Manilow says that he continued to decline while Davis continued to press until Barry finally weakened and, reluctantly, agreed. Tryin’ To Get The Feeling8 went gold two weeks after its release. Of course Clive’s instincts were proven once again dead on: ‘I Write The Songs’, the first single released from the album in October 1975, shot up the charts. Just as 1975 had started with ‘Mandy’ in the number one position, January 1976 saw ‘I Write The Songs’ in the top spot.
“I think he was awestruck by the incredible power of a few hit records,” Ron Dante speculates. “And the incredible power of a good performance to thrust him into the public limelight and make him the number one artist for the next two or three years, he was the number one recording artist in America. When Cashbox and Billboard would come out with their year-end list, there would be the top male solo singers, the top guy – Barry Manilow.”
It was true. When lists were released in early 1976 for the year just ended, Barry’s numbers were staggering: he’d sold over four million singles in 1975, and over 1.6 million albums. Both Record World and Cashbox had voted him the Top New Male Vocalist in both the “Singles” and “Albums” categories. Music Retailer named him the Top New Male Artist for the year, and Radio & Records proclaimed him the Pop Artist of the Year. And, when it seemed nothing more could be added to the pile of accolades, the nominations for Grammy Awards were announced. Not surprisingly, ‘Mandy’ was among the nominees for Record of the Year.9
“I think he was not prepared for the enormous success that came,” says Dante, “and the adulation and the people and the money, and the TV shows – I don’t think he was prepared for the onslaught of people wanting a piece of him, and wanting to just talk to him. He was like the background guy; he was the piano player, he was the arranger. And all of a sudden he was the focal point of every place he walked in. People would point and say [whispering] Look, there’s Barry Manilow! The type of records we started to make, other producers would say, ‘let’s Manilow-ise this record.’ His kind of record became a thing that people copied. Personally I think he was not prepared for the success.”
It would seem not. “Am I going crazy?” Barry scribbled in his journal in November, 1975. He had surpassed his hopes, surpassed those under whom he used to subordinate himself. After years of hustling, years of juggling the different pieces of his life in order to accommodate his musical dreams, suddenly it was all coming true – not gradually, but all at once. And, as was true with Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, “what he strove for with the deepest and most stubborn instinct of his being fell to his lot, but more than is good for men. In the beginning his dream and his happiness, in the end it was his bitter fate.”
8 Tryin’ To Get The Feeling would mark a subtle shift in the production credits on Barry’s album. For Barry Manilow/Barry Manilow I and Barry Manilow II, the production credit read “Produced by Barry Manilow and Ron Dante”. Starting with Tryin’ To Get The Feeling, the production credit, at Barry’s suggestion, read “Produced by Ron Dante and Barry Manilow”, an order that continued until their collaboration ended.
9 Other nominees in the category were Janis Ian’s ‘At Seventeen’, The Eagles’ ‘Lyin’ Eyes’, Glen Campbell’s ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and, the Grammy winner, ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ by The Captain & Tennille.
Chapter Twenty-two
In the fifty-two weeks of 1975, Barry had made over forty concert appearances in thirty-sixcities, appeared on the popular television shows American Bandstand, Saturday Night Live, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, and The Midnight Special – twice. He released two albums, both of which he co-produced, and three singles, all of which were smash hits. He’d been honoured and awarded and named and cited by just about everyone who had the power to officially do so, and a few who didn’t. In short, it seemed he had achieved everything he’d ever dreamed of achieving, and so much more.
So why, then, wasn’t Barry Manilow happy?
“Suddenly my life was out of control,” he would later write. “Success had literally exploded over me, wrenching me out of what had been a normal life and thrusting me into something quite different. My roots were pulled out of New York and I felt like a wanderer. Now there were limousines, hotel suites, people taking care of my every whim. I was accepting awards right and left. Of course it was flattering, but it was terrifying, too.” Beware what you wish for, wise men have said, and for good reason. “The shows got bigger and the crowds got bigger …” Manilow has said. “… It was wonderful and terrible.”
“Barry Manilow was becoming something much bigger than he had ever started out,” says Lee Gurst. “That put a lot of pressure on him. He couldn’t just go out and eat after a show, and he couldn’t just go for a walk in a shopping centre if he wanted to. He didn’t have the freedom he did before. When you lose that freedom, you begin to feel the pressure of the fans … and being well known and recognisable. It’s hard to adjust to.”
“I didn’t know what to do to alleviate the agony of this pressure,” Barry would later tell a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. “At that point, most people turn to drugs, and I can understand it, believe me. Instead, I hollered. I was abusive: bratty, throwing tantrums, being selfish, temperamental, inconsiderate. I was pretty much of a total asshole. I really believed that I was better than others, but in my heart I knew I wasn’t. And the danger was that the people around you want to keep their jobs, so they indulge you.”
Another journalist who visited Barry in his 27th Street apartment just after the Grammy nominations were announced in January 1976 noted this strain, which seemed to be manifesting itself physically. “Up close, Manilow looks somewhat older than the 30 years to which he admits …” the reporter wrote. “Dark baleful circles underline his eyes and weariness is visible through the Gulden’s-mustard tan. Manilow looks like a Holiday Inn lounge pianist who has been asked to play ‘Misty’ too many times.” The interviewer does go on to charitably note that on the day of their visit, Barry is not in top form. “For a New Year’s present,” Barry told his visitor, “God decided to give me a Grammy nomination for ‘Mandy’ and the most miserable cold in the history of the human race.”
Apparently Barry recovered in ample time to attend the Grammy awards on February 28, 1976, having survived the additional crisis of finding a tuxedo for the evening that would fit his skinny behind. “Can’t you take them in or something?” he’d snapped at the tailor, who was busy working on the tuxedo trousers during the reporter’s visit in January. “There’s enough room for another ass in here.” Assuring Barry that he’d take care of the problem, the tailor had gathered up his things and made a hasty exit. Then Barry had rolled his eyes to the ceiling and said to the reporter, “Now there’s the most startling fact you could write about me. If Barry Manilow is supposed to be so fuckin’ slick, if he’s supposed to be such a putzy, schlocky, slick guy, how come he still doesn’t even own a freakin’ tuxedo?”
The white tuxedo he wore to accept the sixth annual After Dark Ruby Award as “Entertainer of the Year” in April seemed to fit him just fine, as did the honour. Broadway star Chita Rivera, her false eyelashes giving the appearance of a pair of wild tarantulas trying to seize control of her face, presented the award to Barry who, she said, “can write the songs, and he can also sing them”. It seems fitting that Bette Midler had preceded Barry as a recipient of the Ruby Award, which she had received from the magazine in 1972. At the time Bette had been going through her own identity crisis brought on by her then burgeoning fame. That night she’d ended up fleeing to the kitchen of the restaurant where the award party was being held and refusing to come out for photographers, leading to a screaming match between Bette and one of the After Dark staffers, who ended up slapping the singer in the face. A tearful Miss M spent the remainder of the evening drinking whiskey with Lucille Ball in the back seat of a limousine in the restaurant’s parking lot.
But that was Bette, whose life was made of drama. For his part, Barry told the audience of show b
usiness luminaries, “I had this terrific speech all prepared for the Grammys which I never got to make.” He then proceeded to make use of the speech, thanking everyone from Clive Davis to Ron Dante to Miles Lourie and everyone in between, including Lady Flash (as the backup trio had come to be known by the third album). “I’ve been doing what I have been doing for ten years and nobody cared, until I teamed up with the right people to do what I do best.” The evening was capped off with a surprise from Clive Davis, who presented Barry with a platinum record for Tryin’ To Get The Feeling, certifying the sale of one million copies of the album.
Asked by an interviewer once if he believed in God, Barry answered, “Yes. His name is Clive Davis, and he’s the head of my record company.” In many ways it did seem as though Davis was Barry’s creator, though, some of his associates have said, not to the extent that might be believed. “Barry manages Barry,” Lee Gurst once told an interviewer. “Barry is the one who plans his career. Barry Manilow is a Barry Manilow production.”
In fact, Barry was adamant that, after succumbing to Clive’s insistence on including outside music on Barry Manilow II and Tryin’ To Get The Feeling, his fourth album would be all his own. Indeed, nine of the songs released on the fourth album, This One’s For You, were songs Barry had co-written with long-time friends and collaborators Marty Panzer, Adrienne Anderson, and Bruce Sussman. But, again, Clive had a suggestion.
‘Weekend In New England’ was written by Randy Edelman, who had released the song on his own album for 20th Century Records in 1975. The song had come to Clive’s attention, and he contacted Randy to let him know that he wanted to pass the song on to Barry. When Randy called to discuss the matter with Clive, Clive immediately began telling the song’s creator precisely what he felt was wrong with the song and what he should do to make it better. “I really couldn’t believe it,” said Edelman. “I mean, most record company presidents don’t even know what’s going on their albums even after they’re out, and here’s Clive Davis giving me suggestions about how to rewrite a song when the guy who’s going to record it hasn’t even heard it yet.” But with Clive’s suggested changes, ‘Weekend In New England’ became just the kind of song Barry had wanted to make when he tried to explain to Tony Orlando how ‘Could It Be Magic’ should start out small, then build to a “musical orgasm” before gently easing the listener back down again. ‘Looks Like We Made It’ followed a similar pattern, a slow build to a grand release or, as co-author Will Jennings puts it, “another of those beautiful, over-the-top-don’t-spare-the-melodrama melodies.” Each of these songs would become major hits for Barry.
If Barry had a third eye for making himself look like a star on stage, Clive had what might then be termed a third ear for making Barry sound like a star on his albums. With Clive’s unfailing instinct for picking the hits, and Barry’s sometimes reluctant acquiescence to Clive’s wishes, Barry’s first three albums had all gone platinum. And, based on the strength of these successes, demand for the fourth album was so high that it “shipped gold”, meaning there were already orders for half a million copies of This One’s For You before it was even released in July 1976.
The instantaneous success of This One’s For You and its associated singles seemed a perfect springboard into a monster tour that was being planned for Barry and his group. Ticket sales for the nationwide tour echoed the pre-release success of the fourth album. Venues were reporting that their shows had been sold out within hours, with enough demand for additional tickets to warrant several days of additional shows.
“People were acting like I was the second coming,” Manilow later said of the frenzy over him at the time, “and it was impossible to deal with.” But with everything that was now riding on him, Barry had no choice but to deal with it, if sometimes badly.
The tour was scheduled to begin in Pennsylvania on July 31, 1976. It would encompass 98 cities, culminating in a two-week stint at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It would be an eventful and often painful nine months that would not only mark Barry Manilow’s absolute arrival at stardom, but, like a classic Barry Manilow arrangement, in many ways would also prove to be the crescendo before the fall.
Chapter Twenty-three
“My very personal thanks to my friend, drummer, photographer, conductor, art director and confidant, Lee Gurst, for his enormous support and talents through the years. Lee, this one’s for you.”
The gruelling national tour that started in July 1976 met with phenomenal success across the country. The “Live” album, recorded at the tour’s midpoint during a sold-out, week-long run at the Uris Theater on Broadway would be Barry’s sixth10 and best selling release to date. Lee Gurst was touched and a bit shocked to discover, quite by accident, that Barry Manilow Live would be dedicated to him.
“Ironically, I knew about the text on that cover before Barry showed it to me,” says Gurst. Lee had taken many of the best-known photos of Barry, including the shot of Barry and his dog on the back of Barry Manilow I that made Bagel the beagle the most famous dog in America at the time. On the Live album, Lee was credited with “Photographic Supervision” of the album, in addition to his musical work. It was this photographic supervision that led to Lee’s premature discovery of the album’s dedication in the midst of the tour.
“Shortly before we left town one day,” says Lee, “I went up to the record company to take a look at the colour proofs on the photography, and in the envelope I saw Barry’s text, and I saw what was going to be there. And I was floored!” Not wanting to take away from Barry the pleasure of telling Lee about the impending honour, Gurst kept his new-found knowledge to himself.
If there had been any doubt at all in Barry’s mind that he had “arrived”, the sold-out crowds at the increasingly large venues on the 1976/1977 tour should have proved it for him. It had only been a short time since his last tour had seen him playing college and high school gymnasiums. “If you had got up on stage and three years later 11,000 people were screaming your name, you’d be surprised, too!” he told a reporter. But, he told another interviewer, he was too professional to let fame turn his head, even a little bit. Or at least that’s what he thought.
“Thank goodness I’ve had the preparation and discipline of eight years behind me to handle this thing,” he told Songwriter magazine in 1975. “It’s brand new and I didn’t expect it, and if it ends tomorrow, I’ve had a terrific time.” But he had worked with too many performers over the years, seen too much of what they’d gone through on their way up, to fall prey to the same demons he’d seen devour the others. “I’m handling the attention, and the interviews, and the audiences all because I was sixfeet away from it for a long time and watched the whole thing happen. I watched Bette go through the whole trip and saw her freak out and watched her handle it … So now it’s come time for me to do it and I’ve had all that experience; all that background. So I don’t freak out. If you work your way up to it you don’t freak out. You handle the ups and all the praise, and you handle the knocks and become analytical about them. Or amused by them.”
But that was before Barry found out just how all-encompassing his fame could become. “I’d never fantasised about the kind of success that was now happening to me,” he wrote of that time, from the clearer vantage of hindsight.
If his ego was running unchecked from sell-out concert dates, the success of his first TV special in the midst of the already overwhelming tour didn’t do much to remind Barry he was only human. Though there were a few critical jibes (the Variety reviewer wrote, “The plain-looking Manilow is not flattered by close-up camera work nor does he possess, at this juncture, much self – assurance and presence on camera …”), 35 million viewers tuned in to The Barry Manilow Special on ABC on March 9, 1977, to watch the Brooklyn boy strut his stuff.
But, just as Barry had seen happen with others he’d helped to stardom over the years, he now discovered first hand that even those who think they’re prepared for success are still “freaked out” by the reality of such overw
helming fame. Fans would later coin the terms “Good Barry” and “Bad Barry” to identify which sides of Manilow’s temperament he might display in any given situation. “I know for a fact I was not the only one who has, at some point in time, encountered Bad Barry,” wrote one fan recently. “We forgive him,” she added, “but we don’t forget.”
Manilow himself seems neither to forget nor to completely forgive much of his early reaction to his sudden success. While today he has learned, for the most part, to master these two sides of his temperament, at one point it seemed even to Barry that “Good Barry” was in grave danger of being completely supplanted by “Bad Barry”. “I’d tell my staff to empty rooms of people before I would walk in,” Barry wrote in his 1987 autobiography, Sweet Life. “That went for TV studios and restaurants. This was not an easy thing to do without seeming demented. But I’d carry on and stay in the car or in my dressing room until places were cleared out.” Because of his star status, very few people were willing to tell him he was making an ass of himself, though friends sometimes tried. When not immediately given something he’d demanded one evening, he whispered to friend and songwriting partner Bruce Sussman, “Tell them who I am.” Bruce replied, “If you have to tell them who you are, Barry, you aren’t anybody.”
Manilow later tried to explain to a reporter from the Ladies’ Home Journal that these violent mood swings were partly caused by the huge adrenalin rush of being in front of thousands of screaming fans. As illustration, he recounted an incident that was reported in the Journal, as follows:
Barry Manilow Page 16