Topping the pop

Manilow is back at the head of the charts with a set of '50s hits he makes his own

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 15, 2006 at midnight

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The charts may belong to the likes of Mariah Carey and 50 Cent and Carrie Underwood, but not this week.

Barry Manilow topped the charts again for the first time in 30 years when his new album, Greatest Songs of the Fifties, sold more than 155,000 copies and made its debut at No. 1.

It was Manilow's first time topping the album chart since 1977.

"After all the horrible reviews and jokes and putdowns, . . . I just feel like I wasn't crazy all these years for continuing to stand up for the kind of music I believe in," Manilow tells reporters by phone from Los Angeles. "I see my name up there and I say, 'Of course there's an audience out there who wants to hear this.' "

Only two other artists, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, had No. 1 albums this far apart, Manilow notes, but both had to die to achieve it.

"I'm feeling very good," he quips. "I don't think we've ever had anything like this happen while the artist is still working and very young like I am."

Manilow claims to be as surprised as anyone, however, that the disc has had this much impact.

"This is probably the most unromantic time in the history of music. Every song and artist is singing about anger and frustration and revenge. No one will even admit to having feelings," he says. "The people with the most hostility . . . have taken control of the music industry. I think the album has proved that somewhere in the human race the human heart is still beating and breaking and celebrating love."

The new album follows the formula that Manilow has used successfully in recent years. His pal Clive Davis ("the greatest A&R man who ever lived"), with whom he has collaborated from Day One, helps him kick around concepts for theme albums.

They've worked in the past. One focused on Broadway, one on big bands, another on the year 1978.

"I come up with an idea and he turns it down. Then he comes up with an idea and I turn it down," Manilow says. "It goes on and on and on until one of us comes up with something . . . that could explode into something the public could connect to. The big-band album, for instance, was an idea that both of us had or I had or he had for many years before we actually did it."

This time was no different.

"He handed me a piece of paper and said I think this is a hit album if you do it right. Those are the exact words he said with Mandy. . . . 'If you do it right, this is a hit record for you,' " Manilow says.

On that paper were 70 song titles, each of which had been a No. 1 hit in the '50s.

Manilow was skeptical, but "I always am," he says. "He hears the final product. I don't. I just hear the first pass at it and I don't get it until I crawl into the idea. That takes a couple of months till I figure out what he's hearing. When I finally get it, I slap my forehead and say: 'That's what he's hearing. He's absolutely right.' "

Once they have a concept, it's up to Manilow to put a twist on it to make it his own. With the big-band album, "I tracked down all the famous big bands that are still on the road, . . . and I sang with the Tommy Dorsey band, I sang with the Glenn Miller band and I sang with the Duke Ellington band."

Still, the new project was daunting, he says. "When I looked at the titles, I kept saying: 'How on Earth am I possibly going to compete with these great renditions? How am I possibly going to compete with the greatest rendition of Unchained Melody, done by the Righteous Brothers?' " he says.

He tested Venus, Unchained Melody and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing at shows in Las Vegas, and the response was overwhelming, he says.

For the most part, Manilow avoided the hit version of each song and went back to the original recording, which is why his Beyond the Sea is done as a ballad, as written in the '30s, as opposed to an upbeat version a la Bobby Darin.

In Manilow's other collaborations with Davis, sometimes the timing is just off.

"I did an album that he passed. It was an album I wanted to do called Romance. It was about 10 years ago. Frankly, it had a lot of songs on it that are on this album and a lot of the songs that Rod Stewart and all of the guys who are doing standards are doing now. I did it about 10 years ago. He turned it down. He said, 'It won't sell.' And he's probably right. Ten years ago, all those standards like I've Got a Crush on You probably wouldn't have sold. . . . Suddenly three years ago, all those songs made sense to him. He suggested it to Rod and they sold big."

It doesn't matter, he says.

"I consider myself a communicator. That's all I ever wanted to do. I want to communicate with strangers. I will never say my renditions of these songs are any better than the originals. The only thing I can do is do my own rendition and hope I'm telling the truth in each song. (When singing) I turn into an actor. I act the song the way a character would act it. I find the truth in it. I study it like an actor would. I break down every lyric the way you would a script. I know exactly who the character is when I'm singing All I Need Is the Girl on my Showstoppers album or Sincerely on this new one."

Manilow doesn't hold out much hope for the future of music.

"I've given up. I look at the Grammys, then I switched back to American Idol," he says. "I just couldn't handle it."

As for his chart success, he doesn't look at changing things to try to be more current.

"You can't try to copy or even consider what's popular. I have never looked up. I've never listened to pop radio. I don't look at the charts. I go to the piano or, these days, my keyboard at the computer and write what feels good.

"It works for me. Makes me feel good. I'm proud of the stuff that I do. Now and then you get to hear it."

Mark Brown is the popular music critic. Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2674

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