In early 2005, Manilow rocked Las Vegas when he opened his multi million dollar production of Mailow: Music and Passion at the Las Vegas Hilton. Following a sold out five year run, Manilow was lured to the Las Vegas Strip and the Theatre des Arts at The Paris Hotel. Working with industry veteran Jeffrey Hornaday, Manilow opens his new Las Vegas spectacular in March, 2010.
Barry Manilow’s roots are in his native Brooklyn, where music was an integral part of his life. By the age of seven, Barry was taking accordion lessons and playing on a neighbor’s piano. He chose a career in music while still in his teens, and attended New York College of Music and the Julliard School of Music while working in the mailroom at CBS. He subsequently became musical director for a CBS show named Callback which led to a lucrative sideline on New York’s advertising jingle circuit.
In 1971, Barry Manilow met Bette Midler and became her music director, arranger and pianist. The following year, Manilow signed with Bell Records to record his debut solo album. In 1974, Clive Davis founded a new label, Arista, along with Columbia Pictures. Davis had the right to choose any artist, on the Columbia Pictures-owned Bell Records to bring to Arista. Davis chose Manilow and the rest is history. He famously brought Barry a recent U.K. hit song entitled Brandy (by its writer Scott English). Clive changed the title to Mandy so it wouldn’t be confused with the Looking Glass U.S. hit Brandy. When Barry’s Arista single reached Number One in early 1975, it ignited one of the most incandes cent careers in pop.
Barry Manilow is ranked as the top Adult Contemporary chart artist, of all time, according to R&R (Radio & Records), with no less than 25 consecutive Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1975 and 1983. The list includes all-time favorites that Barry still sings today: Mandy, It’s A Miracle, Could It Be Magic, I Write the Songs, Tryin’ To Get the Feeling Again, This One’s For You, Weekend In New England, Looks Like We Made It, Can’t Smile Without You, Even Now, and the Grammy Award-winning Copacabana (At the Copa). All of these songs (and more) were anthologized on the commemorative 1992 four-CD boxed-set, Barry Manilow: The Complete Collection And Then Some.
To date, twenty-nine albums by Barry Manilow have been certified plati num, while Barry Manilow/Live (1977), Even Now (1978), and Greatest Hits (1978) are each certified triple platinum.
Albums produced by Barry Manilow for other artists _ including Bette Midler, Nancy Wilson, and Dionne Warwick _ have been nominated for Grammy Awards. A winner of Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Awards, Manilow’s film credits include the Oscar-nominated song Ready To Take A Chance Again (from 1978’s Foul Play), production of Bette Midler’s Perfect Isn’t Easy (from Walt Disney’s Oliver and Company), and the soundtracks for the animated features Thumbelina and The Pebble and the Penguin.
Highlights of Manilow’s theater career range from his Tony Award-winning Broadway debut in 1977 (in the same year that ABC-TV presented The Barry Manilow Special to an audience of 37 million) to an SRO eight-week run on the Great White Way in 1989. Beginning in 1997, Barry Manilow’s Copacabana _ The Musical, an elaborate two-act spectacular, played to packed houses in London’s West End for 18 months before touring the U.S., Australia and Asia. June 2001 saw the opening of Could It Be Magic? _ The Barry Manilow Songbook.
In June 2002, Barry Manilow was inducted into the National Academy of Popular Music’s Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside Ashford & Simpson, Michael Jackson, Randy Newman, and Sting.
Barry Manilow is a member of the Board of Governors of the National Academy of Jazz. His autobiography, Sweet Life: Adventures on the Way to Paradise, was published by McGraw-Hill in 1987. In addition to his own foundation, the Manilow Fund for Health and Hope, other involvements include The Prince’s Trust, United Way, the Starlight Foundation, and several leading organizations for AIDS prevention and research. Barry Manilow is the national spokesperson for the Foundation Fighting Blindness and a member of the Music Center of Los Angeles.
