267 Hello Barry Manilow - Mandy

Chart  entered : 22  February  1975

Chart  peak : 11

Number  of  hits : 18

So  we  enter  1975 , a   year  almost  universally  maligned  as  a  musical  wasteland  between  glam  and  punk , a  nadir  in  the  story  of  pop. Bob  Stanley : "1975  was  a  year  of  tame  pop -the  tamest  ever - and  myriad  novelties ".  There's  something  in  that  but  I  would  argue  that  in  chart  terms  1976  was  even  worse  - remember  that  single  didn't  chart  until  December - and  there  have  certainly  been  worse  years  in  the  ensuing  decades ; 1989 , the  year  of  Stock  Aitken  and  Waterman  and  Jive  Bunny,  immediately  comes  to  mind. And  as  we  shall  see   two  incalculably  influential  acts  made their  chart  debuts  in  this  year.

Barry  isn't  one  of  them. He  was  born  Barry  Pincus  in  1943  to  a  Jewish  couple  in  Brooklyn. Manilow  was  his  mother's  maiden  name. He  started  working  as  a  backroom  boy  at  CBS  which  helped  him  pay  for  studies  at  a  performing  arts  school.  He  first  made  an  impression  by  riting  the  musical  score  for  an  off  Broadway  musical  The  Drunkard  in  1964.  Work  started  flowing  fast; he  wrote  a  number  of  high  profile  advertising  jingles  and  worked as  a  musical  director  on  TV  notably  for  Ed  Sullivan. He  started  performing  as  part  of  a  duo  with  Jeanne  Lucas  in  a  New  York  club.

Barry  made  his  first  recordings  as  leader  of  a  session  collective  called  Featherbed  who  released  two  singles  produced  by  Dawn's  Tony  Orlando  in  1971. The  first  was  "Amy"  an  overproduced  but  still  listenable  pyschedelic-tinged  pop  song , the  second  was  an  early  version  of  his  signature  song  "Could  It  Be  Magic" given  a  cabaret  pop  arrangement  ( which  Barry  hated )  for  which  Orlando  gave  himself  a  co-composer  credit.  Neither  bothered  the  charts.

Later  that  year  Barry  was  taken  on  as  musical  director  and  producer  by  Bette  Midler . He  worked  on  her  first  two  albums  and  tours. He  released  his  eponymous  debut  album  in  July  1973  to  little  acclaim. The first  single  was  "Cloudburst" with  the  seven-minute  Chopin-cribbing  version  of  "Could  It  Be  Magic"  on  the  flip. "Cloudburst"  sets  my  teeth  on  edge, a  Broadway  jazz  tune  by  John  Hendricks  gabbled  ridiculously  fast. It  wasn't  a  hit.

Barry's  record  company  Bell  was  taken  over  by  Columbia  in  1974  and  the  new  label  Arista  was  launched. Its  head  Clive  Davis  favoured  Barry  and  took  a  personal  interest  in  his  development. When  Barry  was  recording  his  second  LP  "Barry  Manilow  II"  he   persuaded  him  to  include  a  version  of  the  Scott  English  hit  "Brandy" , re-titled  to  avoid  confusion  with  the  subsequent  hit  single  of  the  same  title  by  Looking  Glass. Released  as  a  single  in  October  1974  in  the  US  it  quickly  found  its  way  to  number  one.

The  song  is  a  regretful  lament  for  a  lost  girlfriend  that  wasn't  fully  appreciated  at  the  time.  Barry  and  arranger  Joe  Renzetti  stripped  out  the  ornate  Bee  Gees-inspired  instrumentation   and  smoothed  out  the  lumpy  rhythm  in  the  chorus  for  a  sweeping  piano  and  strings  extravaganza  more  akin  to  Neil  Sedaka. Barry's  rather  ordinary  voice  somehow  makes  it  less  self-pitying  and  more  romantic; like  Arnold  Schwarzenegger  in  movies  he  was  able  to turn  ineptitude  to  his  own  advantage.

Barry  went  on  to  make  some  pretty  awful  records  but  this  is  something  of  a  guilty  pleasure  unlike  its  execrable  resurrection  by  the  stools  on  stools a  few  decades  later. This  might  in  part  be  due  to  being  the  first  rude  mishearing  of  a  lyric  I  can  recall. Playground  wisdom  held  that  he  was  singing  "Well  you  kissed  me  and  stopped me  from  shagging". Not  being  familiar  with  the  last  word  I  was  not  quite  accurately  informed  that  it  was  another  word  for  stripping. Accordingly  when  it  was  played  on  the  coach  radio  on  a  boys  only  school trip  to  Old  Trafford   everyone  sang  lustily  along . And  so  Barry  is  associated  with  my  first  steps  inside  a  football  ground, then  unbelievably a  Second  Division  one, Manchester United  having  swapped  places  with  Carlisle  United   the  previous  May. I  don't  recall  much  other  than  standing  around  bemused  while  others  slavered  at  the  sight  of  Stuart  Pearson's  muddy  boots  in  the  dressing  room.