Barry hanging on: Manilow awaiting fan response to latest release

Kirk Baird

Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2001 | 8:43 a.m.

Barry Manilow is his own worst enemy.

Or rather, it's his penchant for crafting some of the best and catchiest pop tunes this side of the Atlantic.

"Even Now," "Mandy," "Can't Smile Without You" "Copacabana (At the Copa)" ... those hits, among many others, helped define '70s pop radio and remain standards today on adult contemporary stations.

The songs also further cemented Manilow's reputation as the man "who makes the whole world sing" as he proudly, and rather prophetically, proclaimed in "I Write the Songs."

But that identity the Midas of pop music is "just the tip of the iceberg," he insists.

"I think all of us artists and actors get typecast if you become very popular for one thing," the 55-year-old Manilow said from his home in Palm Springs, Calif. "I think that most of the fans, the people who actually came out and checked out the albums and concert tours, understood that there was much more to what I did than those handful of hit singles."

For example, during Manilow's nearly 30-year recording career, he has ventured into jazz, swing and other less radio-friendly domains.

And with his latest work, "Here at the Mayflower," the performer takes it even further.

A "concept album" in the loosest of terms, "Here at the Mayflower" spills the beans on the lives of fictitious residents of the real-life Mayflower apartment building in New York. Each song focuses on a different apartment and character, with a distinct style of music to match jazz, cabaret, pop, show tunes and helps breathe life into their stories.

It's an ambitious project, said Manilow, who performs Thursday through Saturday at Mandalay Bay's Storm Theatre. And all the more proof that the musically driven singer-songwriter is greater than his pop-single parts.

"I decided I would break some rules," he said. "The danger for every artist is, like EB White said, 'We look up and sniff the trend machine.' If you look up and sniff the trend machine, you're lost, because all you can do is copy."

As much as he wanted to begin the project when he conceived it, Manilow said he resisted the urge to make the record since, at the time, "I didn't need another (pop) album."

Instead he worked on various projects ranging from a musical version of "Copacabana" to an album of Sinatra cover tunes, along the way releasing more greatest-hits collections than many bands have albums.

Over the years, though, Manilow said he worked with his cadre of longtime collaborators, "batting ideas back and forth (over) what would go on behind closed doors in the apartment building."

As the songs developed, he began making demos of them at his home studio.

"I've got all these fantastic computerized instruments here that I know how to work, and this last year I decided to put all of (the demos) together and see if they would hang together, and they did," Manilow said.

Even as the album was coming to fruition, however, Manilow was looking for a record label to distribute it. After 25 years with Arista Records the artist decided it was time to leave the label when its founder and his close friend, Clive Davis, was ousted as CEO of the company in May of last year.

After a friend told Manilow about Concord Records, an independent jazz label, he met with some of the record company's execs for dinner earlier this year, during which the performer discussed the "Mayflower" project and played the songs he had recorded so far.

The meeting went so well that Manilow signed a multi- album contract with Concord in September, with "Mayflower" the first release under the deal.

"(Concord) loved what they heard so much that they actually encouraged me to do ('Mayflower')," he said. "When art and commerce can go hand in hand, it's very rare. And I'm finding with Concord, at least for me, art and commerce go hand in hand. So that's why I released it."

The result is sure to please his diehard fans, who have been anxiously awaiting an album of Manilow's own material since 1982's "Paradise Cafe." For those expecting more of the same type of pop hits he's known for, "Mayflower" is liable to disappoint.

"Anything that was trendy I stayed away from on this album. I knew that it might turn a lot of people off because just when you think you're being lulled into something normal, I broke it," he said. "I was like, 'Stop the tempo! Do something different!' I just didn't want ('Mayflower') to be a normal album. I wanted it to be interesting.

"Who knows, maybe nobody will buy it. I may be totally wrong. I have this fantastic record company who loves it. I'm just crossing my fingers that I'm not imagining that everybody who hears this album loves it."

Even as he awaits the fan response, Manilow already knows how many critics will receive the album: They'll dismiss it, in much the same way they usually treat his "middle-of-road" pop style.

"It's easier to say you like the angrier performances than it is to say you like the more sensitive guys. I'm sure Michael Bolton gets the same thing, and Richard Marx and Lionel Richie, and all of us guys who choose not to go onstage and show our anger," he said. "I like music that makes me feel good, I always have. I like lyrics that make me think and make me move. I like melodies that make my heart soar -- that's what I like. It's easier for a critic to put that kind of thing down than it is for him to like it.

"I think cynical critics have resisted what I've done all these years, but I think they've missed out on some real nice moments."