Beech Tree News Network

Pop superstar Barry Manilow is taking on a brand-new role: composer of a Broadway musical.  This, after a career that has truly made him a legend.  CBS Sunday Morning’s David Pogue: “If you were around during the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, you could probably sing along with many of Barry Manilow’s 50 top 40 hits.  From “Could It Be Magic” to “Mandy” “Looks Like We Made It” and, of course, “Copa Cabana”. 

He's sold 85 million records.  He’s won a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy.  He’s also now performed more times in Las Vegas than Elvis Presley.  All of this came as a huge surprise to…Barry Manilow.  “I didn’t understand why anybody would like what I was doing on that stage”.

Let’s start in Brooklyn, New York where Manilow grew up.  When asked “were you poor”? His answer was “yes.  I had nothing.  I was beyond poor”.  But then, his stepfather Willie entered the picture.  “He brought a stack of albums that may as well have been a stack of gold.  I’d never heard music like that from Broadway musical, classical music, great jazz and pop singers.  Then Willie got me a little spinner piano and everything changed.  As soon as I hit the keys, I knew this was gonna be it for me”. 

Manilow got a job at CBS but at night he pursued his real passion: musical theatre.  By 1971, Manilow was already making his mark: first, as musical director for a young Bette Midler, then as the composer of jingles.  Everybody knows “like a good neighbor, State Farm is there”, right? Barry wrote it.  “I am stuck on Band-Aid brand ‘caus Band Aid’s stuck on me”, he wrote that as well.  “I learned more doing these commercials than I learned anywhere because pop music is all about 50 and 30 second hooks.  Those two years were my college”. 

In 1973, a producer heard his voice on a demo tape and offered him a recording contract.  “I was the piano player.  I was the arranger.  I was getting a record deal as a singer-songwriter? It was just ridiculous”, Manilow said.  His audience disagreed.  Suddenly, Barry Manilow was a superstar.   Barry says “most people prayed for success like that.  I did not.  It was big and it was very confusing to me”.  Especially because the fans and the critics seemed so far apart.  “The most hateful reviews, you’d think that I had hurt their family.  It just kept getting worse and worse for a good 10-15 years”.

Manilow didn’t write all of his #1 hits.  Some came from other songwriters pushed on him by the record companies.  One of the songs he didn’t write. “I Write The Songs”.  “It took me awhile to make friends with that song.  It’s so clumsy but when I realized it was an anthem to the spirit of music….oh, I can arrange an anthem”.  He changes keys in the song three times. 

Over the decades, Manilow endured financial close calls, a couple of health scares, and the revelation of his relationship with his manager, Gary Keefe, who he married in 2014.  Pop music was never where his heart was.  “It just didn’t challenge me enough”. Maybe that’s why, at age 80, Barry Manilow is about to unveil his first Broadway musical, called Harmony.  The show tells the story of a local sextet-three Jews and three Gentiles-who became world-famous just before World War II.  “In their day, they were The Beatles.  Sold millions of records, made 13 movies, and then in 1933, Hitler comes to power and it became illegal to sell their records or play them.  They were the poster children of what Germany could’ve been: harmony in the truest sense of the word that Jews and Gentiles could work together and create something so beautiful.  That was not part of the Third Reich’s agenda, so they were just wiped out”. 

Barry Manilow may always think of himself as the guy behind the piano but he’s not complaining about the pop career that took him by surprise.  “This is an insane career that’s happened to me.  It’s just an unbelievable, beautiful experience for this skinny guy from Brooklyn to have this kind of life”.  (CBS Sunday Morning, 10-29-23).  Below are the links to my podcast Blendertainment.

https://open.spotify.com/show/61yTPt9wXdz37DZTbPUs16?si=w5jHghPVRmaTaP5ZEI-wzQ

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/blendertainment/id1541097172