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<\/a>First single from 24th album RE:VIEW available now<\/p>\nRE:VIEW album to be released as monthly singles<\/p>\n
Melissa Manchester \/ Carole Bayer Sager classic shines brighter than ever with the addition of Gerald Albright, Citrus Singers<\/p>\n
Stream \u201cJust You And I!\u201d music video<\/p>\n
HERE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much that people come to see an artist to learn something,\u201d insists Grammy Award-winning, multi Academy Award-nominated, Melissa Manchester, \u201cas much as it is to be reminded of who they are.\u201d She should know. She\u2019s been doing this for a while now.<\/p>\n Even as the seminal classic hit, \u201cJust You And I,\u201d – reborn as the first single of Manchester\u2019s 24th album, RE:VIEW – turns 44 this year, it\u2019s reminding music lovers who they are, and who they were back in the day. It also reminds the listener of what a great singer\/songwriter Manchester was \u2013 and still is – partly because her instrument has deepened and strengthened with maturity and partly because the song\u2019s message is more timely today than ever.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now,\u201d Manchester explains, \u201cas we celebrate Labor Day, it seemed so fitting to release \u201cJust You And I\u201d in tribute to the first responders, the essential workers and the everyday heroes who labor, every day, to keep the world running and to keep everyone safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally charting in February 1976, \u201cJust You and I\u201d arose from a conversation between its co-writers, Melissa Manchester and Carole Bayer Sager. \u201cWe wrote together as young women in New York City, every day, in my tiny little apartment or her tiny little apartment,\u201d Manchester reminisces. \u201cIt\u2019s what you did.\u201d<\/p>\n Considering the veteran artist has always \u201cnot been interested in being current so much as being timeless,\u201d it should come as no surprise that the message of \u201cJust You And I\u201d sounds like it erupted from last week\u2019s headlines:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen your heroes go up in a puff<\/strong><\/em> For this latest reinvention of the Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary Top 5 (No. 3) charter, \u201cI had the opportunity to invite a new generation of young artists – the instrumentalists and singers of Citrus Community College in Glendora, CA (where I\u2019m proud to be the Artist In Residence) – to join me in revisiting and bringing new energy to the song,\u201d Manchester exudes. \u201cThey\u2019re singing on \u201cJust You And I\u201d – that\u2019s the choir! I wrote the parts and, boy, they showed up!\u201d<\/p>\n The rhythm section and choir vocals were recorded in the state-of-the-art Citrus College Studios in early 2020, before the campus was shut down due to the worldwide health crisis. When the global Covid-19 pandemic hit, Manchester admits, \u201cI was feeling a lot of grief because I missed my life! Because being home always meant I was between gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n Upon reflection, however, Manchester realized that she had most of the new RE:VIEW album \u201cin the can\u201d \u2013 already recorded during the previous several months – so it might be possible to complete the collection remotely. Further, as 2020 unfolded, it seemed like \u201cJust You And I\u201d was a song whose time had come \u2026 again. So, she enlisted the help of her longtime friend and eight-time GRAMMY\u00ae Award-nominated jazz great, saxophonist Gerald Albright, to bring a fresh twist to the album\u2019s first single.<\/p>\n \u201cGerald and I both know that he played on one of my early songs \u2013 I love how he plays – but neither of us can remember what the song was!\u201d Manchester laughs. \u201cSo, we just had to do it again!\u201d<\/p>\n The idea for the new album project bubbled up in 2019. \u201cThe whole point of RE:VIEW,\u201d explains Manchester, \u201cis that, in these times, as with many of my colleagues, the original record company owns all of the masters, and the only way I can empower myself and own my masters is to re-record these old songs, with a little bit of a tweak, just to make it interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou grow into the songs,\u201d Manchester continues. \u201cYou start to, you know, mess with the harmonics a little bit. So that\u2019s what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n The full RE:VIEW album will feature eight more of Manchester\u2019s charted hit songs from the 70s and 80s \u2013 songs like \u201cThrough The Eyes Of Love\u201d and \u201cMidnight Blue\u201d – as can only be re-envisioned through the lens of an artist with an enduring career. One of that rarified New York crowd of singer\/songwriters that included the likes of Carole King, Barry Manilow, Laura Nyro and Billy Joel, Manchester is also including a few surprises as she considers her fifty years in the music industry, including one of her compositions that was originally released by Diana Ross, but which Manchester, herself, never recorded. Other selections are never-released songs she\u2019s penned which have finally met their moment.<\/p>\n The full RE:VIEW album will be revealed song by song, month by month, a bright spot to look forward to along the path out of a dark year.<\/p>\n No stranger to musical activism, Manchester released the poignant music video \u201cA Better Rainbow,\u201d in 2018 as a get-out-the-vote effort, featuring images contributed by fans from around the globe. More recently, she ventured into the world of contemporary choral writing and recording with the virtual choir anthem \u201cAwake!,\u201d based on a century-old poem by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.<\/p>\n In support of women\u2019s empowerment, Manchester composed the score to the hit musical, Sweet Potato Queens, with book by Broadway veteran Rupert Holmes and lyrics by Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Sharon Vaughn, based upon the New York Times best selling books of Jill Conner Browne,<\/p>\n In 1980, Melissa Manchester became the first recording artist in the history of the ACADEMY\u00ae Awards to have two nominated movie themes in a single year – \u201cThrough The Eyes Of Love\u201d from Ice Castles and \u201cI\u2019ll Never Say Goodbye\u201d from The Promise – and to perform them both on the Oscar telecast. Manchester starred in the national tours of Andrew Lloyd Webber\u2019s Music Of The Night and Song And Dance, and she created the role of Maddy, the title character\u2019s mother, on the NBC hit TV series Blossom.<\/p>\n Nominated for a GRAMMY\u00ae in 1980 for \u201cDon\u2019t Cry Out Loud,\u201d Manchester won the award for best female vocalist in 1982 singing \u201cYou Should Hear How She Talks About You.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJust You And I!\u201d is available now:<\/p>\n SoundCloud HERE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n YouTube HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n iTunes HERE<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n And at all of the major online music distributors.<\/p>\n Visit Melissa’s website<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
\nAnd there\u2019s not enough to hang onto<\/strong><\/em>
\nAnd the ones you would count on to call<\/strong><\/em>
\nThey all fall down all around you<\/strong><\/em>
\nThen you\u2019ve got to believe there\u2019s more<\/strong><\/em>
\nIt is the reason we\u2019re put here for<\/strong><\/em>
\nThere\u2019s just you and I<\/strong><\/em>
\nWhen the legend\u2019s over and we have just begun<\/strong><\/em>
\nWe can look to each other to see us through<\/strong><\/em>
\nJust you and I\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n