Journale 37

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Los Angeles Times, Sunday, March 5, 1978

Records - Barry Manilow: He Just Sings the Songs "Even Now." Barry Manilow. Arista Barry Manilow's latest album will extend his tenure as one of America's big-best-selling pop figures, even though he continues to violate more time honored notions of hitmaking than he observes. According to industry guidelines, a hit record should have immediate impact. It may shout, scold or whisper, but it must be instantly compelling. Manilow doesn't seem to reach for those emotional outer limits that imply truth and conviction. He just sings the songs. And there you have it; just singing the songs is Manilow's way of being honest. He has successfully staked out the middle of the road, a misnomer for what is now the extreme conservative end of the fragmented pop music spectrum. His simplicity and boy-next-door ingenuousness apparently stand out among the host of singers vying for airplay with increasing degrees of stylistic complexity and colloquialism. Still, this LP isn't - understandably - going to convert Manilow's detractors. It consists almost entirely of traditional love songs that could have been written at any time during the past three decades - songs that, although well-crafted, are not of solid consequence. They don't give the listener special insights into or offer new approaches to a much - dealt-with subject. Nor, with the exception of the airy "Copacabana," do they really tell a story. Manilow's production team seems to eschew contemporary flavors. With the exception of the virile beat of "Leavin' in the Morning" and the in-vogue walking - octave bass in "Copacabana," the tracks are rhythmically inconsequential by mid-'70's standards. Nevertheless, there's precedent for the Manilow phenomenon. His antecedents, none of whom could be accused of stylistic excess, would include Jack Jones, Andy Williams and Pat Boone (back further, even Tony Martin and Dick Haymes). So there's plenty of room for a singer who pursues few artistic challenges. He simply sells records by the millions. Although limited by the nature of his genre, he upholds its tradition well. DAVE BLUME

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06-1978

Barry Manilow: Enthusiasm and Professionalism for "Urban C-&-W" EVER have the feeling that some people are getting more fun out of life than you are? No, this isn't an advertisement for dance lessons. It's just that the thought occurs to me every time I hear Barry Manilow's work - and what with his swarm of TV commercials and his frequent hits dominating the airwaves, that is starting to seem like about every ten minutes or so. Take, for instance, his newest Arista album, "Even Now." It is one of those productions in which the entertainer is so attuned to his audience that he seems almost to be apart to be a part of it - and to be enjoying himself more than anybody else as well. And you just have to be impressed when the enthusiasm persists through such soap-opera stuff as Copacabana (At the Copa), a turgid tale of two lovers in the Good Old Days at that always rather seedy pleasure dome. Tony the bartender is killed in a brawl over Lola, the flashy showgirl, and thirty years later she's still hanging around, "Faded feathers in her hair," mournfully sloshed "At the Copa/Copacabana/Music and passion were always the fashion .... " Wouldja believe? I mean, wouldja believe that Manilow or anybody else could get you to sit still, much less enjoy such trashy, tabloid carryings-on? Well, he can, and in my case he certainly did, primarily because he treats the song as the urban c-&-w it actually is. Rhythm-and-blues has for so long been the voice of city life in pop music that we forget the non-r-&-b gaspers that used to steam them up in the old days, such views of life's seamier side as Ten Cents a Dance, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, or Love for Sale. Complete entertainer that he is, Manilow dips into the genre with verve and assurance, and he comes up not with stale dreariness but a tasty, exciting piece of melodrama. There are several other very nice things here, for which he's written the music with a variety of lyricists, including the bitter-sweet Starting Again, the softly dappled reverie Sunrise, and the remorseful, angry I Was a Fool (To Let You Go). But in everything that Manilow performs he has a tough, city grace about him - like Cagney hoofing it in the old flicks, or George Burns doing a monologue about yesterdays on the Lower East Side. Like them, he's also very proud of his profession and how well he's done in it. He has every reason to be. - Peter Reilly BARRY MANILOW: Even Now. Barry Manilow (vocals, piano); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Even Now; I Was a Fool (To Let You Go); Losing Touch; I Just Want to Be the One in Your Life; Starting Again; Sunrise; Copacabana; Somewhere in the Night; A Linda Song; Can't Smile Without You; Leavin' in the Morning: Where Do I Go from Here.

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Houston Chronicle - Feb. 22, 1978

Multitalented Barry Manilow provides the miracle of music for eager ears of all ages on "The Second Barry Manilow Special" Friday night on ABC. Barry Manilow: singer (hyphen) writer (hyphen) arranger (hyphen) etc.   BY BILL KAUFMANN 1978, Newsday BARRY MANILOW is one of those talents whom the trade publications love to call a hyphenate. It's not every 30-year-old who can accurately be described as a highly successful pianist-arranger-writer-conductor-singer-producer. The only drawback about being a hyphenate is that it's difficult to get all your accomplishments to fit on business cards - although Manilow, rest assured, doesn't need cards. As one of the brightest young artists to traverse the equally hyphenated recording-television-advertising-concert business in recent years, Manilow is the king of romantic pop. On Friday night Manilow re-emerges on television "The Second Barry Manilow Special" (ABC), a show that contains a good-natured touch of nepotism. In addition to Ray Charles, Manilow's guests are his own mother, Mrs. Edna Murphy, and his pet beagle, Bagel. The special is essentially a blend of Manilow's music and a substantial amount of production spectacle, including a segment that looks back at the lavish nightclub revues of the 1940s, complete with glittering staircase. In a departure for Manilow, the special also has a vignette in which he gets an opportunity to do four minutes of straight dramatic acting, in a tender and poignant setting. For contrast, the show also features Manilow in concert at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. This second Manilow TV special is a logical progression in a career that, according to many show-business standards, is almost pro forma. Manilow is yet another poor Jewish boy from Brooklyn who made it. As a child, he was instructed not to fight, because he had to save his hands for better things - things like the accordion, which Manilow started playing when he was 7. "It was tough in my old Brooklyn neighborhood, but it was fun, a place where there was all kinds of music," Manilow recalled recently. "You know what you play on accordion? 'Tico Tico,' 'Carnival in Venice' and that type of stuff." During his early years Manilow was raised by his mother and grandparents, his natural father having abandoned the family when Manilow was 2. When he was 13, his mother married Willie Murphy, who was to have a profound effect on his stepson's career. "He tipped me off to serious music, taking me to my first jazz concert - Gerry Mulligan at Town Hall," Manilow said. "Willie Murphy and my mom eventually turned me on to Count Basie, Chris Connor, Broadway musicals like "The King and I,' 'Most Happy Fella,' 'Carousel' - and they threw out the accordion and got me a piano." While studying at the New York College of Music, Manilow worked in the CBS mail room to make ends meet. At CBS he met a director who was planning a musical adaptation of a Victorian temperanee melodrama, "The Drunkard," and was asked to arrange some public-domain songs for the show. Instead, Manilow wrote an entire musical score "Would you believe," Manilow said, "that the thing still is playing around the country? It's done at dinner-theaters - places like that. Sometimes the things you create early in your career are among the better, more creative efforts." Manilow then spent several years "as a musical handyman, paying my dues and putting in time with radio and TV commercials - anything to earn a fair and square living. Sounds tedious, doesn't it?" Actually, though he prefers these days not to dwell on the advertising phase of his career. Manilow wrote and or performed on ads for such products as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Band-Aids. Dr. Pepper and McDonald's hamburgers. After appearing for two seasons at Manhattan's Upstairs at the Downstairs as part of the opening act for Joan Rivers, Manilow was asked one evening to pinch-hit as the house pianist at a steamy uptown gathering place, the Continental Baths. Two weeks later Bette Midler walked in. "It was hate at first sight," the singer jokingly remembered. Manilow become Midler's musical director, arranger and pianist, and both their careers eventually blossomed. When Manilow went on his initial tour as a solo performer a few years ago, he didn't have a chart-busting record to backstop the trip. "I decided to include the only material I was associated with that the audience knew," he said. "I called it my V.S.M. 'Very Strange Medley.' It was made up of jingles which I wrote or performed." Manilow added, "And to settle the matter once and for all, no, I did not write the McDonald's jingles. On several of them, I was one of a group of singers: on one, I did a solo." From that road tour onward, Manilow's gold and platinum hit singles began to pile up. They include: "Mandy," "It's A Miracle," "Could It Be Magic," (influenced by Chopin) "I Write The Songs," and "Looks Like We Made It." Manilow was asked which of the hits under his belt was his favorite. "I guess it's 'Could It Be Magic,'" Manilow replied. "I seem to enjoy that every time I hear it."