Melissa Manchester
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Melissa Manchester (born on February 15, 1951 in New York, New York) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Beginning in the 1970s she has recorded a series of albums featuring both her own compositions and those of a variety of other songwriters, generally in the adult contemporary genre. She has also appeared as an actress on television, in films and on stage.
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[edit] Biography
Manchester was born in the Bronx area of New York city to a musical family of Jewish descent. Her father was a bassoonist for the New York Metropolitan Opera. Manchester started a singing career at an early age, learning the piano and harpsichord at the Manhattan School of Music and Arts, singing commercial jingles at age 15, and becoming a staff writer for Chappell Music while attending Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts.
She studied songwriting at New York University with Paul Simon. Manchester then appeared on the Manhattan club scene, where she was discovered by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, who took her on as one of the Harlettes in 1971.
Her debut album, Home to Myself, was released in 1973; Manchester co-wrote many of its songs with Carole Bayer Sager. Two years later Manchester's album Melissa produced her first top ten hit, "Midnight Blue", which peaked at #6 on the Billboard charts. Manchester collaborated with Kenny Loggins to co-write Loggins' 1978 hit duet with Stevie Nicks, "Whenever I Call You Friend". She would later record this herself for her 1979 Melissa Manchester album. At this time, she guest-starred on the CBS-TV daytime soap opera Search for Tomorrow to teach a main character, who was a singer-songwriter, the essentials of the craft. In 1979 Manchester made #10 with her version of Peter Allen's "Don't Cry Out Loud", for which she received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance.In the Friends episode titled "The One With All the Jealousy", Chandler advises Ross to "keep it inside. Learn how to hide your feelings! ... Don't cry out loud", a reference to the song. [1] In 1979 she performed two nominated songs on the Academy Awards show, "The Promise", and "Through The Eyes of Love" (theme song from Ice Castles). The winning song that year was "And So It Goes," from Norma Rae.
Two years later she had her biggest hit, "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," which won a Grammy for Best Female Vocal Performance and peaked at #5 on the Billboard charts. It was her last Top 40 Pop hit, but Manchester continued to place singles on the Adult Contemporary charts during the 1980s. Her last top 10 entry on the AC chart was a 1989 updating of Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By". The single was pulled from album "Tribute," which honored some of the singers that influenced her style.
In spring 2004, Manchester returned with her first album in 10 years: When I Look Down That Road. While touring to support the CD, Manchester was praised for her still "powerful voice" and for "reinventing [herself] while staying true to what made [her] popular." [2] She played herself on a two-day guest appearance on the ABC-TV daytime soap General Hospital, to sing the song for Robin Scorpio and her AIDS-afflicted boyfriend Stone Cates.
Through the 1980s and 1990s Manchester alternated recording with acting, appearing with Bette Midler in the film For the Boys, on the television series Blossom, and co-writing (with bookwriter-lyricist Jeffrey Sweet) and starring in the musical I Sent A Letter To My Love based on the Bernice Rubens novel of the same name. She also composed and recorded the score to the straight-to-video Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (2001). In April 2007, Manchester returned to theater, starring in the Chicago production of HATS! The Musical, a show to which she had, with Sharon Vaughn, contributed two songs. Also in 2007, she recorded a duet with Barry Manilow on a cover of the Carole King classic "You've Got A Friend" on Manilow's The Greatest Songs of the Seventies.
In 2008 she released a new single, "The Power of Ribbons," to digital retailers. Proceeds of the single benefit breast cancer research.
[edit] Awards and recognition
- Grammy Award: "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" (1983) (Best Female Pop Vocal Performance)
- Dormitory Name: Residents renamed their dorm Manchester Hall after a Manchester concert in the mid-1970s at what was then Southwest State University (now Southwest Minnesota State University) in Marshall, Minnesota.[3]
- Melissa also received the Governor's award from the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences for her contributions to the music & recording arts
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
- Home To Myself (1973) #156 US
- Bright Eyes (1974) #159 US
- Melissa (1975) #12 US
- Better Days And Happy Endings (1976) #24 US
- Help Is On The Way (1977) #60 US
- Singin' (1977) #60 US
- Don't Cry Out Loud (1978) #33 US
- "Through The Eyes Of Love" from the motion picture soundtrack for Ice Castles (1979)
- Melissa Manchester (1979) #63 US
- For The Working Girl (1980) #68 US
- "I'll Never Say Goodbye" from the motion picture soundtrack for The Promise (1980)
- Hey Ricky (1982) #19 US
- Greatest Hits (1983) #43 US
- Emergency (1983) #135 US
- Thief Of Hearts from the motion picture soundtrack (1984)
- "Your Place Or Mine" from the motion picture soundtrack A Little Sex (1984)
- Mathematics (1985) #144 US
- "The Music Of Goodbye" from the motion picture soundtrack Out Of Africa (1985)
- "Let Me Be Good To You" from Disney's The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
- Tribute (1989)
- Little Nemo - Adventures In Slumberland (1992)
- If My Heart Had Wings (1995)
- Stand In The Light duet with Tats Yamashita (1996)
- The Essence Of Melissa Manchester (1997)
- Joy (1997)
- The Colors Of Christmas (1998)
- I Sent A Letter To My Love A Musical Recorded by LA TheatreWorks (1998)
- Melissa (2001 Re-release)
- Don't Cry Out Loud (2002 Re-release)
- When I Look Down That Road (2004)
[edit] Singles
| Year | Single | Chart Positions | Album | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | US AC | |||
| 1967 | "Beautiful People" | — | — | single only |
| 1973 | "Never Never Land" | 101 | — | single only |
| 1974 | "O Heaven (How You've Changed Me)" | 101 | — | Bright Eyes |
| 1975 | "Midnight Blue" | 6 | 1 | Melissa |
| "Just Too Many People" | 30 | 2 | ||
| 1976 | "Just You and I" | 27 | 3 | Better Days and Happy Endings |
| "Better Days" | 71 | 9 | ||
| "Happy Endings" | — | 33 | ||
| "Rescue Me" | 78 | — | ||
| "Monkey See, Monkey Do" | — | — | Help Is On the Way | |
| 1977 | "Be Somebody" | — | — | |
| "I Wanna Be Where You Are" | — | — | Singin' | |
| 1978 | "Don't Cry Out Loud" | 10 | 9 | Don't Cry Out Loud |
| 1979 | "Theme from Ice Castles (Through the Eyes of Love)" | 76 | 13 | Ice Castles (soundtrack) |
| "Pretty Girls" | 39 | 26 | Melissa Manchester | |
| 1980 | "Fire In the Morning" | 32 | 8 | |
| "Without You" | — | — | For the Working Girl | |
| "If This Is Love" | 102 | 19 | ||
| 1981 | "Lovers After All" | 54 | 25 | |
| "Race to the End" | — | — | Hey Ricky | |
| 1982 | "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" | 5 | 10 | |
| "Hey Ricky (You're a Low-Down Heel)" | — | — | ||
| 1983 | "Nice Girls" | 42 | 22 | Greatest Hits |
| "My Boyfriend's Back" | — | 33 | ||
| "No One Can Love You More Than Me" | 78 | 34 | Emergency | |
| "I Don't Care What the People Say" | — | — | ||
| 1984 | "Thief of Hearts" | 86 | 18 | Thief of Hearts (soundtrack) |
| 1985 | "Mathematics" | 74 | — | Mathematics |
| "Energy" | — | — | ||
| "Just One Lifetime" | — | — | ||
| 1986 | "The Music of Goodbye" (with Al Jarreau) | — | 16 | Out of Africa (soundtrack) |
| 1989 | "Walk on By" | — | 6 | Tribute (soundtrack) |
| 1995 | "In a Perfect World" | — | — | If My Heart Had Wings |
| "Here to Love You" | — | — | ||
| 2004 | "After All This Time" | — | — | When I Look Down That Road |
| "Bend" | — | — | ||
| "Angels Dancing" | — | — | ||
| 2006 | "My Christmas Song for You" | — | — | Platinum Christmas, Vol. 3 |
| 2008 | "The Power of Ribbons" | — | — | single only |
[edit] Guest appearances
| Year | Single | Artist | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | "Making Every Moment Count" | Peter Allen | Making Every Moment Count |
| 1996 | "Stand In the Light" | Tatsuro Yamashita | Cozy |
| 2000 | "A Mother and Father's Prayer" | Collin Raye | Counting Sheep |
| 2002 | "Never Let Me Go" | Michael Feinstein | Livingston & Evans Songbook |
[edit] Filmography
- Great Mouse Detective Voice of Kitty, songwriter "Let me be Good to You"
- Fame (TV series) actor, singer and writer (episode) credit
- For the Boys (1991)
- Blossom (TV) (1993–1995)
[edit] References
- ^ "The One With All the Jealousy". http://www.twiztv.com/cgi-bin/transcript.cgi?episode=http://dmca.free.fr/scripts/friends/season3/friends-312.htm. Retrieved on 2008-07-01.
- ^ Andrew Druckenbrod, Music Review: Melissa Manchester's reinvented music still true to her early work, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 16 April 2004
- ^ Amato, J. A. (1991). A new college on the prairie: Southwest State University's first twenty-five years, 1967–1992. Longmont, CO: Crossings Press.
