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Barry Manilow
He has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. His concerts are instant sellouts. Between 1975 and 1983, he placed 25 consecutive Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rolling Stone magazine called him “a giant among entertainers…the showman of our generation,” while All Music Guide hails him as “one of the most successful adult contemporary singers ever.”
But Barry Manilow once was just a music-loving teenager growing up in Brooklyn, New York and captivated by the sounds of the Sixties. The songs of the Beatles and the Four Seasons, of Jackie DeShannon and the Righteous Brothers, were “the soundtrack of my young life,” he fondly recalls today.
On October 31, 2006, the multi-platinum superstar will revisit this golden decade in Anglo-American pop music with the release of his new Arista album, The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties. This much-anticipated disc—the 59th album of his career—is the follow-up to The Greatest Songs Of The Fifties, released January 2006. That recording became Barry Manilow’s first Number One debut and his first Number One album since the triple-platinum double LP Barry Manilow/Live in 1977.
The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties could reach an even wider audience. “I think these songs from the Sixties are more well known to a lot of people than the songs of the Fifties,” Manilow said in a pre-release interview. “I really have a sense that these songs are even going to be more accepted to a bigger audience because everybody knows these songs.”
The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties also represents a new chapter in an ongoing series of Manilow concept albums interpreting music of earlier decades. In 1994, Singin’ With the Big Bands paired Barry with the orchestras of Les Brown, Duke Ellington, Jimmy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Glenn Miller on a glorious set of Swing Era standards. Showstoppers (1991) spanned nearly a century of Broadway show tunes, while the groundbreaking 2:00 AM Paradise Café (1984) featured guest appearances by jazz legends Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme and Gerry Mulligan).
Featuring thirteen classics from the most exciting decade in Anglo-American pop history, The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties was produced by Barry Manilow, Clive Davis, and David Benson with Garry C. Kief as executive producer. It’s the second collaboration between Manilow and BMG U.S. Chairman Clive Davis since the singer’s return to the Arista label after a five-year absence (which was distinguished by new albums on Concord and Columbia). As the founder and president of Arista Records for its first 25 years, Davis was a perennial collaborator with Manilow on virtually all his recordings. Artist and executive first worked together on “Mandy,” Manilow’s debut Number One single, after he became the first performer signed by Clive Davis to Arista in 1974—the first year of the label’s existence.
But let’s get back to The Sixties. Like the marvelous musical era that it celebrates, the album covers many genres. The Beatles’ “And I Love Her” (1964) and Herman’s Hermits’ “There’s A Kind Of Hush (All Over The World)” (1967) represent the pop side of the British Invasion. When asked to name his favorites from the era, Barry Manilow simply says: “Any Beatles song—their records changed my musical direction.”
The compositions of Burt Bacharach and Hal David also have a special meaning for Barry. Their classics range from the hits of Dionne Warwick and the Shirelles to “This Guy's In Love With You”—Herb Alpert’s Number One single of 1968 and Manilow’s choice for The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties.
“Musically, there is no better pop songwriter in our generation than Burt Bacharach,” Barry affirms. “Lyrically, Hal David is the most interesting, poetic and commercial writer ever.”
Each song on The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties is a classic in its own right from the Righteous Brothers’ “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin’” (1965) to Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” (1963) “When I Fall In Love” by the Lettermen (1962). The West Coast school of singer-songwriters is invoked on Jackie DeShannon’s
“What The World Needs Now Is Love” (1965), while Manilow’s version of the Frankie Valli favorite “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (1967) harkens back to the “blue-eyed soul” sound.
 
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Hit Network
The Greatest Songs Of The Sixties
CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU (Quicktime)
CAN'T TAKE MY EYES OFF OF YOU (Windows Media)
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