Manilow’s The Greatest Songs of the Fifties went straight to No. 1 in the US charts on its first week of release. Nothing new about that. Manilow has already done that a few times in the past. Besides, as several instances have already proven, we are living in the time of nostalgia where many things old are new and exciting again.
The album was produced by the great Clive Davis, a man who has had one of the most remarkable careers in the history of pop music. Just think. Davis was booted out of Columbia Records in 1974 after steering the careers of the likes of Barbra Streisand and Simon & Garfunkel to the top of the charts and signing Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen plus many others. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, he founded Arista and discovered Manilow and Whitney Houston.
Disagreements with new owners BMG forced him out of Arista a few years ago. Like before, he went out and formed another new label J Records where he introduced Alicia Keys and reinvented Rod Stewart. Last I heard, Davis was back as CEO of BMG in the US. And talk about poetic justice, BMG is now merged with Sony, which was formerly Columbia where Davis started his music career as a young lawyer from Harvard.
So there is really nothing new about a hit album of old songs by Manilow for Arista which Davis is handling once again. And Davis has not changed one bit. As Manilow himself says in his liner notes: Once again Clive Davis astounds me with his brilliant ideas. When he suggested this idea to me, I slapped my forehead and said, Why hasn’t anyone thought of this idea? But of course, there is only one Clive Davis.
As for the songs, we have heard them all before. Moments to Remember, originally by the Four Lads but immortalized hereabouts by the Lettermen; It’s All in the Game, which I remember from Rick Nelson; Unchained Melody which we have heard in assorted versions from Roy Hamilton to the Righteous Brothers; Venus, an excellent choice, a Frankie Avalon hit no one has unearthed before; It’s Not for Me to Say, a ballad popularized by Johnny Mathis; Love is a Many Splendored Thing by the Four Aces;
Rags to Riches from Tony Bennett; a medley of Sincerely and Teach Me Tonight with Phyllis McGuire of the legendary McGuire Sisters who recorded their own versions of those songs in the ’50s; Are You Lonesome Tonight because there has to be something by Elvis in the collection; Young at Heart, of course by Sinatra; All I have to Do is Dream by the Everly Brothers; What a Diff’rence a Day Makes by Dinah Washington and Beyond the Sea from Bobby Darin.
Reviews about the album have not been all that enthusiastic. It has been called a stinker, an insult to American heritage, a lot of crap. So what? Manilow and Davis are laughing their hearts out on the way to the bank. Besides, for every bad review, there are probably a thousand or 10,000 more people they have infected with this nostalgia virus.
I am one of them and I have been listening to this CD over and over these past days. Despite all the why nots, I still can’t get over the joy I sense in Manilow’s singing and the love he lavishes on every word. The guy sounds like he has won the lotto jackpot at being given the privilege to record these treasures.
For some unknown reason I also keep hearing Pretty Blue Eyes by Steve Lawrence while listening to the album. No one has also done this tune in recent times and it is probably just aching to be heard again. Maybe Manilow can include it in his next album. It will be just right. The song was a hit in the early ‘60s and because Manilow promised to go by the decades in a series of albums, these are what will make up his next release.