🎼They Write the Songs, Pt. 1: Barry Manilow Hits as Recorded by the Original Songwriters

Arranging 101: While he wrote a lot of songs (with trusted colleagues), "I Write the Songs" wasn't one of them. Here are 3 of Barry's biggest hits as first recorded by the original songwriters!

Tale o’ the Tape

Back in the wacky days of the cassette mix-tape craze (late-’80s for me), I made a variety of mix-tapes…songs about the radio, and songs about cars and other things!

Clearly, back in that day, creating mix-tapes wasn’t solely an American hobby. Current London resident,Andresof Substack’s popular record-celebrating venue, The Vinyl Room, recalls his youth as an habitual taper:

“As for mixtapes, my memories as a kid in Argentina taping songs from the radio include the adrenaline of making sure to stop the ‘Rec’ button before the radio commentator started talking!

“And, then in the early 2000s, burning CDs with different tracks I was obsessed with. I remember being obsessed with songs which had the word ‘blues’ in them (‘Kozmic Blues’ by Janis Joplin comes to mind), and having found on the Internet a song by Queen not many people know called, ‘My Melancholy Blues.’

“It was the only song in my mixtapes that my late grandfather (who played organ in church, and piano and accordion at home) showed some interest in. Very funny that I used to include gems like this amidst the sappy, more commercial stuff I was listening to as a kid/young teen!”