Melissa Manchester Artistfacts

February 15, 1951
Melissa Manchester succeeded as a singer and songwriter; many of her own hits she co-wrote, and she also wrote some popular songs that became hits for others, notably "Whenever I Call You 'Friend'" by Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks, and "Come In From The Rain" by Captain & Tennille.
Born and raised in New York City, she attended the High School Of Performing Arts, the setting for the TV series and movie Fame. She was singing at area clubs when she came to the attention of Bette Midler, who hired her in 1971 as a backup singer - a "Harlette." Manchester got her own record deal a few months later and in 1973 released her debut album, Home To Myself.

She and Midler remained good friends. Both appear in the 1991 movie For The Boys.
She wrote a lot of songs with Carole Bayer Sager, making them a rare all-female writing team in the '70s. A lot of these songs were influenced by the burgeoning women's movement, notably "Just You And I," a hit for Manchester in 1976.
Manchester spent a year at NYU School Of The Arts and got to take a songwriting seminar with Paul Simon in 1970 that proved transformative. "I really learned from him that there are two kinds of writing," she said in a Songfacts interview. "I describe it as writing from the eyebrows up, or from the heart down. Writing from the eyebrows up is like typing, and writing from the heart down is where you start to find authentic language, and it's harder to access that, for me anyway. I've written with writers who are so brilliant that that tap is running all the time, but I can feel the difference in my body when I've hit that nugget of authentic language for me, and it's lovely."
She had a recurring role on the '90s TV series Blossom playing Blossom's mom, a singer who left the family to pursue her dreams of stardom. According to Manchester, Mayim Bialik, who played the title character, was shockingly poised and talented even as a teenager. Bialik later earned a PhD in neuroscience and starred in another popular sitcom, The Big Bang Theory.
At the Academy Awards in 1980, two songs performed by Manchester were nominated for Best Song: "Through The Eyes Of Love" from the film Ice Castles and "I'll Never Say Goodbye" from The Promise. This made her the first singer with two nominated songs at the same ceremony (the winner was "It Goes Like It Goes" from the movie Norma Rae, performed by Dionne Warwick).
Manchester's biggest chart hit was the bouncy "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," a change of direction from the melodic ballads she was famous for. At first, Manchester didn't like the song and hated performing it - she even tried to rearrange it more in her style. But then she got hit with a gust of gratitude and became thankful she had another song her audience loved. The song also earned Manchester her only Grammy Award, winning for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.
In the '70s she was married to Larry Brezner, who at one time was her manager. Manchester's hit "Midnight Blue" was partly inspired by their marriage, which was on shaky ground. Brezner went on to manage famous comics, including Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. Manchester re-married in 1982 to Kevin De Remer, an operations manager on tours. Bernie Taupin, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager were among the guests.

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