"Deborah Norville Tonight" Show vom 06.04.2004 - Seite 1 

Transcript


DEBORAH NORVILLE, HOST: And good evening.
It is hard to believe that Barry Manilow never set out to be a singer or have a
solo career. But 42 albums, 38 top 40 hits later, it looks like he was simply
meant to be a star.

NORVILLE: Well, Barry Manilow did make it in a humongous way.
His record sales have broken records, and he is consistently one of the most
successful touring artists in the music industry.
The man ranked as the No. 1 adult contemporary artist of all time has written
enough hits to be honored in the Songwriter‘s Hall of Fame. He‘s also collected
along the way a Grammy, an Emmy and lots of Tonys.
"Rolling Stone" has called Barry Manilow the show man of our generation. His
music ranges from pop to swing to Broadway to jazz.
And his newest two CD set, entitled "Two Nights Live," was just released today.
It‘s a companion to his recent DVD set called "The Ultimate Manilow."
And Barry Manilow is with us for the next hour. And it‘s great to see you.

MANILOW: My God, it‘s like "This is Your Life."

NORVILLE: It‘s like yes, yes. You expect that guy to walk out with the book.

MANILOW: I expect that guy to be dead.

NORVILLE: I think he is. It‘s so great to see you.

MANILOW: Thank you.

NORVILLE: And it‘s so awesome that so many years into your career you‘ve
got yet another CD.

MANILOW: I know. And like you said, it came out today and BMG told me
that it shipped gold.

NORVILLE: It shipped out gold?

MANILOW: It shipped gold, which is just the most amazing statement, after all
these years. I mean, that the public is really interested - still interested in what
I do after all these years. It‘s a double C.D. that shipped gold today.
And it‘s just astounding.

NORVILLE: I can tell you‘re just sort of dumbfounded by all of that.

MANILOW: I am. I don‘t know what to say.

NORVILLE: What does that say about the music?

MANILOW: Well, you know, funny you should mention that. I was thinking about
that today, you know? About what‘s going on on the radio, you know.
Will these songs sustain? What‘s going on? Will these songs that we hear every
day still be popular 30 years later?
And I am nervous that the craft of songwriting is taking a nose dive. The reason
that I think these songs are still selling and popular is because I think they‘re
well-written songs. And whether I sing them or not, the songs are moving people.

NORVILLE: And it‘s about the message. It‘s day break. It‘s optimistic. It‘s happy.
It‘s, you know, the song we were just hearing in the background.

MANILOW: I made it through the rains and this clever "Copa Cabana" song. I
mean, forget about the rhythm itself. This clever lyric that sustain sustains for
years, 15, 20, I‘m listening for that stuff on the radio all the time. I just don‘t hear
it.

NORVILLE: You don‘t hear that kind of music, or you don‘t hear that kind of meaningful lyric?

MANILOW: Both. I‘m afraid both. And you know, what‘s happening is that the
burden is falling to the drum machines, record producers and the people that
sing it to make it sound interesting with their vocal acrobatics and the sounds
of the records and all. But the songs aren‘t there. Well, they‘re there now and
again.

NORVILLE: It‘s not just the vocal acrobatics. I mean, it seems like too many
singers, during their concerts, aren‘t even singing. They‘re lip-syncing. You know,
Milli Vanilli went down the tubes for that, and nowadays it‘s quite accepted. You couldn‘t possibly do three triple herkys (ph) and a back flip and be able to sing
without being out of breath. The audience still goes to the concerts.

MANILOW: Do you think they‘re accepting the fact that they‘re lip-syncing?

NORVILLE: I don‘t know. But they go.

MANILOW: They go, even though they are lip-syncing. I take a look at what you seeing on TV, and they‘re dancing like crazy. How, I say, can they possibly be
singing at the same time. They must not be singing, you know?
So you know, maybe the production is so entertaining that we forgive them, you
know?

NORVILLE: Right.

MANILOW: And since I‘m a song writer and I connect with an interpretative, you
know, interpretation of a song, I miss it. I just miss it.

NORVILLE: And, yet, you‘re only going out once this year. Rather than do a full
tour to support the album, the DVD set that came out, you‘re doing one date on
June 5. Why not do more? Because you know your fans will fill the auditorium.

MANILOW: Yes. Well, the last tour was - started off to be a six-week tour pro-
moting an album that I had done called "Here at the Mayflower." It‘s a wonderful original album.
And a couple of weeks after that album came out, "The Ultimate Manilow" CD
came out, this retrospective of all the greatest hits, and it went through the roof.
And suddenly, this tour stretched from six weeks to nine months.

NORVILLE: Whoa.

MANILOW: And after nine months - AND we went into the summer, which was
outdoor festivals in this humidity. I MEAN, i would look out at the audience and
they were sweating so - harder than I was.

NORVILLE: And you were up there singing and giving it your all.

MANILOW: I was, like, down to 130 pounds. And the audience was, like, you
know, sweating.
Finally, by the end of this tour I just said, "We have to stop." No matter how
wonderful the music is, and the audiences were getting bigger, and that‘s where
this album comes from.
I finally just said, "We just have to stop." And so I‘ve stopped for a while. So - but
I‘ve missed it and I miss them. And I‘m so grateful to them, you know, for being supportive, that I said, "Let‘s just do one big one this year." So we‘re doing one
big one on June 5.

NORVILLE: How much does what happened at Super Bowl happened - and I don‘t mean Janet Jackson and Justin at the half-time show. You had a serious health incident with your heart. How much does that have to do with this decision, too?

MANILOW: I was laying there on the gurney, you know, before they were giving
me the paddles. You know, they had to give me the paddles.

NORVILLE: You saw them coming at you with...

MANILOW: Well, they said they were going to give me the paddles, because my
heart would not stop. They called it fibrillation.

NORVILLE: Fibrillating, right.

MANILOW: And it was like - it was like insane. Insanely fibrillating. I felt like I
had a flounder in my chest.

NORVILLE: What did it feel like?

MANILOW: It felt like there was a fish in my chest. You know, and they hooked
me up to these monitors and it looked like a piano score. Like that, you know.
And so in order to stop it, they had to do that. They put me down for it, you know.
And as I was laying there right, being about to be put out, I said to myself, "Whoa, whoa, this is serious, man, you know?"

NORVILLE: Yes.

MANILOW: And I thought - I‘ll tell you what I thought about. I thought about my
fans.

NORVILLE: Yes.

MANILOW: I did. I thought about these people who have been so unbelievably supportive for 30 years. And so when I got up, you know, it was - I was fine. I got
a clean bill of health from my cardiologist, you know.
But it stunned me. The whole experience stunned me. And the next thing I did
was say, "I have to get back to thank them." And that‘s why I‘m doing June 5.

NORVILLE: Wow. You didn‘t think my fans, I‘m going to leave them?

MANILOW: No. I just was so grateful. All of a sudden I realized what - I began
to think of all those things that you read about in books, you know. Have I done everything I‘ve ever wanted to do; have I said everything I wanted?
You know, they were about to put me out, and who knows if I was going to come
out of it? My heart was going like that, you know? And I started to think about
those questions, you know, have I done everything? And so I just wanted to make
sure that I - they know how grateful I am for their support all these years.

NORVILLE: Wow. So this is really a thank you concert.

MANILOW: It is.

NORVILLE: Awesome. What caused the stress?

MANILOW: Well, I had this incredible year. I mean, a beautiful year, very creative year.

NORVILLE: Here, you‘ve got the year right here.

MANILOW: I brought my year. I brought my year.

NORVILLE: This pile is one year of your work, times almost 40 years, 30-some-
thing years. It‘s a big pile.

MANILOW: Yes, yes. I mean, I‘ve got a bigger pile at home. But this is this year.

NORVILLE: Right.

MANILOW: So the year started with a wonderful opportunity to sing with one of
my favorite singers, Barbara Streisand. We did a duet. I wrote a song that we did
a duet on.

NORVILLE: I‘ll be "The Price is Right" girl. There‘s Barbara.

MANILOW: Then I did this Christmas special for A&E, which was one of my favo-
rite things I‘ve ever done. It was live, like we were doing live? But it was two hours
live of live music and Christmas songs.

NORVILLE: Well, you‘re a nice Jewish guy from Brooklyn. How do you get to do
the Christmas special?

MANILOW: It‘s the holidays. I just love the idea that finally during the year every-
body stops hollering at each other.

NORVILLE: Right.

MANILOW: I just love that part of it. So I put together this great Christmas album,
and they - A&E was so generous and gave me two hours live. And I took requests.

NORVILLE: And it was one of the highest rated request shows they‘d ever had.

MANILOW: It was. I loved it so much. So that was that.
And then I got to write with Eddy Arkin and my co-producers and all, this wonderful album for the great Diane Schuur. That was another incredible experience, a fan-
tastic thrill.
And then I broke my nose.

NORVILLE: Wait, wait. OK. You broke your nose.

MANILOW: I walked into a wall.

NORVILLE: Middle of the night.

MANILOW: What a shmuck.

NORVILLE: The wall moved? The wall moved?

MANILOW: No, I went the wrong way. I have two houses. So I thought I was in
L.A., and I got up and I went to the bathroom and I went right into the floor.

NORVILLE: And you were not in L.A., you were in a different house.

MANILOW: Right. And I went back on the bed and knocked myself out.
I felt like Daffy Duck.

NORVILLE: I remember a lot of people were worried that, you know, you broke
your nose; it is a rather prominent part of your facial feature.

MANILOW: It is. I had it done. I had it made bigger.

NORVILLE: Did you have to have surgery?

MANILOW: No, no.

NORVILLE: You didn‘t. But people were worried it was going to affect your
singing.

MANILOW: No.

NORVILLE: And it didn‘t.

MANILOW: No. It was fractured. You know, there was like this line down it, but
it wasn‘t like Sonny Liston, like, punched me or something. But I concussed
myself, you know.
It was like I woke up and the world was going like that, you know, and I started thinking - the doctor said don‘t go to the emergency room. You‘ll probably get nauseous, he said, and I did. And then it calmed down. But it just kind of blew
up. It got bigger. Can you believe it got bigger?

NORVILLE: And then in the fall you really had the stressful thing.

MANILOW: I‘m not done yet.

NORVILLE: You‘re not done?

MANILOW: So then I called my friend Bill, because I had this dream about
doing this Rosemary Clooney tribute. It was - we kind of knew Rosemary. And
Bette and I hadn‘t together in so many years.

NORVILLE: And you and Bette started together.

MANILOW: We did.

NORVILLE: You were Bette‘s musical arranger before anyone knew who Barry
Manilow was.

MANILOW: Yes. I had no eyes to be a soloist ever. What I wanted to do was
what I was doing with Bette. I wanted to be an arranger, conductor, maybe song-
writer, producer, pianist. And I was looking for someone to do that for, and Bette
came along.

NORVILLE: And this was really not just Bette singing the Rosemary Clooney songbook. It was a singer that I know you had admired for so long.
This was kind of mending fences and two old friends coming back together and realizing we‘ve got too much history together to not have a future together, too.

MANILOW: Well, you know, we kind of ended awkwardly a couple of years before
I had this dream about the Rosemary Clooney album. Bette talks about it as if -
people got it blown out of proportion as far as I‘m concerned. It wasn‘t like a
breakup or an estrangement or something, it was just awkward.
The "Roseanne" - Remember the "Roseanne" show?

NORVILLE: Oh, sure.

MANILOW: Yes. And they called me and the Harlettes, all of the Harlettes - a
lot of them - to surprise Bette to sing "Friends," and Bette wasn‘t surprised in a
good way. She just didn‘t. She was just like...

NORVILLE: You again.

MANILOW: Well, it wasn‘t exactly that. She doesn‘t like singing without rehearsal.
I don‘t blame her, you know. It just...

NORVILLE: She felt a little bit blindsided?

MANILOW: She did, you know? And, you know, she did it, you know. But she
was, like, not pleased that that had happened, you know?
And the next day she called everybody and apologized for her attitude and she
called me. And I said, "Well, you know, you could have had a good time with it."
It was really, you know - And that was it. That was it, you know. We didn‘t talk
for a couple of years. But it wasn‘t because we were upset at each other. I was
on the road and she was on the road.
And when I had this dream about the Rosemary Clooney thing, she was happy to
hear from me. But you know, I did. I had the dream, I think, not only because it
was a musically valid idea. But because I really did want to make sure that Bette
were in good shape, and we were. We had a great time doing this album. We went
out and had dinner at the end and laughed.
If it had ended right there, it would have been fine. But it turned out to be one the
most successful albums of both of our careers and was nominated for a Grammy
a couple of months ago. So isn‘t that beautiful?

NORVILLE: And, you know, it‘s wonderful. Time can march on, but people can
come back together and have even more success than they had in the past.

MANILOW: Great. Yes. Absolutely. And she‘s as talented as I believed - as I
always believed she was. And you know, I‘ve always loved her, and I still love her.
And I will always love her, you know?


... (siehe Teil 2)



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