Barry Manilow biography

Synopsis

Manilow's Style

Born Barry Alan Pincus in Brooklyn, New York, on June 17, 1943, Barry Manilow is best known for his romantic and borderline saccharine songs. But before achieving stardom, Manilow was a whipping boy for the critics throughout much of the 1970s, even as he sold millions of albums and gained a huge audience base. Though he didn't always write music, even when recording work by other artists, Manilow cultivated a lush and melodic musical style that was popular during the pre-rock era. His style evolved during the early 1980s, from tame, string-laden, AM-radio pop to a more classic, jazzy sound influenced by both swing and 1930s and '40s Broadway show tunes (many of which he later covered).

Unabashedly embracing a sentimental style that appealed primarily to white middle-class women of the working and homemaking sort, it is unsurprising that this Brooklyn-born and -raised songwriter was frequently denounced by the male-dominated rock and rock critic worlds. Because female-associated forms of entertainment such as soap operas and romance novels have historically been devalued, entertainers catering to that audience have routinely been dismissed by mainstream critics.

Early Life

Unlike his ragtag rock 'n' roll world counterparts, however, Barry Manilow's resumé has "professionalism" written all over it. After taking up a variety of instruments at an early age, Manilow attended both the New York College of Music and the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City, and became the musical director of a CBS network television show in 1967.

Thereafter, Manilow remained busy writing a successful off-Broadway adaptation of The Drunkard, doing musical arrangement work for Ed Sullivan Productions and writing a number of well-known commercial jingles for Dr. Pepper and Band-Aid, among other large companies. In the 1970s, Manilow's voice could be heard singing the McDonald's jingle "You Deserve a Break Today." He even released a medley of his commercials on one of his '70s albums.

Career Highlights

Barry Manilow got his foot in the door of the pop music world while working as part of a duo with the then-unknown Bette Midler. Working out of New York City gay bathhouses as her pianist, Manilow soon became her musical director and arranger, co-producing and arranging her Grammy Award-winning debut album and its follow-up. His own debut album, on the other hand, went nowhere, but his second album featured the number one Billboard Pop single, "Mandy," laying the groundwork for his rise to fame throughout the rest of the 1970s.