Barry Manilow

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2009

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is Barry Manilow. He has been a hugely successful performer for more than 30 years but, in this intimate interview, Manilow describes how it was never the career he intended to have. He always knew he would be a musician, but thought his future lay behind the scenes, not at the front of the stage. Brought up by his mother and grandparents in Brooklyn, money was always scarce and family life often difficult - but when there was music playing in their apartment, Manilow says, the home was a happy one.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Over the Rainbow by Judy Garland Book: Man vs Wild - Survival Techniques from the Most Dangerous Places on Earth by Bear Grylls Luxury: A piano.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey,
0:24.7	History's Youngest Heroes, with me, Nicola Cochlin.
0:27.8	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.4	Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:35.5	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:38.6	The program was originally broadcast in 2009.
1:00.5	Music My castaway this week is Barry Manilow.
1:05.3	His stellar music career has taken him to the very pinnacle of showbiz achievement.
1:13.1	To be a hugely successful performer is one thing to sustain that success over 35 years is something else entirely.
1:20.5	His life began, he says, when aged 13, his mother bought him a piano. It took her five years to pay for it,
1:25.3	but there's been a pretty good return on her investment. Despite Rolling Stone magazine describing him as a giant among entertainers,
1:28.0	I am, he says, just a musician, a one-of-the-band kind of a guy who got lucky.
1:34.6	Really?
1:35.6	That's exactly the way I feel.
1:38.2	And on my passport, it doesn't say entertainer or showman or even singer.
1:43.4	On my passport, it says musician.
1:46.2	I mean, I think all of us that came from Brooklyn, New York, like I come from, Barbara, Neil,
1:51.6	Mel Brooks, we all seem to be shot out of a cannon and we go catapulting over the Brooklyn
1:58.5	bridge into a life.
2:01.2	That's what it seems like it.
2:02.8	The same magazine I mentioned Rolling Stone there describing you as this giant among entertainers.
2:07.3	They've also described you as the greatest showman of our generation.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -5617 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.