Melissa Manchester

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Melissa Manchester

Feinstein’s at the Nikko, San Francisco, CA, July 10, 2015

Reviewed by Steve Murray for Cabaret Scenes

Photo: Randee St. Nicholas
Photo: Randee St. Nicholas

Four decades into her musical career, Melissa Manchester is taking the moment to take a snapshot of where she is now, and an introspective look at where she came from. The Grammy Award winner (Best Pop Female Vocal Performance 1983 for “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”) has charted a very successful path, writing songs for Roberta Flack, Dusty Springfield, Alison Krauss, Stevie Nicks, Kenny Loggins and Barbra Streisand.

Mixing it up with the old and the new, Manchester displayed her strong songwriting skills matched with a strong, vibrant contralto. “Midnight Blue” and “Come In from the Rain,” two songs co-written with Carole Bayer Sager, are perfect examples of Manchester’s wide appeal. “Midnight Blue” was a huge chart topper for the singer, used as source music in the movie Ice Castles, and later covered by pop royalty stars like Johnny Mathis, Shirley Bassey and Vanessa Williams. Likewise, “Come In from the Rain” was covered by Diana Ross and The Captain & Tennille, among others. Manchester continued to stand out among the singer/songwriters of her generation, scoring huge with her Grammy-nominated version of Peter Allen/Carole Bayer Sager’s “Don’t Cry Out Loud,” performed this evening in the original simple acoustic version.
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“Whenever I Call You Friend,” co-written with Kenny Loggins, was yet another huge hit, again tonight performed with the original songwriters’ intent.
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“Feeling for You,” a new song from her latest CD You Gotta Love the Life, written with Sara Niemietz, is a bluesy funk number, and a pairing of Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” with Cole Porter’s “From This Moment On” was smart and sophisticated. Also from the new CD, “The Other One” speaks to personal responsibility and choice. After four decades in the business, this song exemplifies where Manchester is spiritually—satisfied, certain and confident in her skills and capabilities.
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Steve Murray

Always interested in the arts, Steve was encouraged to begin producing and, in 1998, staged four, one-man vehicles starring San Francisco's most gifted performers. In 1999, he began the Viva Variety series, a live stage show with a threefold mission to highlight, support, and encourage gay and gay-friendly art in all the performance forms, to entertain and document the shows, and to contribute to the community by donating proceeds to local non-profits. The shows utilized the old variety show style popularized by his childhood idol Ed Sullivan. He’s produced over 150 successful shows, including parodies of Bette Davis’s gothic melodramedy Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and Joan Crawford’s very awful Trog. He joined Cabaret Scenes 2007 and enjoys the writing and relationships he’s built with very talented performers.