You Should Hear How Melissa Sings - Part Two

Given the success of ‘Melissa’, there was no reason to change the slickly produced ‘M.O.R.’ (middle of the road) formula, resulting in a further shift from the individual creativity of her early material. Hence 1976’s follow up album ‘Better Days & Happy Endings’ (US#24) featured more of the same lushly recorded ballads, with Manchester again having a hand in writing most of the tracks. ‘Just You And I’ sounded a bit like a reprise of ‘Bridge Over Trouble Water’, and gave Manchester another U.S. top 30 hit (#27), as well as spawning two more minor hits in ‘Rescue Me’ (US#78), and ‘Better Days’ (US#71 - later recorded by Captain & Tennille - see future post). Manchester’s next album was the uninspiring ‘Help Is On Its Way’ (US#60), released late in 1976. The album featured more of the same, with an even greater reliance on third party written songs, none of which matched the standard of Manchester’s earlier work. 1977’s ‘Singin’…’ (US#60) was a collection of popular music standards, and perhaps a couple of misjudged covers of other artist’s songs, including the Beach Boys’ classic ‘The Warmth Of The Sun’ - cover that song at your peril.

By 1978 Melissa Manchester’s career had all but stalled, at least in commercial terms, and was in need of another big hit. Mid year she scored that hit, albeit as a songwriter, with the U.S. #5 ‘Whenever I Call You Friend’, co-written by singer Kenny Loggins, and co-performed by Loggins with Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks. Perhaps the success of the song gave Manchester the confidence to strike back with her own top 10 single. The song ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ was written by Peter Allen, Marvin Hamlisch, and Carole Bayer Sager, and had been a #79 R&B hit on the U.S. charts during 1977 for The Moments (under the title ‘We Don’t Cry Out Loud’). Manchester’s heartfelt take on the song was every bit deserving of a top 10 outcome, and that’s what it got…well just. ‘Don’t Cry Out Loud’ hit #10 on the U.S. charts in late ‘78 (OZ#57), and provided the impetus behind the launch of the album of the same name in early ‘79 (US#33/OZ#75). Unlike her previous couple of albums, Melissa Manchester took a more active role in the song writing side of the project, augmented by a few astutely selected covers. 1979’s ‘Melissa Manchester’ (US#63/OZ#93) once more featured a mix of Manchester originals and covers. She delivered her own version of ‘Whenever I Call You Friend’, but the single releases, including ‘Pretty Girls’ (US#39) and ‘Fire In The Morning’ (US#32), were written by third parties.

In 1980 Melissa Manchester achieved a rare feat, by being the performer behind two Academy Award nominated songs in the same year, ‘Through The Eyes Of Love’ and ‘I’ll Never Say Goodbye’, neither of which were included on the poorly received album ‘For The Working Girl’ (US#68). The album yielded only one minor hit in the Manchester co-written ‘Lovers After All’ (US#54), performed as a duet with Peabo Bryson. Aside from her Oscar nominations, the previous four years hadn’t gone exactly to plan for Melissa Manchester, and it appears that song selection (at least on the part of the label) played a big part in that. Her next single though would become the biggest selling song of her career. ‘You Should Hear How She Talks About You’ was up-tempo pop music at its best, though a million miles away from the material Manchester had forged her reputation on. Co-written by Dean Pitchford (‘Footloose’ etc.), the song debuted on the U.S. charts during May of ‘82, and rocketed to #5, soon after following suit in Australia (#4). ‘You Should Hear How She Talks About You’ also earned Manchester her first Grammy Award for ‘Best Female Pop Vocal Performance’. Unfortunately it was the only track from the album ‘Hey Ricky’ (US#19/OZ#33), produced by Arif Mardin, to attract any interest as a single, with the rest of the set receiving mixed reviews. In relative terms, 1983’s album ‘Emergency’ (US#135) completely flat lined, and found Manchester light years away from her comfort zone, consigned to providing vocal accompaniment to a bunch of formulaic synth-pop tracks. It was Manchester’s final album for the Arista label, bringing an end to a ten year association, which had its ups and downs - pity it ended on such a down. Actually 1983 wasn’t a total write-off in commercial terms for Melissa Manchester, with a couple of minor hit singles in ‘My Boyfriend’s Back’ (OZ#48 - cover of the old Angels’ hit), and ‘Nice Girls’ (US#42).

Manchester moved to MCA for her ‘Mathematics’, the album that is, but neither title track (US#74), nor album (US#144), managed to reignite Manchester’s commercial fortunes. During the second half of the 80s, Melissa Manchester turned her creative talents to script writing and acting, in between recording projects. She appeared in the Bette Midler star piece ‘For The Boys’, and on the popular (though I don’t know why) TV series ‘Blossom’. Her 1989 album ‘Tribute’ was a pleasant selection of popular music standards, including ‘Over The Rainbow’ and ‘La Vie en Rose’, but it appeared that Melissa Manchester’s music muse had moved out, temporarily at least.

She released one album of original material on the Atlantic label during 1995. ‘If My Heart Had Wings’, featured plenty of sweeping ballads, in the Celine Dion tradition, but still represented a shift from her work of twenty years previous. A shift to the minor label Koch, seemed to free up the creative energies of Manchester for her latest album, 2004’s ‘When I Look Down That Road’.

You Should Hear How Melissa Sings - Part One

During my teen years I was sometimes faced with the difficult choice as to which of the latest various artist compilations to purchase. In Australia, these compilation albums generally came out in pairs - Festival/EMI/RCA and subsidiaries would release one, whilst CBS/Polygram/WEA and their subsidiaries the other. More often that not, both albums would be released to coincide with a school or summer holiday period. Sometimes I’d be fortunate enough to be able to purchase both, but on other occasions budgetary considerations meant I’d have to choose just one (and hopefully track down the other album at a later date). In the latter part of 1982 I was fronted with the choice between ‘1982 Up In Lights’ and ‘1982 The Winners’. Check out the link to the fantastic ‘80s Tapes’ website for a full track listing of both albums. For me it came down comparing notes of my half dozen favourite songs from each album. One of the tracks that finally swayed me to make the initial purchase choice of ‘1982 Up In Lights’, was the irresistible dance-pop song ‘You Should Hear How She Talks About You’, by Melissa Manchester. It repeatedly tested the rewind capacity of my trusty old tape deck, not to mention the elasticity limits of the cassette itself. Thankfully, I scored a copy of ‘1982 The Winners’ at a later date.

‘You Should Hear How She Talks About You’ was the biggest hit single of Melissa Manchester’s career, but it wasn’t necessarily indicative of her style and career path as a whole. Manchester was born in the Bronx, New York during 1951, and was exposed to music of all styles from an early age. Her father was the bassoon player with the New York Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, but rather than pursuing a career in classical music, young Melissa was, like so many of her generation, caught up in the appeal and lure of popular music. From the age of fifteen she was performing jingles and popular tunes, and soon thereafter attended the High School of Performing Arts during the late 60s (where she actually studied acting), whilst gaining a job as a staff writer with the Chappell Music publishing company (a career path not unlike Carole King and Carole Bayer Sager).

Following graduation from high school, Melissa Manchester enrolled at the New York University in the early 70s. One of the subjects she took was on the craft of song writing, and included seminars taught by one Paul Simon (not a bad mentor to have). Like many performing arts students, Manchester began working professionally whilst still engaged in her studies. She began singing regularly at New York club venue, whereupon she was ‘discovered’ by Bette Midler - ‘The Divine Miss M’, and her then accompanist Barry Manilow - ‘The Notorious Mr. N’. They hired Manchester to perform as a backing singer during 1971, and during this period she began writing songs with another friend of Bette’s, Carole Bayer Sager (see previous post). During 1972 Melissa Manchester scored a recording gig as the vocalist on a hit novelty song by the then up and coming comedy troupe National Lampoon (they of the ‘Animal House’ and ‘Vacation’ variety). The song ‘Deteriorate’ only reached #91 on the U.S. Hot 100, but it gave Manchester her first taste of chart action.

In 1972 Melissa Manchester was signed to a recording contract of her own, with the independent Bell Records label. With a considerable cache of songs to choose from, many of which were penned with Carole Bayer Sager, Manchester recorded her debut album ‘Home To Myself’, during 1973. She already had established enough of a following for the album to reach #156 on the U.S. charts., with the 1974 follow up ‘Bright Eyes’, peaking at #159, but it would take a romantic ballad from her third album to prove the breakthrough.

After two low key albums for Bell, Manchester was identified by record guru Clive Davis as being one artist who could get his new enterprise Arista off to a flying start. Davis spared no expense in providing the singer with the a high profile production environment for her 1975 album ‘Melissa’. Up until that point, Manchester had sung pretty much her own material, which presented a bit of an eclectic edge stylistically, but for the latest album the name of the game was to get some commercial radio airplay. The track that would prove the catalyst to launch Melissa Manchester’s career to new heights, was the ballad ‘Midnight Blue’. It was your characteristic romantic ballad, with impeccable production values, and a structure that suited Manchester’s vocal range perfectly. ‘Midnight Blue’ peaked at #6 on the U.S. Hot 100 (OZ#78). The album ‘Melissa’ achieved a gold certification (US#12), and also spawned the Philly soul styled hit ‘Just Too Many People’ (US#30). But would the rush for more gold compromise Manchester’s own artistic voice.