Melissa Manchester Bio
Melissa Manchester (born February 15, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter and actress whose music found widespread popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, especially in the adult contemporary market. She co-wrote many of her own songs and first reached mainstream audiences with the 1975 single “Midnight Blue”. Manchester is also known for “Come In from the Rain”, her rendition of “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, and the Academy Award–nominated “Through the Eyes of Love”. In 1982 she reached the pop Top 5 with “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”, which earned her the 1983 Grammy Award for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance. Alongside her recording career, she has performed on stage, in film, and on television and has continued to release albums well into the 21st century.
Early Life and Background
Melissa Manchester was born on February 15, 1951, in the Bronx, New York, to a musical family. Her father, David Manchester, served as a bassoonist for the New York Metropolitan Opera for three decades, and her mother, Ruth Manchester, was one of the first women to design and found her own clothing firm, Ruth Manchester Ltd. The Manchester family is of Jewish origin, and the household’s strong connection to music shaped her early years.
Manchester started a singing career at an early age. She learned piano and harpsichord at the Manhattan School of Music, began singing commercial jingles at 15, and became a staff writer at 17 for Chappell Music while attending the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. She later studied songwriting at New York University with Paul Simon when she was 19, an experience that sharpened her craft as a writer.
Path to Music
Manchester began performing on the Manhattan club scene, where her friend and fellow jingle singer Barry Manilow introduced her to Bette Midler. In 1971, at the start of her professional career, she became a member of the Harlettes, the back-up singers for Midler, a group she co-created with Manilow. That same period led to a brief speaking appearance as “Yoko Ono” on the 1972 album National Lampoon Radio Dinner, on the tracks “Magical Misery Tour” and “Deteriorata”.
Her exposure alongside Midler and Manilow positioned Manchester for a recording career of her own. Her debut album, Home to Myself, arrived in 1973 and featured songs she co-wrote with Carole Bayer Sager, establishing her dual identity as a singer and a songwriter. Two years later, her album Melissa produced her first top-ten hit, “Midnight Blue”, which spent 17 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 6 for the week of August 9, 1975.
Melissa Manchester Career
Early Career (1971–1978)
Manchester’s earliest professional years were split between session work and her own releases. She performed the songs “O Heaven” and “Home to Myself” on the 1974 pilot episode of Ms. magazine’s television show Woman Alive!, a feminist program, and sang live on Burt Sugarman’s series Midnight Special in 1973. Her 1976 album Better Days & Happy Endings included “Come in From the Rain”, which was never released as a single but became a popular standard covered by Captain & Tennille, Rosemary Clooney, Vic Damone, Eydie Gormé, Shirley Horn, Cleo Laine, Peggy Lee, Carmen McRae, Jane Olivor, Liza Minnelli, Barbara Cook, Mel Tormé, and Diana Ross.
In 1977, Manchester appeared with Richie Havens, Melanie, and Frankie Valli as a contributor and performer in the NBC special documentary How the Beatles Changed the World. She collaborated with Kenny Loggins to co-write Loggins’s 1978 hit duet with Stevie Nicks, “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’”, which she later recorded for her 1979 album. In 1979, she reached number 10 with her version of Peter Allen’s “Don’t Cry Out Loud”, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance.
Breakthrough (1979–1985)
Manchester’s profile rose further in 1979, when she performed two nominated songs on the Academy Awards show: “I’ll Never Say Goodbye” from The Promise and “Through the Eyes of Love”, the theme song from Ice Castles. “Through the Eyes of Love” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song, with the winning song that year being “It Goes Like It Goes” from Norma Rae. In 1980, she made a memorable guest appearance on The Muppet Show, expanding her visibility with family audiences.
In 1982, she released “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”, which won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance, beating Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Juice Newton, and Laura Branigan. The single reached number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 4 in Cash Box, and number 10 on the Adult Contemporary chart, becoming the most successful song of her career. In 1985, she signed with MCA Records and released the album Mathematics, continuing her run on the Adult Contemporary charts throughout the decade.
Notable Works and Milestones
Manchester’s signature songs include “Midnight Blue” (1975), “Come In from the Rain” (1976), “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (1979), “Through the Eyes of Love” (1980), and “You Should Hear How She Talks About You” (1982). She also recorded a 1989 update of Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By” that reached the Adult Contemporary Top 10, and in 1991 she sang the U.S. National Anthem at Game 6 of the World Series.
Melissa Manchester Award Nominations
Melissa Manchester has received major nominations from both the Recording Academy and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance for “Don’t Cry Out Loud” in 1979. She later received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for “Through the Eyes of Love”, the theme from Ice Castles, and performed the nominated song on the Academy Awards broadcast.
Melissa Manchester Awards Won
Manchester won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best Pop Female Vocal Performance for her single “You Should Hear How She Talks About You”. The honor cemented her standing as a leading voice in adult contemporary pop. In 2021, she was presented with the Songbook Hall of Fame’s New Standard Award during a performance with Michael Feinstein.
Melissa Manchester Family
Melissa Manchester was born to David Manchester, a bassoonist with the New York Metropolitan Opera, and Ruth Manchester, a fashion designer who founded her own clothing firm. The musical environment of her childhood home, with her father performing at the Met and her mother building a creative business, provided the foundation for her own artistic path. She grew up in a Jewish family in the Bronx before pursuing her training and career in Manhattan.
Personal Life
During the 1970s, Manchester was married to her manager, Larry Brezner; the couple later divorced. On May 1, 1982, she married Kevin De Remer, who had been serving as her tour coordinator, and the two had two children together before divorcing in 2014. Beyond her personal relationships, Manchester has maintained long creative friendships with Barry Manilow and Bette Midler that date back to her earliest days as a New York session singer.