Songoftheday 10/18/12 - Midnight, not a sound from the pavement...

Barry Manilow - "Memory"
from the album Here Comes The Night (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #39 (two weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 2

Today's Song of the Day is the showstopping ballad from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats, performed by singer/songwriter/producer Barry Manilow. While he was a adult-pop superstar in the 70's, by the eighties his star was dimming a bit, though he was still consistently hitting the top-40. In 1982, he put three singles in the lower half of the top-40, "Somewhere Down The Road" (a #1 adult-contemporary hit), his remake of the 4 Seasons' "Let's Hang On", and a British crossover hit, "Oh Julie".

In November of that year, Manilow released his ninth full-length studio album, Here Comes The Night, and while in England he released the suggested pun-filled "I Wanna Do It With You" with made the top-10 there (and was the British title for the album), in the States Arista Records released his cover of the highlight of the biggest musical of the moment, Cats. The original cast production in London starred Elaine Paige in the role of Grizabella, singing lyrice by show director Trevor Nunn based on writings by T.S. Eliot.

Barry's voice range is perfect for this song that builds in intensity to an emotional climax that's like a windstorm..

His version was the biggest hit single of the song, making it into the top-40 on the pop chart, as well as top-10 on the adult-contemporary (soft-rock) chart, peaking at #8. The LP also made the top echelon of the albums chart, making it to #32.

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While Manilow's was the most successful version chartwise for the song, it wasn't the first. The woman with an equally bombastic enough voice to carry the song, Barbra Streisand, released her take on "Memory" the year before, that made the pop chart at #52, the adult-contemporary list one rung below Manilow's at #9, and also hit the top-40 in Britain...

Betty Buckley starred as Grizabella in the original Broadway cast of Cats, and both the London and Broadway cast albums made the albums chart between 1982 and 1983...

Since then, a galaxy of stars has covered versions of the song, but here's a few of my favorites..

One of my favorite male voices of all time, Johnny Mathis...