a longtime fan.
Here is my interview with Barry - the audio file of my conversation with him (which you can download), the link to the published article in the Centre Daily Times, and the original unedited article. Hope you enjoy it!
Legendary singer-songwriter and musician Barry Manilow returns to the Bryce Jordan Center with a very special performance, as the music icon embarks on his final tour of an amazing career that spans over four decades. Manilow’s “One Last Time!” 2016 tour comes to Penn State, Saturday, March 12 at 7:30 pm.
Appearing with Manilow will be nine-time Grammy nominated saxophonist Dave Koz. The two recently shared stages across the U.S. during the first leg of Manilow’s tour earlier this year. As a solo performer, Koz sells out over 60 concerts a year in North America and is also a platinum-selling artist with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
As a singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, and producer, Manilow struck gold with such hits as “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” “Could It Be Magic,” “Looks Like We Made It,” Can’t Smile Without You,” and “Copacabana (At the Copa).” Between 1974 and 1983 Manilow had three No. 1 singles and 25 that reached the top 40. To date, he has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling recording artists of all time.
As well as producing and arranging albums for other artists, including Bette Midler and Dionne Warwick, Manilow has written songs for musicals, films, and commercials. In 1975, Manilow made his first appearance on American Bandstand to promote his second album, and began a productive friendship with host, creator and producer Dick Clark. Manilow would go on to record his own version of the old American Bandstand theme, a big band recording for which he wrote lyrics. Manilow’s rendition of “Bandstand Boogie,” which he originally recorded for his 1975 album “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling,” opened and closed the show from 1977 until the end of its ABC run in 1987.
Manilow’s earliest memory of music was listening to the Andrews Sisters on the radio when he was just three years old. Coming from a very rough section of Brooklyn, New York, where there was no money and nobody who cared about getting into music or show business, Manilow’s family knew that he was a musical kid.
“These people that I was raised by were struggling to put food on the table, give me some sort of an education, and raise me as a gentleman – which they did,” he said. “But they knew I was musical, and somehow they put together enough money to rent an accordion for me. I was good at it, and I picked up music right away.”
Manilow truly knew his calling in life when his stepfather took him to see a concert by Gerry Mulligan, one of the great jazz saxophone players of his time.
“He took me to Birdland, when it was really a jazz club,” he said. “I saw the Gerry Mulligan Quartet and it changed my life. That was the moment I knew that I wanted to be around this.”
Manilow, 72, has collaborated and performed with an impressive number of artists throughout his career and has made quite a few friends in the business. For most artists it may be very difficult to pick an absolute favorite, but for Manilow the choice is very simple.
“On my bucket list and when people asked me that question it was always Barbara Streisand,” he said. “But I actually got a chance to do a duet with a song that I wrote with her, and it was just as beautiful as I was hoping it would be. It was a wonderful experience, and we’re still friends. She’s a great, great artist and a terrific person.”
These days if you asked Manilow who he’d like to work with, his answer would of course be Lady Gaga.
“I’ve been a fan of hers from the very first note I heard from her five years ago,” he said. “The Academy Award song she did just knocked the whole world out. She is one of the greats. But right now I’m working on my next album. It’s half standards and half originals, and I’m having a great time with it.”
In October 2014, Manilow released an album of duets, titled My Dream Duets. The album earned him a 2016 Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.
As several artists had recorded duet albums in recent years, Manilow tried to figure out how he could make his duet album different from the others. So he came up with an idea – to take old records done by singers whom he had always admired and who had passed on, and make them into duets.
“It seemed impossible because some of these records were so old,” he said. “It was during the years when they didn’t even have separate tracks; so we were stuck with literally scratchy, old records. But music technology has come so far, that we were actually able to make this record and make it sound like I’m singing next to Judy Garland, or next to John Denver, or next to Dusty Springfield. This album is a technical marvel, and it took a lot of people to make it.”
In creating the album, Manilow was able to take out the instrumental backgrounds from the original recordings and leave him with just the voice to work with, which allowed him to rearrange the orchestra accompanying him and the singer.
“I could make new intros, change the keys, and make different endings,” he said. “I could just do anything I wanted with the arrangements, and I was able to do that with all of them. It was an amazing experience.”
This is the first concert in the last leg of Manilow’s final tour, and he decided to do as many of the hits that he could.
“This year I’m doing all of the hits – songs that I haven’t done in a long time like ‘Read ‘Em and Weep,’ ‘Somewhere Down the Road,’ and ‘Some Kind of Friend,’” he said. “I’ve put everything into this – it’s 90 minutes of songs that people might recognize. The audiences have been very happy, so it’s going to be great.”
On October 27, 2011, Manilow visited Joplin, Missouri, six months after a tornado destroyed one-third of the Midwestern city, including its only high school. Manilow made a contribution of $300,000 to restore the musical program and instruments that were lost. He also provides music scholarships at ten leading universities.
“I just believe that kids should learn how to play an instrument, even if they don’t turn out to be professional musicians – it makes a big difference to their education,” he said. “I speak to the principals and the teachers in the schools that we deal with and they always tell me that the kids’ grades go up, they become better students, and they become better people. And it will change a young person’s life.”
Because of budget problems, many schools today are quick to cut music and arts programs, or they may run out of instruments. After learning of this problem, Manilow thought he could do something about it. So in 2008, he started the Manilow Music Project, where he collects instruments and gives them to the schools in every city that he tours in.
“For people who have instruments that are just collecting dust or that they don’t need anymore, they can bring them down to the auditorium that we’re going to be in, and they get two free tickets,” he said. “We collect them all and we fix them up, and then we give them to the school district and the school district gives them to the schools. I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s working.”
For Manilow, it was a big surprise to him that he even had a career as a performer – something he never really wanted. He always wanted to be a musician, producer, and songwriter, but it never dawned on him that he would wind up where he has. But his audiences and fans have supported him from the very beginning, and he summed up just how much it has meant to him and to his career as he winds down his final tour.
“At this point it’s huge gratitude,” he said. “They liked what they saw and they liked what they heard, and they’ve been in my corner since the very first show. I never understood why people connected with what I was doing. I’m very grateful that they were able to connect with it, and I’m very proud of the impact that my music has had on people for all these years.”
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