Barry Manilow celebrated a milestone on Saturday. The 70’s superstar celebrated his 80th birthday on Saturday.
Barry’s love of music started when he took accordion lessons when he was 7 years old in his hometown of Brooklyn. He developed a love piano soon after, and attended the Julliard School of Music while working in the mailroom at CBS.
Manilow then established himself as one of the biggest jingle writers. He is the one who came up with State Farm's "Like a good neighbor" and McDonald's "You deserve a break today" before he took a job as Bette Midler's musical director.
That move brought him to the attention of Clive Davis, who gave Barry a huge recording contract that would make him a star with the release of "Mandy” in 1974.That was the first of his 13 number-one hits. Manilow made the top ten 28 times over the next few years, and one of his hits, "Copacabana," won him a Grammy in 1979.
His other well-known classics include "I Write the Songs," "Trying to Get the Feeling," "Weekend in New England," and "Ready to Take a Chance Again" (which earned him an Oscar nomination for its use in the movie in Foul Play).
Barry made the Top 40 in every decade from the 1970s through the 2010s, and has sold more than 75 million albums over his career. He's in the Songwriters' Hall of Fame and has as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Manilow also won a pair of Emmy Awards, one in 1977 and the other in 2006.
Barry Manilow credited “Mandy” for the longevity of his career. He commented, "It was the springboard to everything. And you know if your first single that you release goes number-one, well, you can just imagine. But then of course there's the pressure of trying to follow something like that up. But I had what nobody else had -- I had Clive Davis. And left to my own devices, I never would
[Source: Classic Hits Today]