Melissa Manchester

And yet they have an incredible voice.

I mean, the examples would be, for your audience, if they remember Melissa Manchester, who was able to write Midnight Blue, who wrote Come In From the Rain.

And although I was to give her Don't Cry Out Loud and You Should Hear How They Talk About You, she did not want to be a female Barry Manilow, even though they were very close friends.

How about a female Barbara Streisand?

So to have him come on the podcast all these years later was just wonderful.

I just interviewed Melissa Manchester-

Oh, yes

... okay, who's been in show business for 50-plus years, and we had such a wonderful time talking about our shared experiences and all the great things that she's done.

He's my friend and he came from Toronto to see me in New York and he brought with him his demo.

He's doing, this is a bit of hot gossip for music lovers everywhere, he's doing a duet with Melissa Manchester.

Oh, yeah.

And he played us the demo that she sent to him, which is really raw, just her bashing on the piano and singing.

I want to say sexied it up or sold it up and he's going to put his voice with it and it's going to be fabulous.

I'll keep you abreast of when that single will be released.

He's a wonderful guy and I'm looking forward, very much looking forward to this new duet that he's doing with Melissa Manchester.

And you're a wonderful person as well and we're looking forward to having you back in the

Whenever I Call You a Friend appears on his second solo album, Nightwatch, and it was produced by Bob James.

The song was written by Loggins and Melissa Manchester.

Oh, wow.

I haven't heard that name in a while.

Well, I got to ask you, you know, what I think many of our listeners, they're learning on today's show, how many great performers began as backup or background vocalists for other agents.

I mean, Melissa Manchester started with Bette Midler, Tony Tennille for the Beach Boys.

And Lorna, I'm not sure how many of our listeners are aware that you are a background vocalist for the rock band Blondie in their 1979 album, Eat to the Beat.

Tell us about this.

I don't have to worry about that.

Frankie, everybody knows Melissa Manchester because Barry Manilow mentioned her in the song Could It Be Magic? Sure.

The second verse or first verse.

Mm-hmm.

And she had a whole bunch of hits in the 70s, didn't she? She had hits, and she wrote some.

Yeah, so Melissa Manchester is this week's Whatever Happened To.

You got it.

Now, that's her actual name, Melissa Manchester.

Just click on the link that says, see the video of this show here.

But no one imagined that this would be a record summer, an all-time high, like that great song from that James Bond movie, Melissa Manchester.

It didn't

go quite as planned.

people understand

Talking of lawsuits from George, this song was originally called Midnight Blue and I think the last thing he wanted was another claim because in the exact same year, Melissa Manchester released a track of the exact same name and it was charting pretty well.

There's no further reading here, but listening to this track, it's quite cool, actually.

It's got a kind of Carly Simon feel.

It was quite nice.

It was quite pleasant.

Midnight Blue, Melissa Manchester represent.

Yeah, it's some really good songwriting from George, though, because it's rare that he has a narrative that kind of shifts and changes.