Remembering Clive Davis, who elevated hitmaking to an art form

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Barry Manilow has told the story behind his first big hit so many times that I had no intention of bringing up the half-century-old “Mandy” when I sat down with the singer on a recent afternoon at his home in Palm Springs.Among the questions I did ask was how he ended up recording the song that opens his new album, and the answer — as it’s so often been throughout Manilow’s career, beginning with that 1975 chart-topper — was Clive Davis.“It was all Clive,” Manilow said of “Once Before I Go,” the Peter Allen/Dean Pitchford number that leads off his just-released “What a Time” LP.

Davis, the star-making record executive with the so-called golden ears, had been urging him to record the song for years, Manilow told me, which inevitably brought him back to the well-rehearsed tale of “Mandy” — to Davis’ decision that Manilow’s debut for his Arista label lacked a breakout smash and to his suggestion that the singer cut a version of a modest hit called “Brandy” by Scott English.“So I went in the studio and did it trying to sound like that guy,” Manilow recalled, stomping his foot to approximate a lumbering rock beat.“Clive came in and said, ‘That’s terrible.’ I said, ‘I know it’s terrible.’ But in order to learn the song, I’d slowed it down and changed the key — I found the love song hiding in ‘Brandy,’” Manilow continued.

(He also changed the title to avoid any confusion with Looking Glass’ “Brandy,” which had recently reached No.1.) Manilow played the tune in his more romantic style for the exec.

“I’ll never forget it — Clive said, ‘Just do that.’ And that was the record.” He laughed.“He’s a kind of a genius.” Music Veteran pop showman Barry Manilow yearns to be back onstage.At 82, he’s working on it.Davis, who died Monday at age 94, didn’t sing or play an instrument.

“I knew nothing about...