Journale 13

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Thanks for your interest!

The 16 - Tee 1978
Party Time for Barry Barry Manilow's Smash Concert Tour Of The U.S. Included Lots Of Celebrity Studded Parties - As Well As Flying Bagels! Read On! In city after city, the Barry Manilow tour was just about all some people could talk about - especially Providence, R.I., where Barry had thousands of bagels flown in to ticket buyers! There were lots of parties for Barry to enjoy, but the one most special to him was the big bash at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City - Barry's home town! Clive Davis, president of Barry's record company, Arista Records, Barry, and Barry's companion for the evening, Reparta of Lady Flash (his back-up group) had a wonderful evening - shy Barry even danced with Reparta! - and agreed that there really is no place like home! Anyone who's a true Barry fan knows all about his "V.S.M." - that's the medley Barry sings of all the commerical jingles he's done! Another super Barry medley is the "Jump, Shout, Boogie" medley that has lots of good dance tunes in it - including the theme from American Bandstand, which Barry wrote! Well, Dick Clark was at the party to start off a celebration of both those medleys by some very fine models and dancers! The models in the "V.S.M." came dressed as Kentucky Fried Chickens and things, and the dancers showed everyone what it was like to dance on American Bandstand in the 50's! New York Gouvernor Hugh Carey's daughter, Nancy, was on hand to present Barry with a citation from the state New York - for all the terrific work he's done, natch! - and host Clive Davis presented Barry with a sculpture in the shape of a baby grand photo! Barry posed with Maria Kennedy Shriver - niece of the late President John F. Kennedy - shortly before the end of the big night for Barry! Barry, much to his regret, had to leave a bit early so he'd be all rested and prepared for his two sold-out concerts at Forest Hills Stadium where he was positively super - as always - even when the stage lights blew out! Barry performed all his big hits, accepted each and every gift offered by fans in the audience, and did a very special dance number to his big disco hit "Copacabana"! All in all, it was the first of three important nights to Barry - and no one enjoyed them more than he did - except maybe you!
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HEADLINER 1977
HEADLINER Barry Manilow is homely, not rugged. He can't really sing. So why do women adore him? How did he became a show business legend? By Stephen E. Rubin There's a golden-haired string bean from Brooklyn who might, in the vernacular of his hometown, affectionately be called a shnook. He's not handsome (some would say ugly), he's not sexy (some would say androgynous-looking) and his singing voice is not mellifluous (some would say it's not a voice at all, but a croak). No matter. When Barry Manilow comes bounding out onstage in outrageous costumes reminiscent of Liberace's, Brooklyn can cheer because its boy, 32, boldly leaps the yawning chasm between sad sack and superstar.  Even more surprising is that he started behind the scenes and only became a performer by a fluke. Barry is a musical jack-of-all-trades - an arranger, conductor, writer, singer, pianist, producer. Everybody thinks he wrote the famous McDonald's jingle ("You deserve a break today") - he didn't, he only sings it. But he did write the Bowlene Toilet Cleaner, State Farm Insurance, Chevrolet and Band-Aid commercials, and arranged materials, masterminded the stage act and co-produced the albums of a certain "Divine Miss M." No one will ever know for sure how much of it was Bette Midler, but together their chemistry produced flamboyant, extraordinary music, and it was surely from Bette that Barry learned what torrential energy and shameless gall really mean. In 1973, for lack of anything better to do, he claims, Barry invested $5,000 of his own money into making a demo record. It earned him a recording contract and, two years later, "Mandy" was released, his first hit single. There followed a succession of runaway-singles - "I Write the Songs," "Looks Like We Made It" and "Copacabana," to say nothing of seven solid platinum albums and a television contract with ABC. The eye of this hurricane rejoices that he is commercially one of the most superior of superstars in pop and - more important to Barry - that what he considers his unique personal message is coming across loud and clear. Barry knows of his reception because of the unusual mail he receives. "You can not believe the letters," he avows, his voice going squeaky. "I cry over most of them, honestly. One girl wrote me about her mother dying of leukemia and that the only time she reacted was when my voice came on the radio. .
"I don't know how this is happening, because why would anybody think I'm a nice guy just by listening to my albums?" Barry asks, further pondering the depths of his acceptance by an audience that knows no age, sex or socioeconomic Iimitations. "When I listen to Frank Sinatra, I don't know what kind of person he is. I think Sinatra's a good interpreter and singer, but I wouldn't write to him and say you changed my life, you helped me get through the day, you saved me from suicide." Barry's remarkable success and his own breathless astonishment and endearing manner of deriding himself rescue this particular Brooklyn fairy tale from becoming maudlin. And Barry knows it. Ask him whether he emits sexuality on stage and he grins, "Not on purpose I don't." He also scoffs at his considerable flair for playing pop - singing superstar. "I'm in this ridiculous stratosphere," he mock boasts with the ingenuous bravado of a smart street kid. "I'm playing with Monoply money." And winning - shnookdom be damned. In line with the well-heeled potentates of pop who make mini-fortunes every time they show their faces in public, Barry has established himself as a two-coast person. He owns a co-op in New York with a terrace that takes in a panorama of the city worth the expensive price tag of a famed, old guard apartment building, and he recently purchased the de rigueur Bel Air house ("for tax reasons") with "this ridiculous view of mountains and canyons." Barry talks like he comes from Brooklyn, and never lets you forget it as he's seated near the Mickey Mouse phone at the corner of a bright, multicolored couch of spectacular proportions in the otherwise coolly decorated music room of his New York digs. Neatly hanging behind him is a dazzling display of gold and platinum records - Barry's hits (including a quadruple platinum for "Barry Manilow Live," which sold over four million copies). The music room appears to double as a den and, aside from a handsomely equipped kitchen with informal high stools, is the only room that gives a feeling of being lived in. The formal living room is stark and modern, antiseptic and uninviting - a wonderful wall fish tank is devoid of in-habitants. There are no books on the bookshelves in an office of sorts - they're on the West Coast. The game room has a pinball machine, but not much else. The bedroom is off limits to the press. Before we begin talking, Barry, his cuddly, redheaded girlfriend Linda Allen, his assistant, his press agent and I sit around the kitchen waiting for the coffee to perk. Barry and Linda are in coordinated getups: dark jeans and maroon sweaters. Barry's is a particularly dashing ensemble and, as he facetiously points out to Linda, "very Ivy League" because of a tie neatly peeking out from under the crew neck top. Linda and Barry are chatty and friendly, as are the personal if not physical surroundings. There's a lot to be happy about in the Manilow abode these days, including his third ABC-TV special next month (the first two were both smash hits). But for all his cheering levity, Barry is troubled enough once we're alone to keep a mini-cassette tape recorder runing throughout our long conversation. And he is not joking when he voices concern that certain people are reading him wrong, that his image is awry. "It's important to me," he says soberly, if somewhat melodramatically, "that you reinforce the thinking that I am, in fact, a living, breathing, feeling, sensitive, gentle man. Because of this incredible amount of success, a lot of people have begun thinking and writing that Barry Manilow's ego is out of hand. I read these stories and think. 'Oh, my God! People really believe I am going crazy, taking this success to heart.' Yeah, I'm successful; yeah, I enjoy the success. I enjoy all of it. But the thing I work on most is keeping my feet on the ground in this hurricane. It's very difficult. The wind can knock you over." Barry often talks the way song lyrics sound. His innate show biz jargon and panache rise naturally to the fore, even when he is attempting to reach out and, on a personal level, touch and encompass his followers in exactly the same fashion his hit songs do - directly. He wants them desperately to believe that if ever there was an honest man, he is it. That what they see on stage is nothing more than a magnified, souped-up version of "The Real Barry." More Complex But "The Real Barry" is far more complex than his charming, offhand, unpretentious manner suggests. So, while he's also anxious because he thinks his fans might be sorely disenchanted with the genuine article. "Most fans of mine," Barry almost whines, "would be very disappointed if they realized I don't walk around in my rhinestone top all the time and do not sing all day long. That I sit around in blue jeans and watch television and don't shave sometimes and don't have witty things to say. From the letters I receive, you'd think I was really hot stuff. Well, I'm not hot stuff. I'm just a regular person. Sometimes I don't even want to meet fans because I'm afraid I'll disappoint them. Certainly a lot of people I used to idolizie weren't all I thought they were when I met them. Heaven knows I never met Laura Nyro (the white-soul diva of the Sixties, author of "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoned Soul Picnic," which were recorded by The Fifth Dimension). Her music changed my life." "I fantasized about her for so long. Then I kept hearing reports about what it was like to work with her, to be with her, what she was really like. And it wasn't anything like I wanted her to be. After I heard all that, I didn't want to meet her." Barry confesses, with a tinge of resignation, that bubbles started bursting early for him. "Most people I've admired have turned out to have faults," he says quietly. "Starting with my mom. I worship Mom, I do. I still love her, she's the greatest, but when I was growing up I always thought she was a sophisticated, martini-drinking woman of the world. But as I grew older, and I think we all go through this, we begin to see our parents and our idols as just human beings. I got angry when I first realized Mom was just another human being. I had thought she was superhuman." Perhaps Barry's excessive adoration of his mother stemmed from his father's desertion when he was a tot of two. His mother supported herself and her son as well as her parents in the slum Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. "Ask a cab- driver to take you there now, and he'll run away," Barry boasts. The picture Barry paints of himself as a youngster helps considerably to illuminate the household name today. "I was really ugly, the ugliest kid in school. I have pictures that would make your hair curl. I was a street kid, but not a street punk, not a Billy Joel. I lived in the streets, my hangouts were alleys and deserted parking lots that were filled with inner tubes. Any games I played were in the gutters. I didn't have a lot of friends; I had two really good ones (one of whom he married - they split up a year later when Barry was 22) and many acquaintances, that got me through my life. That's why friendships now are as important to me as they are. I wasn't very good at sports, I wasn't Mr. Popularity at school, but I had these fabulous friends. I developed a sense of humor about myself and about life through them. You become smart on the streets of New York - common sense smart. You learn how to survive. My being smart also comes from my family, which had an incredible amount of common sense, especially my grandparents. They drilled logic into my head. So I'm not a street kid looking over his shoulder waiting for the next mugger to attack. I'm a different kind of street kid - with a down-to-earthness, a focus on reality. It's the thing that will stop me from thinking I really an 'Hot Stuff Superstar.'"   .
Barry also snubs the accepted extra-curricular aspects of life among the pop culture elite-show biz friends (his only entertainer chums are singers Bette Midler and Melissa Manchseter), show biz parties and show biz drugs. He whoops with laughter as he recalls his first interview, five years ago, with a leading rock magazine. "The interviewer came back to my dressing room. She had masses of frizzy hair, was very skinny and wore black lipstick. Her first question was: " 'What's your favorite dope (drug)?' " 'You dear,' I said, 'get out!' "I tried smoking joints (marijuana). I liked it for a month, but then I started to get nauseous. And I could not stop getting sick. So for about a month, three or four years ago, I had a very nice time getting pleasantly you know... Frankly, I didn't enjoy it. I would fall asleep or sit like a puppet listening to records and maybe I'd hear a horn line a little clearer, but it wasn't any revelation. The few encounters I had with the drug were no more or less pleasant than having a couple of drinks, which I din't like either. It does the same thing to me, affects me physically and I get nauseous. I cannot be out of control. So I have a social drink, but mostly it's mineral water with a lime twist." Barry, unsurprisingly, finds more traditional means of relaxation most satisfying. "A good book, a good rhythm and blues record, conversations with friends having nothing whatsoever to do with the music industry, a movie. When I'm on the road (he finished one of his grueling cross-country tours at the close of last year), I go out with my two best friends from my group and we just do anything - like go shopping. I relax by doing the ordinary things that most people do all the time," he laughs, "but that I don't often get a chance to do."  If Barry's lifestyle appears a little too prim to be believed, it's best to understand that given his high-voltage performers, both his body and his mind the kind of unstructured, rather staid existence he seeks. "There's a whole energy trip when I'm onstage," Barry explains, "and I'm spent at the end of it. It's certainly a great release. My only entrèe into analysis years ago had me punching a pillow and beating up the bed, and God, it got all my frustrations out in ten seconds. Now I take out the frustrations of the day in the songs. Sometimes I'm not even thinking of the lyric, but of a passionate emotion-joy, frustration, anger, loneliness - and it comes right out in the middle of these songs. The audience is affected by it, and I feel much better after I'm done. I find I can deal with people a lot better because of it."  Barry is fast to point out that during a tour ("tours drive you nuts") he is less successful in dealing with people. "I'm volatile," he admits. "I blow up all the time." Even with Linda? "No, never. But now and again I'll blow up with my assistant when he thinks he's representing me and he'll yell at a waiter - 'Mr. Manilow needs a rare hamburger. How dare you?' I say, 'Paul, please don't talk to people like that, what's the matter with you?'" "My manager puts up with a lot from me. I'm crazy when it comes to doing a job right. I like to be involved in every area of my life and that's hard, so when I feel I'm being left out of a decision, I start screaming." Recently, a TV crew came to tape three numbers during Barry's live show in Philadelphia. When the agreed-upon songs were performed, Barry still saw the cameras with their red lights focused on him from all directions. He became incoherently furious and relives the episode with comparable passion. "My energy and adrenaline levels are up so high during a performance, I could probably lift a car."   "There were 20,000 people out there screaming their heads off. I was having a great time, but I kept seeing those cameras and their lights. At one point, while I was introducing a band member who was doing a solo, I ran into the wings where one of these guys was and grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him further into the wings and yelled, 'STOP IT!' The guy sorta bounced around. Then, when I went back onstage, I saw him crawling around to the other side. So I introduced another band member, ran offstage, shoved him again and said to my stage manager, 'Get this man the (expletive deleted) off my stage! I don't know what he's doing here." "What was coming out of my mouth was energy, not fury, but then they had said they were only going to tape three songs. I blew up like crazy and when the show was finished, I was still the same way. Because when I come offstage, if something is funny it's incredibly funny, if something is sad I'm dissolved into tears, if something is upsetting it's double, triple the upset." "The director came out and gave me a perfectly logical explanation why those cameramen were onstage, but I was not listening. I went CRAZY. Slammed the door in his face. I know he must have thought I was a total maniac and hated my guts. The next day the TV show called and apologized and I said, no, don't apologize. I had no right to scream like that. That cameraman was a big person; he could have banged me on the head and killed me. But I was on this energy trip and actually threw him into the wings. I'm not a fighter, it's just this insane energy that takes over." Barry is a creature of all those B-movies we love - the entertainer whose performances, whose songs, whose vigorous hawking fuel his very being. He is a sweet-natured fellow offstage, but compared to the theatrial dynamo, the real Barry pales. And, as opposed to lesser luminaries who are sometimes more interesting away from the glare of the limelight, Barry is at his most alluring when dispensing his wares in his shiny, bauble-laden fantasy costumes. When the two worlds collide, there is an impact that is more pathetic than fateful, "I must say," Barry reports, "I get very uptight when I go to places with lots of people. Even if they don't stop to talk, a lot people stare... it gets to you. I'll be going down an escalator in a department store and I'll be looking at faces watching me go down. There's just so much you can block out. I'll be with Linda just talking, pretending it's not happening, but when they're all looking up and down at you..." This subtle form of star-gazing is almost welcome compared to the full-scale drama that forced Barry to move out of his former, far less resplendent New York apartment. "Who's Who printed my home address," Barry snarls uncharacteristically. "Without my permission, I might add. We've got a lawsuit out against them. First the letters started coming, I had no idea how. Then they started piling up in front of the door. Until then I had had a wonderfully private life there: My records were No. 1, yet I was able to lead a normal existence. Then suddenly this Who's Who thing came out and fans started to camp outside the door. It was hellish, just hellish, so I had to move. I live in this building under a pseudonym. Today the doormen were told you'd be asking for me, but if you come here tomorrow and ask for Barry Manilow, they will shoot you in the nose." Nice guy from afar Barry doesn't want to be misunderstood. He wants to be the nice guy his followers think he is, he wants their gratitude. But from a distance. "The private Barry is a quiet type," he insists, "private and quiet and grateful. I think I'm sorta in awe of what's happened to me - still. I don't know what synagogue to donate money to first. I am a very fortunate man. If it all stopped tomorrow, I have had a wonderful ride a great time. I'd be very unhappy, but I wouldn't die." Barry dismisses outright the innuendos in the press and among the tongue-wagging Cassandras of popdom that behind all the flamboyant success, there is, in the flesh, one small, lonesome man. He smiles his smart, Brooklyn, street-kid grin: "If this is 'lonesome at the top,' I'll take it." .
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1984
Barry Manilow: I've Got a Big Nose - And I Like It! "I like my nose," declares Barry Manilow, the pop superstar with the king-size schnozz. "O.K., so I have a big nose - so what?" said Manilow, whose romantic singing style makes millions of woman go gaga. "This is the nose I was born with and anyway, I used to look much worse. I was the ugliest kid in my class at school." Manilow was responding to pop music critics who have poked fun at his oversize snoot. "I don't even read that stuff anymore," he shrugged. "So what do these guys want me to do? Have a nose job?" Had he ever considered getting his honker bobbed? "Not even for a moment," Barry laughed. "Anyway, it wouldn't be me if I did. And I happen to like my nose and the way I look!" 1984, Syndication International .
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RockLine 1981
The first time Barry Manilow was about to take the stage as a performer in his own right, he was so nervous he got sick backstage only moments before he was supposed to go on. He was working with Bette Midler at the time, arranging her music and accompanying her on piano - and he was about to open a show that featured Bette. It was his first chance to show the public what he could do on his own. But the one thought that was occupying his mind was, "How can they like me? They want to see Bette!" Barry's career has certainly grown since 1974 and that first public "appearance," but it has taken just about that long for him to believe deep down inside that people are really crazy about seeing him! A negative self- image that stemmed from a lonely, awkward childhood mushroomed into a huge cloud of insecurity and made him distrust the glaring signs of his success. And even after having sold millions of records, he still resists seeing himself as a superstar. But he has come a long way. A Loner To his own mind, Barry Manilow is a guy who goes home at the end of the day to whatever unfinished songs are strewn around the top of his piano and a yelp or two from his faithful beagle pup "Bagel." His on - again, off - again, "companion" type relationship with a lady named Linda Allen for the past ten years is one of the few personal interludes he has allowed himself since he was divorced after one year of marriage at the age of 22. He surrounds himself with a staff of people that insulates him from the public, and admits to having less than a handful of close friends in or out of show business. He prefers to keep himself to himself - he says he's a private person who doesn't like to share his life with anyone. Ruffled critics have latched onto that attitude as a sign that the world's most popular romantic is a snob at heart. They say he's aloof when he's really just alone - at last in his own mind! .
Once A Nothing, Always... A friend of Barry's was once quoted as saying, "People who start as nothing often stay nothing to themselves. They feel they have nothing to offer anyone else." The man was trying to explain why Barry seems to be so alienated from people - that Barry's desire to be alone as an adult is a reaction to feeling unworthy as a child. It's always hard to say how one part of a person's life will affect another part - but in Barry's case, roots of strong insecurity do seem to lie firmly in his childhood. Barry's truck driver father abandoned Barry's mother when her only child was just two years old - which left them not only alone, but very poor. Barry's mother re-married later (Barry was introuced to the music on Broadway and in New York City's jazz clubs by his stepfather), but Barry never saw his real father again until a few years ago when Mr. Manilow made a split second appearance in Barry's dressing room after a show. And though Barry insists he never missed or thought his father, he must have wondered why his dad didn't like him well enough to stay. To make matters worse, as Barry neared his teens, he entered a stage of very painful awkwardness and "ugliness." He remembers being "a wreck" and constantly asking himself, "How come everyone looks great and I look awful?" For years - and well into adulthood - he was haunted for being too thin, and even being rejected by the U.S. Army for weighing too little! His shame was so great and lasted so long that he would later release only two childhood pictures to the press - and in one of those, as you can see, his trusty accordian all but covers his face. Looking back on the strain of Barry's childhood, it seems he had plenty of reasons to say, "no one could possibly love me"! The First Small Step It took a long time for Barry to start to overcome his negative feelings - and that was only after he realized that he could do something to help himself out of his insecurity. "I was never really aware of it," he says now, "but I always chose the wrong things for my looks." He jokingly dates his liberation from the "uglies" (and his short, slicked - down hairstyle) to the era he discovered the blow dryer. Learning to style the loose, wavy look he's become famous for was his breakthrough toward a more positive self-image. But ever present were his long, awkward limbs he seems to be six feet of all arms and legs) - and the prominent nose and Adam's apple that the critics love to point out in every concert review that sees print. Consequently, when Barry broke into the music field, he conveniently conceived of himself as an arranger - someone working feverishly behind the scenes - to avoid the formenting prospect of going before the lights to entertain an audience all by himself. But there came a time when he was fed up with hammering out keyboard accompaniment for others - his talents were aching to take him further. The End Of The Tunnel What put Barry over the hurdle of inferiority is having what he calls "the duality of the Gemini." Barry was born under the astrological sign of the twins - which he says accounts for his "natural Gemini energy to do, to feel, more than one thing at a time." So it seems that Barry was able to maintain a strong sense of ambition even while he was struggling with shyness and insecurity - and in the end his ambition won out over everything else. But that's not to say that he achieved this victory of his positive feelings over the negative all by himself. For a while Barry may have been short on personal friends, he was never lacking in fans. From almost the instant he released "Mandy" to the world - his first of many songs that would make the young girls cry - he became the object of near hero worship for millions of girls and women of all ages. They accepted his awkward stage presence as a sign of the vulnerability he shared with them and that he sang about in his songs - and they loved him for it. It didn't matter that he wasn't a perfectly handsome male "specimen" - he was something real that they could understand and feel close to. Barry's often sung about this great dawning of acceptance for him in the world. Even his recent hit "I Made It Through The Rain" seems a tribute to the wonder of coming out of his lonely, self-inflicted night mares to find himself "respected." The "rain" is symbolic of the private tears he shed for himself for so long. And the whole song is just another realization of the theme Barry set down in his own words some years ago when he wrote "All The Time" - he always had what it took to be successful deep inside him right from the beginning. He just needed someone to tell him it was really there. And that's just what his fans did. But "even now," they love him for still harboring that small seed of self doubt that keeps him from embracing his superstardom in his own heart. His humility has won him a following - and being less in his own mind in a funny way has made him more. .
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The Lifestyle Magazine of Caesars World - October 1985
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Platter Chatter With Barry Manilow Barry Manilow loves to talk music, no question about it. Sit him down with his favorite records and he really opens up. His opinions on the subject are informed and firm. To welcome Mr. Manilow to Caesars - he begins an exclusive arrangement with us on October 18 when he opens in Atlantic City - SEVEN asked Barry to name his ten favorite LPs and explain why they rate. His taste, as you can see, is all over the map - from moody jazz and new wave pop to gloomy Sinatra, sweet Laura Nyro, and the electrifying Judy Garland. Two factors obviously influence his choices - he loves good melody and arrangements and he also enjoys albums with the songs interwoven together, concept albums. Not every concept album, however. When asked his impression of the new Prince concept LP, "Around the World in a Day," Manilow's reaction is fast and furious: "I listened to it once and threw it away. Too self-indulgent." On the other hand, here are ten records he can't live without. The order is strictly alphabetical. Abbey Road, The Beatles, Capitol/Apple This is my favorite Beatles album. Some people like "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" better. I know that record is a milestone but I only admired it from afar. "Abbey Road," though, really got me in the gut. "Sgt. Pepper" was more of a conversation piece, "Abby Road" hit me. I can still hear the second side, all of it, in my head. This was a concept album, not with a specific story line, but musically everything fit together. I really admired The Beatles' producer, Georg Martin. Sometimes I think I even admired him more than The Beatles themselves. But they were such great songwriters. This album is a real winner. Crosby Stills and Nash, Atlantic I was knocked out by these guys mucically, The harmonies were so sophisticated and yet the music was deliberately country and western. The opening song on side one, "Suite Judy Blue Eyes," was so daring. The rest of the world was doing three-minute songs and this one was much longer and very complex. I also think "Wooden Ships" is great. The second album, when Neil Young joined the group, was not as strong but that's understandable. When you come out of the box this strong and have so much impact, there is bound to be a letdown. Nothing that comes later can really compete. Early Morning Wake Up Call, Flash and the Pan, Epic I listen to KROQ - FM in Los Angeles (a new-wave station). It's all the music from England - like Thomas Dolby. That's where I first heard Flash and the Pan. I hear that the group has already broken up but this entire album is brilliant. The writing is good, the lyrics are pretty decent and there are wonderful chord changes all through it. They're from Australia and they put out an earlier LP but it wasn't as good as this. .
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Eli and the thirteenth Confession, Laura Nyro, Columbia  This album, when it came out, completely turned my head around musically, I liked "Sgt. Pepper," of course, but because I wasn't a guitarist, it didn't do as much for me as this album. Laura was a pianist and her LP paralyzed me for a whole year. I couldn't listen to anything else. After a year, I can honestly say I emerged a changed man. I even grew my hair long. The whole album's great. "Stoned Soul Picnic" is probably the most famous song on it but it's also my least favorite. "Luckie," "Timer," "Emmie," I can hear all of these songs in my head right now. Laura Nyro influenced everybody. When I first started working as Bette Midler's accompanist, she'd always say, "Come on Barry, give me some Laura chords." Laura never could compete with the strength of that first album. I like the other things she's done since but she's never come close to that "Eli" album. She was really smart, the way she handled her career. At CBS, everybody wanted her to go the singles route and she was constantly berated by the higher-ups to get more commercial. She refused. She never fell for the glamour and the gliz. She's still my hero. Original Music From I Want to Live, Gerry Mulligan, United Artists There are probably only ten people in the world who have this record. My stepfather introduced me to it when I was about 12. I went nuts. I'd sit around with my two favorite friends and we'd listen to this album and to Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. There was a jazz show called "Symphony Sid Radio Show" from midnight to 4 a.m. I used that show's introduction when I arranged Bette's version of "In the Mood"; I stole "Jumping With My Boy Sid" for the intro. This album was so sophisticated when it came out. Moody, reflective, velvety. Very emotional stuff. They always say about Gerry Mulligan that he doesn't play the sax, he sings. Judy at Carnegie Hall, Judy Garland, Capitol This is the ultimate live performance on record. She was in the best shape of her life, the atmosphere was electric. When I got turned on to this album, I was fascinated - especially with the arrangements. Mort Lindsey was the conductor but I wonder if he also did those terrific arrangements. I've stolen so much from them, especially the idea of key changes. I know I must have gotten that idea from this album. I was really young when I first heard this and hadn't gotten into her as a person yet. This is a wonderful legacy to have, a great album to remember her by. Mighty Love, The Spinners, Atlantic The R & B of today was influenced a great deal by this album. Thom Bell was the producer, out of Philadelphia and he produced all of these licks that I'm so crazy for. The lead singer of the Spinners was Philoppe Wynn who died a few years ago of a heart attack, I think. He was my favorite singer; I can't even imitate his voice, I wish I could. He was the musical R & B singer. This LP turned out a lot hits. The songs were great. They'd get a hooky melody, some decent lyrics and then let Philippe go, letting him sing over this pumping rhythm. I loved the Spinners so much that when they asked me to open for them at Annapolis, I said yes right away. I just wanted to see them. As soon as I was through, I went straight to my seat in the audience. Only the Lonely, Frank Sinatra, Capitol This was the best makeout album. Next to Johnny Mathis 'Open Fire Two Guitars,' this LP represented where I wanted to be at that time. A Manhattan penthouse with a fireplace, beautiful women, looking out the window at the park. I'd put this album on and I'd leave Brooklyn and real life far behind. A lot of people compare me to Sinatra today. I'm flattered but it's a wrong comparison. Bruce Springsteen is really the Frank Sinatra of today. Sinatra was a tough punk, not fot the fancy supper clubs. Paradise Cafe, Barry Manilow and Guests, Arista This is the first of my albums that I'd ever put on a list like this. Usually when I get done with a record, I never want to hear it again. This one's a keeper, however. Of course, a lot of its appeal to me is that I'm not the only performer on it. There's Gerry Mulligan, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme, other great people. This record still surprises me. Sometimes Late at Night, Carole Bayer Sager, Boardwalk This is one of the moodiest, most intelligent albums I've ever heard. The music is by Burt Bacharach who is one of America's finest composers. He still has such a great gift for melody. Carole Bayer Sager writes nice lyrics. They're emotional, ladylike, soft, sad. Lush. She's not a singer in the commercial sense; it can be a hard voice to get past for some people because it's so emotional. But she overwhelmed me with this album. I also love how Bacharach interwove all of the songs together. .
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