BARRY MANILOW

pop singer-pianist

“I know I bought albums before the Beatles, but they didn’t really have any impact on me.

“The one that had the most impact on me early on was ‘Rubber Soul.’ It wasn’t the first one that I bought, but it was the first album that really remember having a really major impact on me. The rest of them were just wallpaper, but ‘Rubber Soul’ really stopped me dead in my tracks.

“They were really good songs -- not ‘40s songs from my parents’ generation. And they weren’t this ‘50s cheese -- like Patti Page and that stuff that was on the radio then -- that I never really connected with. But suddenly in the ‘60s I found my own music that really spoke to me and ‘Rubber Soul’ led the way.”