Melissa Manchester's third album represents a striking departure from Home to Myself and Bright Eyes, both of which showcased her voice in a cabaretlike setting. Melissa joins Manchester with producer Vini Poncia, an associate and protégé of Richard Perry. Poncia, who has figured prominently in several recent Perry productions, brings to Melissa the Perry trademarks that helped make Ringo and Carly Simon's No Secrets such commercial blockbusters. Manchester's voice is mixed at a lower level, echoed and overdubbed in parts. Several cuts use horns in the style of "Oh My My," and drummer Kirk Bruner provides the impetus of delayed percussion to songs that might otherwise have come off as strict MOR ballads. Poncia's grand style production (he also cowrote one song and sings backup) has given Manchester a confidence and discipline that were only intermittently in evidence on her previous albums; her tendencies toward vocal excess and flatness of pitch have been eradicated, while her idiosyncratic phrasing and intimate approach to a ballad remain intact.

Melissa 's material is evenly divided between uptempo party songs and ballads. For the former, Manchester has adopted Steven Wonder as muse. "Stevie's Wonder," a pastiche of Wonder's melodic chromaticism, amorphous spirituality and phased vocal sound, makes an engaging, if superficial tribute. Wonder and Syreeta Wright's "Love Havin' You Around" cooks behind Trevor Lawrence's good-timey horn arrangements, and Manchester's "I Got Eyes," intentionally cops part of its time from "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing."

Original album advertising art.
Click image for larger view.

Further reading on
Super Seventies RockSite!:

Melissa Manchester Lyrics

Melissa Manchester Videos

- Stephen Holden, Rolling Stone, 3/27/75.

Bonus Reviews!

Melissa Manchester is the kind of performer-composer who would have a large audience no matter how much the critics pouted. Her work is actually modishly clever salon music for the Seventies, and so it fashionably shivers with sensibility ("Just Too Many People"), quakes with "deep feeling" ("We've Got Time"), and, of course, can be cutely horny ("I Got Eyes"). How can she miss? She can't -- and won't. Her total professionalism is as unquestionable as it is oily, and listening to her new album would have made me very happy if I were the sales manager of Arista Records. As it was, I couldn't have cared less.

- Peter Reilly, Stereo Review, 6/75.

Manchester is very sexy in a barely disciplined, almost blowzy way -- maybe a touch overexpressive, a little too liberal with her emotions. "I Got Eyes" is nice juicy funk music and "Stevie's Wonder" the ultimate fan letter from someone who's found a new model of overexpressiveness. Both transcend the rest of the album, which in turn transcends the popped seams and middling Midlerizations of her first two LPs. B+

- Robert Christgau, Christgau's Record Guide, 1981.

Reader's Comments

No comments so far, be the first to comment .