Melissa Manchester Interviewed

It takes a special kind of confidence to rewrite the best-known standard in the American Songbook, but Melissa Manchester has it, and she has earned it. In her 2018 composition “A Better Rainbow,” she revisits a song she has sung for years and that she recorded on her 1989 album, Tribute. Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg’s “Over the Rainbow” expresses heartfelt yearning in a way that’s unforgettable, and in her song sequel, “A Better Rainbow,” Manchester revives the feeling by paying tribute to “that girl who went to Oz / because she didn’t like the world the way it was.” It’s a great rhyme, and it gives a preview of what the singer will be up to when she appears at the Marjorie Luke Theatre on Friday, August 23 — delivering romantic, positive songs, and showing her love for beautiful ballads and the artists who sing them. 

The concert, which benefits the Luke Theatre Sustainability Fund, is a precursor to a series of lectures coming to that venue this fall called Mind, Body, and Soul. Manchester has long been a favorite of Luke leader Rod Lathim, so this event and its timing come as a welcome sign that Lathim is back at the helm of the historic venue that he helped to restore. 

Manchester arrives here on the heels of a starry engagement at Michael Feinstein’s Manhattan cabaret 54 Below, where she and Feinstein will be doing a show together called I Happen to Like New York. This prestigious billing indicates the exalted positions that Manchester occupies among those artists considered to be ambassadors for the Great American Songbook.