"2:00 A.M. Paradise Cafe'," by Barry Manilow

I like Barry Manilow. Well, I like his music, anyway; I’ve never met the legendary entertainer, who stepped onto the pop music landscape in 1973, wearing platform boots and a sequined, blue jumpsuit and hasn’t been out of the spotlight since. Now, mind you, I’m not a “Manilooney,” one of the superfans who follow Manilow around the country, show to show, like the “Deadheads” to The Grateful Dead, but I would consider myself at least a rank-and-file fan of “the old songs.” Don’t laugh. You know you stop on “Copacabana” when you’re by yourself in the car. Admit it. And, besides, there’s no shame in appreciating songs adored by ba-jillions. I mean, legions of “Fanilows” can’t be wrong, right?

Still a skeptic? Humph! Then don’t take my word for it, let the evidence speak for itself: from 1974 to 1983, Manilow placed 25 songs into Billboard’s Top 40 charts, with three number ones and millions of albums sold in a career that’s lasted almost 40 years. I'll grant that album sales, alone, do not, necessarily, place an artist on a "Must Hear" list, but consider that in the early 70’s, Frank Sinatra reportedly said of Manilow, “He’s next.” Not a bad endorsement. Even Axl Rose, 1980's icon and metal head, purports to have been inspired by Manilow’s first hit, “Mandy.” True story. Look it up. And today, Manilow is undeniably woven into the fabric of popular culture, being lampooned and heralded simultaneously over the years in television shows, like “Night Court,” in the 1980’s and more recently, “Ally McBeal,” “The Simpsons,” and even having his own “theme night” on “American Idol.” Not convinced yet? Sigh…whatever. Bob Dylan agrees with me (Again, true story. Look it up).

But while his best-known songs and albums from the 1970’s get most of the attention, in 1984, Manilow quietly recorded what many consider to be his very best album: the smoky, jazzy, barroom-in-the-middle-of-the-night, sleeper, 2:00 A.M. Paradise Café. The album was a change of pace for the adult contemporary superstar, who had spent the previous decade ubiquitous on the radio, but by the early 1980’s, Manilow had sputtered into a rough patch, artistically. While each, new release was hitting the coveted, million sales mark, he was in a holding pattern, creatively, and suddenly, he found his polished pop records playing awkward kid brother in a “Top 40” playground filled with future classics, like The Clash’s “Rock The Casbah,” John “Cougar” Mellencamp’s, “Jack and Diane,” The Human League's, “Don’t You Want Me?” and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock & Roll.” Not likely to compete in the new-wave and rock-dominated radio landscape, Manilow seemed to purposely remove himself from the contest, and the resulting album was one of the most memorable of his career.

The concept of Paradise Café started by accident, when Ginger Mercer, the wife of the legendary songwriter, Johnny Mercer, sent Manilow a cache of Mercer’s lyrics, inviting him to compose music to any of the verses that piqued his interest. Manilow obliged, writing the music for the astounding, nostalgia-tinged poem, “When October Goes.” Stemming from that piano masterpiece, Manilow conceived the idea of an entire album of original, jazz-styled songs hovering around the motif of a nightclub at 2 o’clock in the morning, whose customers should have called it a night, but who, for that moment, the skuzzy little bar seems to offer more than whatever is, or whatever isn’t waiting at home.

What I also love about this album is the “samey” feeling the melodies have, each riffing off the title track, but also holding their own as individual songs. Manilow recruited legendary jazz musicians to assist on the record, including Gerry Mulligan, Bill Mays, Mundell Lowe, Mel Torme’, and Sarah Vaughan, the latter two sharing vocals on two songs, “Big City Blues,” and “Blue,” respectively. The duets are standouts on the album, and Manilow’s exchanging lines with Torme’ and Vaughan reveals, not a vocal peer, but a fan, enraptured by this once-in-a-lifetime chance to share his songs with the very artists, who inspired him to become a musician in the first place.

I posit that Manilow’s contribution to the pop pantheon ended after Paradise Café, and while many thought the album, departure that it was, to be only a brief detour, for the next 35 years and up to present day, he’s never really returned to his pop roots, rarely even recording any of his own compositions. In fact, after Paradise, the musician’s modus operandi was to turn-in album after album of gimmicky, concept records, from swing music to show tunes to big band music, to three Christmas albums, to the horrifyingly contrived series that followed: the “Best Songs Of The 50’s,” “Best Songs Of The 60’s,” “Best Songs Of The 70’s,” “Best Songs Of The 80’s,” Sigh…was their a 90’s iteration? Who knows? Who cares? The albums were an awful dénouement in the oeuvre of a gifted entertainer. but Manilow is in the studio as I write this, working on his next album, which is rumored to harken back to his glory days of the 1970’s. If you’re reading this, Barry, we're all tryin’ to get the feelin’ again. Don’t let us down.

Post Script: I argue that the gist of Paradise Cafe', like much of Manilow's career, is more about the love of music than forging "new ground" or pandering to the "hip" rock scene, and over the years, Manilow often showed this hand by singing songs about songs (to wit: “I Write The Songs,” “This One’s For You,” “Beautiful Music,” “The Old Songs,” and I Made It Through The Rain, a #10 hit in 1980, that’s original lyrics lovingly describe the craft of song writing), maybe it was inevitable that Manilow relegate himself to an oldies act, or maybe the music and passion just went out of fashion for him. I guess we have to wait and see…

"Stardust," by Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson spent the 1960’s writing hits for other country superstars, including two of his best known songs in the same year, 1961: “Hello Walls,” a number one hit for Faron Young, and “Crazy,” a top ten hit for Patsy Cline. Yet, solo success was elusive. But finally in 1975, derailed and tired of trying to fit the trends du jour, Willie Nelson decided to just be himself: he stopped cutting his hair, he exchanged his cowboy boots for running shoes, and he released the semi-autobiographic album, Red-Headed Stranger. The world’s love affair with everything Willie hasn’t stopped since. So many hits from so many albums followed: “Blue Eyes Cryin’ In The Rain,” “Good Hearted Woman,” “On The Road Again,” “Always On My Mind,” etc., but it’s 1978’s out-of-nowhere album, Stardust, that remains the perennial fan favorite.

Stardust is an album of pop-standards, and Nelson approached this concept well before doing so became a music business inevitability. Today, it’s practically a right-of-passage for middle-aged singers past their “sell by” date to record a series of albums covering “The Great American Songbook.” This proliferation of nostalgia has a long history: Carly Simon (1981’s Torch), Linda Rondstadt (1984’s What’s New?), and Sinead O’Connor (1992’s Am I Not Your Girl?). More recently, Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow have both made late careers of repackaging pop memories, and in spite of its greatness, Willie Nelson’s Stardust is, arguably, to blame.

But here’s how it happened: in the wake of his mid-70’s country crossover success, Nelson felt moved to pay tribute to the songs that inspired his own work. His record company understandably resisted the idea, as their star had finally found a commercially viable country niche, so why mess with a winning blueprint? But Nelson prevailed, choosing homage over formula, and Stardust went on to become one of the most successful country albums of all time, selling millions of copies and spending a decade on the charts.

And what’s so great about Stardust is its sheer testament to music as a shared language – his interpretations defy categorization. They’re not country, but they’re not pop, either. On Stardust, they’re simply Willie Nelson songs. In fact, when technology allowed musicians to easily “sample” other artist’s work in the early 90’s, it was controversial. But I never understood the contention. Musicians had been referencing the past from the beginning of recorded song. You can’t listen to a Simon and Garfunkel album, for example, without hearing echoes of the Everly Brothers, and what rock album released post 1969 doesn’t illustrate clear references to the Beatles? Hasn’t “new” music always been informed by what’s come before? Nelson’s Stardust illustrates this time-honored tradition of musicians inspiring musicians…and we listeners reap the benefits.

The Stardust album opens with a mystery: “Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song.” And Nelson spends the rest of the album answering this question: for the love of the music. With Stardust, Nelson blends country, jazz, and pop into an unidentifiable new sound never heard before or since. Always just ahead or just behind the beat, Nelson’s vocal makes one thing clear, while the songs may be familiar, it’s Willie’s house we’re in. And the album sequencing is perfect; creating a patchwork mood for the album that never lingers on one emotion for long. Stardust bounces from the quiet contemplation of “September Song” to the giddy skip-and-step of “Sunny Side Of The Street” and then back again.

In space, stardust is a tiny granule of terrestrial matter that existed before the earth was formed: a dust grain that condensed from cooling gases of prehistoric stars. Essentially, stardust is an artifact of what came before, but is now gone. And the songs Nelson picked for this album seem to follow this motif, longing for what is no more: longing for home (“Georgia On My Mind,” “Moonlight In Vermont”), longing for connection (“All Of Me,”), or longing for lost love (“Unchained Melody,” “September Song,” and of course, the title track).

And the longing is what keeps me coming back to Stardust over thirty years later. In fact, this album regularly finds its way on my playlist during quiet weekend afternoons with my partner, when I’m feeling nostalgic about the farm, or when I’m thinking of those I’ve loved and lost along the way. The songs somehow bring everything and everyone back as if they'd never been gone, or as Nelson sings, “the melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you.”