Journale 34

Vielen Dank für Ihr Interesse!

Thanks for your interest!

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Times and values may change, but nothing can eclipse the strength of love as a human force. That, in essence, is the clarion call of Barry Manilow and his music, and as we enter a decade beset by world problems, his massage and his songs should act as a beacon of light in a world with plenty of grey. Since the optimism of the Sixties gave way to the toughness of the Sixties and the bleakness of the Eighties, it has been hard for incurable romantics to feel even vaguely fashionable. Understandably, the revages of wars and hard times have fuelled people's general attitude of cynicism towards intangibles like romance. In popular music, trends have arrived and vanished with bewildering speed. But through all the frenzy of quicksilver changes in rock 'n' roll fashion and related arts, the anchor that has brough us here tonight to see Barry Manilow has remained a powerful truism: love will never go out of style. Artists like Barry Manilow, at the core of the world of music and song, have made the task of reflecting people's emotional responses an applied science. The songs that sound the simplest are often the hardest to compose. Now, one of the oldest traditions in show business - constructing songs with messages and individuality that relate to a mass audience by touching a common nerve - has found a stylish young custodian in this 35-year-old New Yorker. Articulating thoughts of human emotions he is in a direct line of descent from the giants of yesterday. But while such stars as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby captured the hearts of millions a few decades ago as pop's first heroes, Manilow can claim to have gone beyond their undoubted appeal. He also writes his own material prolifically, plays piano with considerable panache, controls his own destiny - and that of other artists - in the recording studios, which is an art in itself, and than communicates mesmerising warmth to an audience with a powerful stage show. He should therefore be judged on rather a different level from his contemporaries of yesteryear. Manilow presents us with an irresistible package of music and song, love and hope, sentimental melodies and pure, escapist entertainment for the Eighties. Here is the complete performer for the millions who might have felt left out in the cold by the forceful battalions of rock 'n' roll which have steamrollered pop music for 25 years.
For a while back there, it seemed that popular music could never again make itself heard with much significance unless it embraced either preening or posing, lifestyle or the clenched-fist sound of youth in revolt. But if we thought the grand traditions of popular music, ignited many more years ago than the infant rock 'n' roll by such songwriting giants as Gershwin and Cole Porter, had been abandoned, we reckoned without the might of Manilow. "Maybe the old songs will bring back the old times," he sings... and that yearning sentiment encapsulates much of what Manilow is about. He's certainly not living in the past, as thousands of teenagers in his audiences will testify. But he does draw extensively on the strengths and craftmanship of professional songsmiths through the years. To the traditional, classic combination of a haunting melody and richly evocative lyrics praising the value of loving relationships, Manilow has added a winning, indefinably contemporary touch plus imaginative arrangements and fine musicanship which lifts so much of his work into the million-selling class. In a meteoric career that began as a solo singer only seven years ago, Manilow has notched up statistical successes that are really mind-boggling. His ten albums have sold well over a million copies each. Ticket demand for his concerts in America and Europa has thrilled promoters and caused box-office riots among eager fans. In Britain for the current tour, an estimated half a million people have been clamouring for tickets, and a clever analyst has worked out that in the United Kingdom, where Barry sold two million albums last year to top any other recording artist's sales figures, "somebody buys a Manilow album every 15 seconds." Think of a figure, quadruple it, add a few noughts and you may have some conception of the immense popularity of Barry Manilow. It's the same story throughout the world. And though the show he brings to Britain will have been specially designed, his concert in America a few weeks ago, for which I was among the audience of 19,000, was remarkable from musical, theatrical and emotional standpoints. Because it took place in Barry's home city of New York, and from the opening moments when the star ran the catwalk to thunderous waves of applause and adults as well teenagers threw bouquets in the air for joy, it was clear this was to be no ordinary concert. They ran up to the stage with roses from the first note. Because of the enormity of the stadium, the best way to devise this stage was to make it circular and revolving so that everyone in the auditorium got an equal view of the star. He looked sharp and immaculate in his peach-coloured suit, and his empathy with an audience he was clearly going to enjoy was clear from the start.
Manilow's stage show is simply exhausting to watch. The man's love of his role is so infectious, the music so communicative, that the audience leaves breathlessly elated. The well-drilled musicans and vocal accompanists who play such an integral part are scarely noticed but always provide Barry with a great foil... and just as you think he has run through the complete repertoire of all the recognisable hits, out comes another which the faithful can identify after one or two opening notes. "Copacabana" drives along crazily and "Mandy" rams home Manilow's ability to write a simple musical phrase which lingers in the mind long after you've switched off the radio or record player. "Can't Smile Without You" is a singalong ballad in the grand style, with Barry sitting atop the huge white piano which is such a powerful visual aspect of the New York Stage. And the audience claps along to the song's sledgehammer beat. Next, a single spotlight picks out Manilow at the piano and he launches into the piece of work that perhaps best sums up his whole musical stance and conviction, "The Old Songs." In a few minutes, the hall's vast, cavernous atmosphere is switched by this moment into the intimacy of a small club, and the young woman in the audience really do believe he's singing individually to them. Two girls aged about 20 sitting next to me were in tears by now, weeping for joy as Barry Manilow articulated for them their yearning for the sancity of romance. Demonstrating that he can handle a straight rock song, Manilow changes gear into "Let's Hang On" before moving into one of the tenderest parts of his programme:"Trying To get The Feeling" which glides into the majestic showstopper, "Even Now." What's shining through by this time, it struck me forcefully, is the man's total commitment and honesty. There's no posturing, no quickly constructed hit song being dispensed for a quick gain, and no messing around with an audience's undoubted identification with him. Manilow means what he's doing, cares about what he's singing and playing, and wears his heart as well as his art on his sleeve. He remains a true, thoroughbred, consummate professional selling that most treacherous of wares: human contact. Even for a superstar, he weaves a magnetic hold over his audience, and after 15 minutes holds us all spellbound. Sincerity is what clinched it. The two songs that follow were written by a fellow New Yorker now living in London, the talented Gerard Kenny. "Nickels and Dimes" is a partly biographical song for struggling singer-songwriters, harking back to the difficult days in the piano bars which Manilow and Kenny remember well. And "I Made It Through the Rain" is an obvious statement of triumph perfectly suited to the dramatic delivery which Barry can turn on so well. The words hang perfectly around the story of his rise to stardom.
Rather than report song by song: lets just say it was some show. New York was conquered by Manilow, and next night he was doing a repeat performance in the same city. It's always a special occasion when an artist returns to his home town in triumph, but even allowing for that, this was unique. Where has he come from, this remarkable talent who is causing scenes of fan fever unparalleled since the heyday of the Sixties? Manilow's musical strengths were obvious even during his youth in his native Brooklyn, a New York suburb where he was born on June 17, 1946 (1943). Music was in his home and at aged seven, Barry started taking accordion lessons. Later, he went to the New York College of Music and Julliard but his main job was a menial one in the mailroom at CBS. There, at 18, he met a director who was doing a musical adaptation of "The Drunkard." He asked Barry to find some songs for this melodrama. Barry wrote him an entire original score and the man ran, off-Broadway, for eight years. In 1967 he became musical director for a TV series followed by a stint arranging and conducing for Ed Sullivan Productions, as well as writing, producing and singing radio and TV commercials and learning his craft in the city's piano bars. A long run at New York's Upstairs At The Downstairs followed, with Barry as one half of a musical duo. In 1972, he met singer Bette Midler. The meeting changed both their careers, for Manilow became Bette's musical director, arranger and pianist and coproduced and created arrangements for her debut LP, "The Divine Miss M," which won her a Grammy award. He produced and arranged her second best-selling album before going on tour with Bette - and opening the show. Manilow got a tremendous response, and he was away. From then on, through his first solo tour in 1974, there has been a non-stop parade of hits that have become established as modern standards of popular music. He has broken television audience rating records, received many prestigious awards - and his career is still in it's infancy. Of course, he's a sitting target for the cynics. They say he's unctuous or wet, lacks beefy masculinity, or does not have enough grit. Nobody can force Manilow's critics to like him, but they should at least try to recognise what he is all about. It's easy to miss the point: Barry is not part of the passing show but a lasting force that spreads melody and sunshine, lyrical thoughtfulness and mature tenderness, reaching out successfully to millions of open, unpretentious ears. He's part of a proud tradition that owes nothing to modern art or fashions but everything to that most worthwhile currency of love songs. For those of us who cherish the valuable traditions of popular music, it's enriching to see them alive in such young and caring hands.
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