BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief/Investigative Reporter
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s true, then Barry Manilow has been extremely flattered. Daybreak not only does the songs of Barry Manilow justice, they add their own dimension and character to them.
Manilow has been my favorite artist. I took a lot of teasing and ribbing from my friends because they were of the impression that his music was mostly geared to the females of the species. I can identify with a lot of the songs Manilow has performed. There are a lot of personal feelings in them for me. I can sing along with most of Manilow’s songs, so going to see a Manilow Tribute band I was skeptical at best as to how good they were going to be, until I heard them. Let me tell you it was an overwhelming experience.
In 2012 a grant from the Orange County IDA enabled the theatre to upgrade its projection equipment to the new digital standard. First-run movies were again on the screen at the Paramount.
Since 2013 The City of Middletown Economic and Development Department has operated the theatre. Daily Movies have become a regular staple at the theatre once again. A Classic Series has also been formed that runs in the Spring and Fall on select Saturday Afternoon. From Comedy Shows to Educational Lectures, to Major Music Acts, The Paramount has also added numerous Live Performance’s to its calendar, making it a hub once again in our downtown community.
Barry Manilow hit the music scene in 1973 with his first album titled Barry Manilow on Bell Records. (It was rereleased in 1975 as Barry Manilow 1 by Arista Records) Before that he had worked in advertising cutting out ads at the Acme Ad Agency. After going through a gambit of jobs including at CBS television, he was a pianist for Bette Midler. He became a solo act in January 1974 when Midler decided to take a year off. When Barry Manilow II was released in 1974, the title cut Mandy took off like rocket. The subsequent 50 years have seen him winning many awards and playing to crowds of thousands as well as millions in his television specials. I was at his show on April 20, 2024, when he received a singular honor for a historic milestone and an award at Radio City Music Hall for the most performances, marking his 42nd lifetime show at the venue and setting a new record for the most performances by any artist there; the Rockettes presented him with a plaque during the sold-out show, part of his five-night run from April 17-21, 2024.
I have been a Barry Manilow fan practically since he hit the music scene in the 1970’s. I have seen him in concert at least a dozen times since 1980. My first time was on November 14, 1980, at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. My last one as of the writing of this review was at the April 20, 2024, Radio City Music Hall Concert. I have seen a number of other cover bands. Danny V’s 52nd Street, a Billy Joel Tribute Band and StevieMac, A Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band to name two.
It is difficult at best to pay tribute to any performer by doing their songs. True fans of the artist will be super critical and tough to please. They will take apart everything you do and song you sing so you have to be extra good in order to win over the audience. I have to say, Daybreak not only won over the audience they had them up singing and dancing in the aisles. If I could dance I would have been up too.
I was fortunate enough to be granted an interview with the band. When they were finished with their sound check, we were ready to go. We went into the backstage area and sat around a rectangular table with a black table cloth on it. There are eight members of the group, going around the table from my left to right, Joe Hite – piano/lead vocal, Val Shaffer – Bass, Amy Evans – Backing Vocals/Dancer, Ric Craig – Drums, Jody Marsh – Keyboards, Laura Turk – Backing Vocals/Dancer Phill Fest – Guitar, Joey B – Keyboards, We had a good time with the interview. The band was very personable and eager to tell their stories. This had more of a conversational tone than a solid news interview.
I’m here with Daybreak, the Barry Manilow, tribute band, the music and passion of Barry Manilow. Joe, I gather you are the Manilow,
“I am that person. Got a picture of me with fake hair, yeah.”
I have to say that my wife and went on the Daybreak website to check it out and when we saw the picture we were both stunned at how much you look like him. I would never know you were bald.
“Yeah, if my wig ever accidentally fell off during the show, a lot of people would have nightmares for the rest of their lives.” Hite replied.
Why daybreak? Out of all of the songs that Manilow did and songs that were bigger hits than that one, why pick that song?
Hite didn’t have to think about the answer, “For the name of the, I wish there was a jauntier, more interesting explanation, but we just like the word. We knew that we wanted it to be a song of a song title of his because that’s just the easiest way to go, and of all of them, Daybreak was just a positive, good sounding word. We just like the way that it comes out of your mouth and this way the, the image that you get when you hear the word, and it’s just, it’s just, it was just everything about it as a soundbite was good, so we used it.”
Fest the guitarist had an additional take on the name. “The geometry of the sound. Yeah, that was just a great sounding name. Sometimes the most basic, things have worked the best.”
I added, Yeah, my wife says to me when I’m cooking dinner, the simplest foods always tastes the best. The complicated ones you’ve got to really work it.
Hite said, “Now she gets spam every night, right?”
If I try that, I’m sleeping in the living room with the dog.
When a group picks a song as their name, it usually means that is their favorite regardless of other reasons for the choice. Could we say that Daybreak is their favorite one to do, or is it a different one? I would guess that everyone in the band has a different answer to this question, but let’s go, let’s go around and start with you, Joe, and then we’ll go around.
“My favorite song to play is Could It Be Magic, just because it’s…well, it’s piano heavy and it’s got like this big dramatic thing that it starts with that’s just piano, but just the progression of the song. It’s got these really nice low sections where I just kind of like to get to its real free form and flowing and I just kind of get to let it breathe however I want it to during each particular night I can do what I can rush it along or I can really just sort of sit back in it, and then it’s got this massive middle section that’s, that’s exciting and then and then it just seems to always get a really good response from the crowd and I absolutely enjoy playing it.”
Going around the table, Val Shafer bass player answered next. “I concur with Joe in terms of that song. That’s one of my favorite ones, and otherwise. I don’t even know all the names of them. The ones, any song that has a guitar solo at the end I like because we tend to make these songs a little more rock-ish than Barry did in his recordings and Phil and I come from, from hard rock in the eighties. So, we vibe a lot on those types of things, any chances where we get to really rock out the arrangements.
“I’m Amy Evans and I love everything that we do. I know it sounds like a standard answer, but the arrangements are also beautiful, and these guys do an awesome job with the endings that they’ve created to make it unique show. I love when we do the commercial medley because. If you hear Barry Manilow, not everybody knows about that, so it’s really fun and, and I love when we dance with Joe in Bandstand and of course Copa. How can you not like Copa, right? So as singer dancers, dancers singers, we love everything because they’re killer players, but we’d like to get the dancing and singing in too.”
With a smile, Hite said, “That is the answer we paid her to give. Well done.”
Obviously, you paid her enough too.
Hiding in the back there was Ric Craig the drummer. “I’m the newest member and, my favorite is Copa because it’s spicy for the drummer.”
Amy chimed in, “And he sees our outfits too all the sequins and everything else, yeah.
“My name’s Jody. I’m one of the keyboardists, one of two auxiliary keyboardists. I guess I would probably need to say I like them all. Joe’s here. I do like to play a song called Brooklyn Blues. Oh yeah, it’s more of one of his later releases.”
I know, yep, and it’s on the same album as When October Goes.
“Exactly.”
Phill chimed in, “He really knows his stuff.”
“So, a lot of stuff over there. Interesting chord changes, you know, for a keyboard player and I also like Copa, the iconic one, just love, love to see the, the chorale’s response when that a lot of the songs, but that one in particular, they really, you know, reminds them of something.”
“Hi, my name is Laura Turk. My answer is kind of a threefold answer. I think my favorite song to sing is Trying to Get the Feeling because it’s, it’s a little funny in the beginning that it’s soft and beautiful and it just grows into this big song that we can really sing so I love that I do love the commercial medley as well because the feeling and then as far as any of the other numbers because we’re dancer singers, I think all the numbers that we dance in, you know, It’s a Miracle, Bandstand, Copa, Jump Shout Boogie they’re just, because they’re too full for us and we, we really love to do that. So that’s, that’s my answer.”
“Hi, my name is Phill Fest. I am the guitarist. And these guys kind of took parts of my answers so I agree with Joe that Could It Be Magic for me has a lot of… it brings up emotions. My father used to play that Chopin piece all the time and the way Joe plays it so well and I loved that song. So, everything Val said about us giving a little edge to some of the tunes at the end, with the guitar solos, of course, and what Jody said, Brooklyn blues. I’m going to give you a threefold answer here with what was previously mentioned, but I honestly, I enjoy all the material and, so Brooklyn Blues, Could It Be Magic, maybe need a tie, but all the songs have their power and magic, so to speak.”
My take is that if they didn’t like all the material and only had one or two songs they really liked they wouldn’t be part of this. I have some personal experience with being a part of a band. Not playing an instrument or singing. As it was in the 70’s and 80’s everyone wanted to become rich and famous being in a band and my friends and I tried to form a band. As I said I didn’t play any instruments, so I was the sound guy and the lighting guy. I built the lighting boards and the soundboards. We’re talking low tech stuff by today’s standards, slides and things like that. You have to like all the songs that you’re doing, but usually somebody has like, OK, I like all of them, but there’s one that really stands out in your repertoire of songs that you really like the top one that you really get into and like.
Phill responded, “Keep in mind too, I’m the guitarist, so I am playing a complimentary harmonic, enhancement role with three world-class pianists here (Jody was chuckling a little) so. It’s a, it’s an interesting role that I’m in, and I thrive in that position because I love playing with piano as a guitarist, which most is kind of a contradiction of this. So, probably if I had to pick one, I would probably have been Magic.
Last but not least (only because of where he was sitting) “I’m Joey B. I’m the other keyboardist. I’d have to say Brooklyn Blues again because I get to play sax on that, which is fun, but the other two that I really like a lot is, The Old Songs. It reminds me of when I was, If I Love Again, and, then I love, I Write The Songs when we get to do the light show thing. It just makes me really think like so many times when that happens I kind of stepped outside of myself like I’m, am I really getting to do this kind of thing? It’s very surreal. Yeah, so it’s really cool.”
We’ve gotten through the preliminaries now. Well first of all, who came up with the idea for this?
Joe answered, “Bruce.” And proceeded to tell Bruce to get his ass over there to the table. He’s the he’s the guy.
Bruce is going to tell you a story now.
Bruce “What was the question?” He was told what the question was. “I promoted shows for about 8 years in the middle COVID happened, and when COVID happened, there was nothing to do. My shows were all canceled, postponed, and I’m just killing time and trying to get some other stuff caught up in my computer and I’m looking at some videos, and I brought up a picture of all these other albums of music on my Outlook, and one of them was a Barry Manilow picture. My birthday is the same day as Barry Manilow’s June 17th, yes, 1943.”
He said that as of 6th, 7th, 8th grade he knew the music because he was at a Catholic grade school and they had dances and it’s like this music was part of it and so Barry was close to his heart. As the years went on, he wasn’t always closely attached as it went on, but he was still connected with that birthday. So, when he saw this picture of Barry Manilow, he looked at this picture and it for about 10 minutes I’m going, why did he feel like he’s looking at this part of a 1975 picture of him? Why did he feel like he knew somebody who looks just like that in this part right here?
“About 10 minutes goes by and all of a sudden I go, oh my God, it’s Joe Hite! It was the picture that I had. If you put it up side by side, right, you’re going to tell me…
You don’t have to tell me, My wife and I took the picture yesterday, and we both looked at it. Holy shit! Even my community editor was on his computer looking at the same picture and his reaction was the same.
Bruce continued, “I texted him, and it was after this, kind of calming down because as a promoter you, you’re kind of a person who comes up with ideas. I’ve been promoting shows at that point probably for about 3 years at when the idea came along. I never had even thought of the process of owning or running a band and all that stuff and all of a sudden I texted Joe simply just asked, “When are you coming back?” He had moved to Florida in April of 2020. Before that he was in Milwaukee where I’m at. I think it was in May when I had sort of the idea. It’s kind of in that area, but I texted him, he said, “I’m coming back to Wisconsin in June.” So, we got together and met at a hotel, and I basically laid it out and I showed him the picture, and I said, Who’s that look like? He says, it looks like me and I said, you’re damn right it does.”
It was at that point he just said, “Hey, I think you can play like him, I’m pretty sure, but if, you can sing like him and we can put some hair on your head, we can do this really cool and from there it took Joe about 1 year to kind of wrap his head around the concept.
The COVID period was a difficult time for everyone, but especially performers. People in non-service-oriented businesses were able to work from home for the most part. Performers were not so lucky. Their livelihood comes from getting up in front of audiences and doing their stuff. Bruce made the most of it when it came to putting this together.
“COVID was a difficult time for musicians and so nobody really knew which direction everything was going so we got a demo. “I asked him to do a demo that had around 4 songs in it and when he did that demo, I said I’m going to know in 10 seconds whether or not this is even worth pursuing, and he even convinced himself of that when he was doing his recording and listening to Barry and listening to himself. He kind of convinced himself that he could sing, but when I heard it, I was like, oh my gosh, you got it.”
From that point on it was all about, they had to get a band together. They put out some feelers and that got them two guys, and those two guys knew two more guys and eventually… Bruce explained that this group is not the original cast, and that they had some switch outs which always happens. According to Bruce, this is the best iteration of the group.
“That’s how we got started. I was feeling that hey, Joe Hite could really be Barry Manilow. Definitely.
I had to agree with Bruce. Seeing and listening to them on the computer is one thing. I was amazed at the likeness in looks and sound. I shook my head to make sure what I was seeing. I had to call up a picture of Barry Manilow and compare it to Joe. To top off the initial impression, when we walked in, we heard you when we were out in the lobby and the three of us were like, oh my God, it’s like we are seeing Manilow again. Four of us, Myself, my wife, Mike and his wife went to see Manilow at the at Radio City back on April 20, 2024.
Bruce commented, “On that date April 20th, yeah, we were, actually in Atlantic City playing at Resorts Casino on the same night he was playing up at Radio City.
I wasn’t sure if they knew about the award he had received that night, so I told them about it.
So, it was the same night where we’re like, we were whatever the distances, but you know, we’re like two hours. The real thing was playing and we had probably, over was it 1100 people, I think in the room.
Earlier Bruce pointed out his connection with Manilow as having the same birthday. I explained that I also have a June 17th connection to Manilow. Without that connection, I wouldn’t be here doing this interview. My parents got married on that day in 1961 on his 18th birthday, my parents were getting married.
How did they get the rest of you dragged into this?
I’m Phill the guitarist Fest. “I get a call from the bassist that’s no longer with us…” Joey interjected, “He’s not dead, he’s just not in the band.” With a chuckle, added, “God rest his soul.” Phill continued, “…Called me and said…
As much fun and laughs as we were having, it was getting late and we all had to get some dinner before the show, and they still had to get into costume and make-up. I told Phill to tell his story.
“So anyways, I get a call from, this person that we don’t know if he’s dead or alive, assuming he’s alive, so he asked me if I’d want to participate in, a Barry Manilow project, and, I was like, well, you know, I, I do a lot of shows. I’m from West Palm Beach, Florida, and I was like, well, Okay. Oddly enough, he’d mentioned that this keyboard player from Lakeland, Florida might be involved. I said, well, if it’s Jody Marshall, I hadn’t talked to him in about 20 years. I said, if that’s him, let me know, and I’m in. And about a day later he calls me… Jody jumped in, laughing, ‘and there’s no way I’m gonna, if he’s in it, I’m out.’ “He comes back and sure enough, this guy who we used to play together with in the 90s, said he’s in because we’re from all over the state of Florida, so we’re not all in the same town. I said, oh, I’m in, you know, and then we started rehearsing in the spring of 2022.”
Phill said that the original core is right here, as he points to himself, Joey, Jody and Joe, and that the only person that was at the original is this gonna work or not rehearsal is Jody.
“My connection was with the former bass player as well. I played a gig kind of in a, dump where somebody played a jazz gig and, and I got done and he was like, Hey, you’re a beast, interested in, this Barry thing, and then. He gave me Joe’s number. I called Joe and he said, Yeah, we’d be interested in having you. Here we are this many years later. I’m very grateful for that.” Joey B said.
Jody leaned back towards Phill and said, “I know it hasn’t been mentioned yet, but our drummer Ric…”
As Ric ducked down behind him to hide, as he seemed to know what was coming next…
Hite finished the thought… “he’s the only member of the band who has actually played with Barry Manilow.”
They beat me to my next question with that statement. It turns out that none of them, with the exception of Ric has ever met Manilow. I looked at Ric and said, “Introduce me.” Ric hasn’t seen him in 30 years. Joe told him to put in a good word. I said, call him, he might remember you.
Laura asked if I wanted to know how Val got into the band.
He scooted forward a little in his seat, leaned in towards me and, “Well, I actually knew both the former bass player and Phill and I are really good friends. I talked to, I think, both of them about the band, and the original bass player actually wanted me to do some fill-in work for him. At the time I was too busy, or he wanted me to do some out of town dates, and I was reluctant at that time to do those, but we stayed in touch and then eventually, some things happened to where I was more interested in becoming involved in the band and timing just worked out.”
Phill filled in a little, “I remember you said, Hey, Phill, if that slot’s still open, I’d like to do it and the timing was perfect. I like Jody’s in the band. I’m in.”
Jody added, “That’s what I told Bruce before there was even, so, okay, he’s gonna be…” I said, “that means you are the linchpin here.” “I guess so.”
It seems that even though Joe is the lead vocalist, everything revolved around Jodie. Amy said that she and Laura didn’t even know Jody and that Bruce and his wife knew them from something else that they did called the Beltones, and so that’s how they met these guys and everybody came from different directions and boy is it good together.
Laura explained how they got involved. “We were contacted after this man had been going for a little under 2 years I believe it was maybe a little under 2 years, and we each got a phone call Amy was in Pennsylvania. I was in Jersey, and we just we were on a conference call, and they called us and we remember meeting them after a show that he had produced once and they said, would you like to be our background girls, and they initially wanted 3, but our other Beltones are moms, so we’re more flexible, yeah, much more flexible as it were.
Joe sent us back information. Basically, we’ve went to work. We had the song list. We learned all the songs on our own, all the harmonies. Amy is brilliant at that. We both put together choreography.
They say the proof is in the pudding. The ladies really showed this off in Copacabana and Jump Shout Boogie.
“We showed up for a show. Never had any rehearsal, nothing. We stepped on stage. The band starts playing. We’re like, Wow, they’re amazing. Joe walks on stage. We’re like, Oh my gosh, when he walked in the dressing room. We almost fell on the floor. We were just, as they say, baptized by fire, and we got on stage. We did our job, and here we are, but 2.5 years later.” Laura finished.
A lot of times when a cover band gets together the artists look at performances of the group they are covering to try to be as authentic as they can be. I started with the ladies on this question. I figured they would have looked at Lady Flash to make it look as real as if they were Lady Flash. It turns out they made everything up.
Laura and Amy commented, “We’re, we’re not doing their thing, OK, no, no, no, we’re ours, ours is completely individual. This is definitely what we put together.
The one thing I’ve seen about Barry Manilow, again, watching him on TV and seeing concerts live is his versatility. He doesn’t just play the music to the audience he involves the audience. How much audience involvement do you guys…
A number of the band members pointed at Joe and said, “Master. This man is a master. Wait until you see the show tonight. He is a master of fronting the band and interacting with the audience as a crowd and read a crowd like nobody I’ve ever seen. He’s pretty damn good. It doesn’t matter what the kind of crowd is, he can figure out a way to, to bring them into the, the. So the answer is yes, yeah.”
One thing he hasn’t done that Manilow does is to bring people up on the stage with him.
“I haven’t had to do that. I’ve been in bands where we would bring people on stage for various reasons and it’s just, it’s just, it can be a risky thing to do.” Joe stated.
He does go off stage to interact with the audience. Not in every show, but fairly regularly. There is one thing that he did that I don’t believe Manilow ever did. He kissed a dog, a Golden Retriever at the show the night before and danced with it to Copacabana. It was a service dog for a blind person.
The time was really getting late so we summed up everything so we could all get something to eat. Where do they see this venture going? You guys seem, from just talking to you, they’re a pretty well close-knit group. How far into the future are you’re looking with this, or are you just going day by day?
“We’re just taking it as it comes for right now. We don’t have it, we, you can’t have expectations for a thing like this because you just don’t know how it’s gonna go. We all really enjoy doing it. We are all fine in our lives. If it fizzles out. We are all fine. If it’s sporadic, we all are kind of happy if it picks up a ton. Right now, it’s fairly steady and we’re good with that. We definitely enjoy it. I think all of us enjoy doing it. I think we all enjoy being on the road with each other.”
Joe added, “We all enjoy certainly playing the shows, so I think it’s in a good spot as far as there really aren’t any expectations for it because that’s when you start getting upset about how it’s not going, and we just love it when it’s happening and going with the flow.”
Jody said, “We’re hoping it goes into perpetuity.”
Joe concluded, “I think look, all of us would do it for as long as it’s, as it’s fun to do.”
Speaking of the dinner we were all anticipating, one thing I can say about living where we do is that we are spoiled when it comes to variety and quality of the foods we can go out for. Pizza is one of the foods that rarely do you find high quality outside of the NY Metro area. After the interview, we went to a pizza place across the street from the theater. I was expecting decent food. I have to say that the pizza at John’s of Arthur Avenue was fantastic. We ordered a pizza with mushrooms, sausage and meatballs. You couldn’t see the pizza through the toppings. The crust was cooked just like we asked for it to be and the flavors were great. I would highly recommend it if you go to the Paramount Theater in Middletown.