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MUSIC - Rimsky-Korsakov

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Barry Manilow is a star whose life and career began in New York City. Before all the Tonys, Grammys, and Emmys Manilow was a Brooklyn-born kid educated at City College and Juilliard. This past spring, Barry Manilow was honored at Carnegie Hall for a double celebration. The night was a career retrospective and also the 40th anniversary of the New York Pops, who Manelow has performed with many times in the past. Guest performers included Dionne Warwick, Norm Lewis, Jim Caruso, and more stars of stage and screen.

In the lead-up to the concert, Manilow hopped on the phone to speak to us about his connection to New York and performing with the New York Pops. Of course, we listened to some music, too. Here are just a few comments that you sent us when we announced Barry Manilow was joining us. Lynn said, "I've been a fan for over 40 years. One of my most memorable moments was Midnight with Manilow in Vegas when he brought all of his collaborators' friends together in one room and shared so many great stories with the fans."

Dory Burke wrote, Way back to Barry at the Wang for four nights in Boston. Not only did I see all four shows, but as a local fan club member, we decorated his dressing room, left goodies, et cetera. Ah, youth. Those were the days. Still a fanilow almost 40-plus years later." I began by asking Barry Manilow how it felt to be honored by the New York Pops as opposed to simply collaborating with them.

Barry Manilow: I've never been honored. I've never had anything like that happen. I mean, I've gotten awards periodically, but I've never had a whole evening of people singing songs that have meant so much to me. This is the first time anyone has ever done that for me. I'm thrilled. I can't wait.

Alison Stewart: When you perform with an organization like the New York Pops, what's unique about that experience?

Barry Manilow: Well, I've got some spectacular orchestrations that I've used for albums, but 78 musicians playing this music that has meant so much to me. I just don't know whether I'll make it through the night because this music has meant so much to me that hearing these wonderful singers backed by 78 great New York musicians, it's going to just be wild and just a great experience.

Alison Stewart: Are you someone-- Are you a crier when you get emotional?

Barry Manilow: Yes, maybe this might do it for me. I better bring the Kleenex.

Alison Stewart: Make sure you've got Kleenex on hand. When you see just a group of people come together like this, your duet partners, like Dionne Warwick and Melissa Manchester, love her, what do you hear in your music when you hear these people who have been longtime collaborators that maybe you don't think about on a normal day? When you hear someone with whom you've worked a long time singing your songs, what do you hear in your songs?

Barry Manilow: What I'm hoping, these are great singers, is that they find the truth in each song. Melissa is doing I Am Your Child, which I wrote for my very first album. It's a sweet little song and it means a lot. It means a lot to the audience and it means a lot to me and I can't think of a better person. Melissa called me and said, "I want to do this and I want to do I Am Your Child. That means she's going to kill.

Alison Stewart: You produced Dionne Warwick's 1979 album. Dionne co-wrote two of the songs on it, including All The Time. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

Dionne Warwick- All The Time

All the time I thought there's only me

Crazy in a way

That no one else could be

I would have given everything I own

If someone would have said

You're not alo-one

All the time I thought that I was wrong

Wanting to be me

But needing to belong

If I had just believed in all I-I had

If someone would have said

You're not so bad

All the time

All the wasted time

All the years

Waiting for a sign

To think I had it all...

All the time

Alison Stewart: I don't feel right interrupting Dionne Warwick and that interpretation, oh, my goodness. When you think about what makes someone a good interpreter of a Barry Manilow song, what does that singer need to have? What brings on a good interpretation of your music?

Barry Manilow: I've been lucky. I've worked with some of the finest lyricists over my career. For me, yes, I'm the melody guy but when somebody sings the songs that I've introduced, it really is about crawling into the lyric of the song that is the most important for me. What you just heard was Dionne crawling into this wonderful song called All The Time. She's going to do that at Carnegie Hall in a week.

Alison Stewart: That's spectacular. I think really big fans of yours, Barry, know, and maybe they can hear it in your accent still a little bit, that you are a New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, got your start in New York City. What is something that remains Brooklyn about you? We're WNYC, we're New Yorkers. We want to hear?

Barry Manilow: I talk fast. [laughs] New Yorkers we talk fast. Maybe it was because we had a struggle to get a seat on the subway. I always have to remind myself when I go out into the middle of the country in concerts, I got to slow down. People are not going to understand what I'm talking about. When I get to New York, please, I can do whatever I want.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] What was some of the music you were exposed to as a kid in Williamsburg that really shaped you as a musician?

Barry Manilow: Well, in the beginning, they knew I was musical, but they had no money and they didn't know what to do with me. When my mother remarried and she brought home Willie Murphy, who was a truck driver, he was the brightest guy I'd ever met and he loved music. He brought with him a little stereo system that I thought was, "Oh, my God, it was heaven."

He brought with him a stack of albums that may as well have been a stack of gold for me because I'd never heard stuff like this. It was classical music. It was jazz, it was Broadway. It was even pop stuff. I memorized everything on those albums. Then when they threw out my accordion, please, and got me a little piano. As soon as I hit the keys on the piano, I knew that music was going to be my life.

Alison Stewart: For folks who don't know this, you were a jingle writer for a while, correct?

Barry Manilow: I was, and it was great. I did go to college for music, but really, I learned more about pop music and studio work during those few years doing jingles than anything because those musicians, these wonderful musicians in New York really taught me how to orchestrate. Making commercials I learned how to be in the recording studio with the engineers.

I learned so much during those years writing jingles. Then jingles, you've got to write the most catchiest, the catchiest melody in 15 seconds. If you don't write the catchiest melodies, another guy is going to get that commercial. That was really important when I got to pop music because pop music is exactly the same. You've got to write a catchy melody for a pop song. That was a very important couple of years for me.

Alison Stewart: Well, the proof's in the pudding. For people who don't know, Barry Manilow wrote the State Farm Jingle, take a listen

Barry Manilow - State Farm Jingle

And like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Alison Stewart: Also BAND-AID.

Barry Manilow - BAND-AID Jingle

I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me. I am stuck on Band-Aid 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me.

‘Cause they hold on tight no matter--

Alison Stewart: To your point, in 10 seconds, you got us.

Barry Manilow: They've been playing that State Farm insurance commercial for over 40 years. It's my greatest hit.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Never thought about it that way. Is there a jingle that you've often heard that you didn't like that you think, "That's a good jingle. That person nailed it?"

Barry Manilow: Oh, yes, you deserve a break today, so get up and get away to McDonald's. That one started the whole thing off about big, catchy commercials. That McDonald's commercial started the whole thing off.

Alison Stewart: There you go. We've been talking about Copacabana a little bit earlier. I read somewhere that you and your partner, Bruce Sussman, you really thought it would just be a novelty cut.

Barry Manilow: Yes, we did. We had no idea that that song would turn out to be what it turned out to be. I produced the record with Ron Dante and we loved it. Just for fun, we took the record to a disco one night. They put it on, and everybody ran to the dance floor and pretended they were in the 1940s. They were dipping each other and swooping all over. I looked at Ron and I said, "Maybe we're onto something here." Who could have possibly predicted that?

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to Copacabana.

MUSIC - Barry Manilow: Copacabana

Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl

With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there

She would merengue and do the cha-cha

And while she tried to be a star

Tony always tended bar

Across the crowded floor, they worked from eight til four

They were young and they had each other

Who could ask for more?

At the copa (co) Copacabana (Copacabana)

The hottest spot north of Havana (here)

At the copa (co) Copacabana

Music and passion were always the fashion

At the copa they fell in love

Copa, Copacabana

Alison Stewart: That took me back to my teen years in New Jersey. It just takes you back to where you were the first time you heard that song.

Barry Manilow: Copa was really the novelty cut on that album because I used to do novelty cuts on all the albums. Either it was a fast jazz piece or a bandstand boogie, the Clark TV show. Every album had one of those, and Copa was going to be that spot in that album. We really never thought that it would be a hit song.

Alison Stewart: You're about to have a birthday, a pretty big birthday. It'll happen shortly after.

Barry Manilow: Oh, stop. Don't remind me of that. Really I'm terrified of this birthday.

Alison Stewart: Barry, 50 is not that bad. 50, it's not that bad.

Barry Manilow: I'm terrified of this. I am. I'm terrified of this birthday.

Alison Stewart: Oh, no reason to be. It's just another spin around the sun. You've become wiser.

Barry Manilow: Listen, I'm so healthy. I look pretty good. I don't have a big potbelly or a bald head. [laughs] I still run around like I did 30 years ago, so no, it doesn't seem like I'm actually getting to that age. When you say, don't say the number, please don't say the number. It just is terrifying to me because it's a blank slate. My whole family died in their 70s. Well, now what? What am I going to get when that happens?

Alison Stewart: Well, how do you take care of yourself and your voice?

Barry Manilow: Well, myself, I try to eat-- I'm not a food person. I just don't like to eat. I try to eat healthy and I work out every day. I do five days a week, so my body looks pretty good. We're doing shows every, in Vegas, and that keeps me running around the stage and up and down stairs on the stage. No, I'm in pretty good shape. I really am. I'm in pretty good shape. Somebody told me that that number that I won't say is today's 60 or 70. I like that.

Alison Stewart: That was Barry Manilow speaking to us about his career and his concert at Carnegie Hall that honored him and the 40th anniversary of The New York Pops. That's All Of It for this hour. After the news, we'll hear from more icons who've joined us recently, including Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Henry Threadgill and journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

 

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