This Is How It All Began

This is how it all began. Someone Barry knew told him about writing jingles for commercials. So Barry auditioned for a Dodge jingle which Barry got.. That was the first jingle he ever wrote.  Soon after that he was writing jingles for other things. Like Band Aids and Stridex. Then he found out he could sing on the jingles and make even more money. It was while doing a Dr. Pepper jingle that he met a guy named Ron Dante. Ron and Barry immediately hit it off. Barry decided to show Ron some songs he wrote. Could It Be Magic, One Of These Days, I Am Your Child, Sweet Water Jones and Sweet Life. They decided to put the five songs on a demo record. Barry was going to sing the songs since he wrote them. Barry and Ron each paid four thousand dollars of the demo fee. After the demo was done they took it to different record labels. However no one was interested until they went to Bell records. The heads at Bell loved the songs and they had the perfect artist to record them singer Brian Murphy. Pretty soon the label changed president out was Larry Uttal and in was Clive Davis. Clive changed the label name to Arista. Clive kept the Bay City Rollers, Melissa Manchester and Brian Murphy. Clive found a song called Mandy for Brian and the rest is musical history. Brian Murphy loved the songs Barry wrote and asked him to write song exclusively for him. That was because Brian could sing and play piano but he wasn't a great songwriter.Barry agreed since writing songs paid good money. So that was how Barry was able to a Broadway songwriter. Barry wrote Brian Murphy's songs with his partners Adrienne Anderson, Enoch Anderson and Marty Panzer. Barry's other two songwriting partners Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman wrote Broadway musicals with Barry. Now once in a while Jack and Bruce wrote a songs for Brian Murphy with Barry. Barry decided to pull a Beyoncé on everyone by putting out a surprise album called Let's Get On With It. (The songs of songwriter Barry Manilow). Barry chose eighteen songs hat were album cuts on Brian Murphy's albums. The songs came from Brian Murphy/Brian Murphy I, Brian Murphy II, Trying To Get The Feeling, This One's For You, One Voice, Brian, If I Should Love Again and Here Comes The Night. Barry figured it was time to introduce his own fans who loved his musicals to his pop songwriter side. After the album came out Barry was going to put together a concert tour to promote the album. Barry was going to kick off the tour at the Broadway Playhouse in Chicago. for a weeks worth of shows. Barry's band consisted of Russ McKinnon on drums, David Rosenblat on percussion and vocals, Stan Sargent on bass and vocals, Mike Lent on Guitar and vocals, Ron Pedley on Keyboards, Billy Kidd on keyboards and vocals, Dana Robbins on Saxophone andvocals, Bradley Fisher on trumpet, Kevin Ryder trombone, Amy Nickelson on vocals and Joey Malotti   keyboards, vocals and musical director.. Russ, David, Stan, Mike and Joey  were musicians from Brian Murphy's band. Barry actually pilfered these guys from Brian. Heck Brian was recovering from more plastic surgery. You know a nip here and tuck there. Lets get rid of the bags and sags. Barry thank God never had any work done on his face. Except to have some cists taken off because of sun damage. Should have never laid out in the sun to get a tan. So right now Barry and company were going through rehearsals for the tour. Rett Turner was doing Barry and company's stage attire. Black pants. black shirts and colorful jackets for the boys in the band. Colorful dresses for Amy and Dana. While Barry was going to wear black pants, colorful printed shirts with solid colored jackets. Barry and company were also putting together a promo video for the tour.

On The Road Again

Yes that's right Barry was going on tour again. This time it was to promote his latest album Night Songs. Which he put out in February 2018. Plus his surprise album that he was recording in March 2018.  The tour would kick off on Friday June 15, 2018. The first part of the tour would go through the middle of September. Barry would be off the rest of 20118. The tour was being called the I'm Coming Back Tour. The other thing he didn't like was the winning being done over on his Facebook page by fans outside the US as well as inside the US. When are you coming here or when are you coming there these fans would ask. Barry knew what he was going do tour wise so these fans need to just wait. Which Barry knew these fans could never do. Just sit  and just wait their turn.  Barry was however pulling a Beyoncé on them in January 2019. He was hitting the recording studio to record a new album. Only Marc knew all the details of the surprise album. One thing some people didn't know about Barry was that he and his songwriting partners wrote songs for pop singer Brian Murphy. Back in the early 70's Barry met a guy at a jingle session named Ron Dante. He showed Ron some songs he wrote. They decided to make a demo record with the songs on them. Each of them chipped in 4,000. Barry sang the songs on the demo. Which they then pushed out to different record companies. Bell records liked the songs and had the perfect artist to record the songs. The artist was Brian James Murphy. So began the career of pop singer Brian Murphy and the guy who wrote the songs he recorded Barry Manilow. Barry was taking 18 of the songs he wrote with Adrienne Anderson, Enoch Anderson, Marty Panzer, John Bettis and recording them himself. The 18 songs were ones that were neverput out as hits. Barry's two other songwriting partners Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman wrote Broadway musicals with him. Like Copacabana and Lola the sequel to Copa. Oh yeas they did do a few pop songs with Barry. Which ended up on a couple of Brian Murphy's albums. But for the most part they wrote Broadway musicals with Barry.