Melissa Manchester (born February 15, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is best known for her powerful voice and chart-topping hits, including "Midnight Blue" (1975), "Don't Cry Out Loud" (1979), and "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" (1982), the latter of which earned her a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Over her five-decade career, Manchester has enjoyed success in pop, adult contemporary, and theatre music, as well as in film and television acting.
Melissa Manchester was born in the Bronx, New York, into a musical family of Jewish descent. Her father, David Manchester, was a bassoonist for the New York Metropolitan Opera, while her mother worked in the fashion industry. This rich musical upbringing influenced Melissa from an early age. She studied piano and harpsichord at the Manhattan School of Music and Arts and began singing commercial jingles by the age of 15.
While attending New York City's High School of the Performing Arts, Manchester became a staff writer for Chappell Music and went on to study songwriting at New York University with Paul Simon. During this period, she also performed in the Manhattan club scene, where she was discovered by Bette Midler and Barry Manilow. The two invited her to be a backup singer for Midler’s shows in 1971, which gave Manchester a crucial platform to launch her solo career.
In 1973, Manchester released her debut album Home to Myself, co-writing many of the songs with Carole Bayer Sager. Two years later, her album Melissa produced her first top-ten hit, "Midnight Blue," which firmly established her as a significant force in the pop music scene.
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