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Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, musician and producer with a career that has spanned more than 50 years.
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Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus on June 17, 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Edna Manilow and Harold Pincus. Manilow grew up in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and graduated in 1961 from Eastern District High School.
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He enrolled in the City College of New York where he briefly studied before entering the New York College of Music.[13] He also worked at CBS while he was a student in order to pay his expenses. He later studied Musical Theater at the Julliard performing arts school.
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As well as producing and arranging albums for other artists, including Bette Midler and Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow has written and performed songs for musicals, films, and commercials for corporations such as McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola, and Band-Aid, from the 1960s.
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He was approached by Bro Herrod, the director of CBS, who asked him to organize songs for a musical adaptation of a CBS original drama, for which, he wrote an entire score. It became an instant hit overnight. In 1967, he became the musical director of the CBS network television show and thereafter, began writing a number of well-known jingles for commercials for ‘Band-Aid’ and ‘Dr. Pepper.
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In the early 70s, Manilow worked with Bette Midler as he helped her with her sophomore releases ‘The Divine Miss M’ and ‘Bette Midler’. During this time, in 1973, he released his debut album, ‘Barry Manilow’, which was then remixed and re-released two years later. Meanwhile, he also released his second album, ‘Barry Manilow II’. In the late 70s, he starred in and produced four television specials for the ABC Network, one of which was known as ‘The Barry Manilow Special’, which had over millions of viewers.
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Barry Manilow recorded and released 47 Top 40 singles, including 12 that hit number one and 27 of which appeared within the top ten, and has released many multi-platinum albums. To date, twenty-nine albums by Manilow have been certified platinum, while Barry Manilow/Live (1977), Even Now (1978), and Greatest Hits (1978) are each certified triple platinum.
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Manilow and John Denver on the set of "The Barry Manilow Special"
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Having fans is a big deal to a musician. Fans are the ones that pay for the concert tickets, the music, the posters, the t-shirts and all the other items that provide musicians with a paycheck.
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We’ve learned about how the Beatles had so many crazy fans that John Lennon actually said they were bigger than Jesus. Elvis fans would rush the stage and throw their clothing on the stage for him to touch because they loved him so much.
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Once, Barry Manilow was involved in a four-vehicle accident in 1996, where no one was injured. Right after the accident, he stood on the highway and posed for photographs for his fans before he was escorted away by an aide.
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The young Manilow honed his skills on Madison Avenue, penning brilliant jingles that continue to be used today. You undoubtedly know his "Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there." But did you know there were originally poetic verses, too? “We all hope the good times never leave us behind / We face our tomorrow with some peace of mind / No man has a promise of a life without care,” the tune mused.
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Another (literal) commercial hit was his infectious refrain, "I am stuck on Band-Aid brand, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me." In a 2011 interview with Vanity Fair, Manilow recalled, "Writing jingles was a very competitive field. You had to write the catchiest melody in 30 seconds or less and make it better than the other guy’s. I learned a lot about orchestration, about song structure and arrangement."
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In 1985, Manilow brought the musical back to television with his Copacabana film. Even the critics applauded him, at last. The New York Times wrote at the time, "Mr. Manilow is to be congratulated for reminding us that, given imagination and talent, the form can still work on television." Promoting the movie on The Tonight Show, Manilow noted that the movie was shot in a mere three weeks, as opposed to the months afforded to big screen productions. The teleplay adaptation was written by James Lipton, of Inside the Actors Studio fame.
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