🌴 From Ballads to the Copa: Barry Manilow’s Unlikely Disco Moment

The Twelve Inch 178 : Copacabana (At The Copa) (Barry Manilow)

It was the summer of 1978, and Barry Manilow was riding high in the Benelux charts with Copacabana (At The Copa). Disco was at its absolute peak, Saturday Night Fever dominated the box office, its soundtrack was flying off the shelves, and every self-respecting discotheque boasted a glowing, illuminated dancefloor. The world was hungry for disco, and that appetite fueled Copacabana’s success.

For me, the song has always belonged to the “peak disco” era. So when I started compiling my shortlist for this newsletter, it went straight on, no hesitation. Interestingly, it would turn out to be Manilow’s only hit in the Benelux. I assumed it had been a top 10 smash across all of Europe, but research told a different story: in some countries, it didn’t even chart.

In the US, Barry Manilow is a household name. He’s had three number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100, though Copacabana wasn’t one of them, yet this is arguably his most iconic song. So what’s the story behind it? Was it truly “peak disco,” or more of a novelty hit? Why did Manilow dive into dance music in the late ’70s, and why only once?

Those are big questions, and as a European trying to unpack this American phenomenon, I called in some help from across the Atlantic: My good friend Brad Kyle, a lifelong Fanilow. So grab your maracas, slip into a ruffled shirt, and let’s head to the Copacabana.

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Welcome, I’m Pe Dupre and I’m really glad you’re here. This is “The Twelve Inch”, my newsletter that tells the history of dance music between 1975 and 1995, one twelve inch at a time.

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✨ Who is Barry Manilow to Pé Dupre-The Twelve Inch

For us Europeans, the question “Who is Barry Manilow?” isn’t as strange as it might sound. While he became a huge success in the US from the moment his first albums appeared in the mid-’70s, Europe’s reaction was far more muted. The New York Times once quipped that his songs were “like processed cheese”, a verdict many Europeans might have agreed with at the time.

Still, it’s odd. When I was growing up, radio stations here loved his soft rock style, and I knew some of his songs long before Copacabana came along. “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” and especially “Could It Be Magic” were all part of the Benelux airwaves. Yet, when it came to actual chart success, it was Donna Summer’s disco version of “Could It Be Magic” that scored the hit, not Barry’s.

Barry Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus on June 17, 1946, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents divorced when he was young, and he had no contact with his father afterward. “Manilow” was his mother’s name, so, contrary to what you might think, it’s actually his real name, in a way.

He began his career in television scoring, arranging, and writing (and singing) jingles. In the early ’70s, he often accompanied artists on piano for auditions, and that’s how Bette Midler discovered him. She hired him as her pianist for performances at the Continental Baths, a New York gay bathhouse. Not long after, Tony Orlando signed him to Bell Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures.

Barry’s most devoted fans are known as “Fanilows”, a term not widely known on this side of the Atlantic. One of those true-blue Fanilows, Brad Kyle, joins me in this week’s newsletter to share his perspective on the man and the music. Over to you, Brad…

🎹 Who is Barry Manilow to Brad Kyle

I’ve been a Fanilow since Barry’s 1973 Bell Records debut album was re-released by Arista Records the following year, in a move to improve and re-brand Columbia Pictures’ music division, headed up by former CBS head, Clive Davis.

By the time “Copacabana” was released in summer 1978, I had collected all his albums to that point (including his fifth, “Copacabana”s Even Now). Since then, I’ve always considered that song a bit of a gimmicky outlier for Manilow, as my main talents to appreciate about Barry have always been his songwriting and his arranging skills.

And, to me, “Copacabana” had such a narrow lane in which to be born and exist, I had little interest in it as a Manilow effort. For what it was (and set out to be), it was brilliant, I will say that! So, kudos to Manilow and his longtime collaborators, Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman, for having a danceable and infectious island groove as a goal, and more than solidly hittin’ it outta the park (as we say here in the States)!

I sang the song at karaoke quite regularly a decade ago. I “worked” in cahoots, at one karaoke club, with another regular who agreed to this: I’d let him know when I put “Copacabana” in with the KJ as my next song. Then, he’d know when to get up, and (when the song started), go to customer after customer, and have them join a conga line he’d lead as they snaked their way through and around the bar as I sang! (🫣 😁)

I’ve seen Barry in concert twice, and both in the late-’70s, and was always impressed with how much time he has to spend in simply arranging his songs, and they all seemed to be so radically different from one tour to the next. What may have been a full production for one tour, for example, would, by the next tour, be a part of a six-song medley of hits!

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If you’re not already subscribed to Brad’s excellent Substack, now’s the perfect time!

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👤The Character, ⚡The Problem, and 🧭 The Guides who helped him solve it.

Character: Barry Manilow: a consummate craftsman who could sell a chorus to the masses.

Problem: By 1978, disco ruled both the clubs and, increasingly, the charts. Manilow? He was the ballad guy, critically uncool, steeped in stage-musical sensibilities. The risk: being left behind by the beat.

The Guides: Lyricists Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman, plus producer Ron Dante.

Ron Dante, best known as a member of The Archies, was behind 1969’s best-selling single, “Sugar, Sugar.” In the years that followed, he continued to feed his “bubblegum” pop instincts, though never matching that first runaway success. Alongside attempts at a solo career, Dante became a prolific writer and singer of radio jingles, a trait he shared with Barry Manilow.

Both men understood the pull of pop sweetness and Broadway storytelling, two flavours that disco rarely embraced. Manilow and Dante worked together often, with Dante producing (and sometimes singing backing vocals on) some of Manilow’s biggest hits. When disco came calling, this shared sensibility would prove the unlikely bridge between Manilow’s ballad world and the glittering dancefloor.

🪇How “Copacabana” Came to Be (and Why It’s Not Quite What You Think)

The spark came from Rio’s Copacabana Hotel, the name lodged in the writers’ minds. Barry explains : “Bruce and I, were on the beach in Rio de Janeiro. And it was the Copa Cabana beach in Rio de Janeiro. We were sitting on it; we were staying at the Copa Cabana hotel, and we had Copa Cabana matches and Copa Cabana ashtrays and Copa Cabana towels. And Bruce popped his head up and said, has there ever been a song called "Copa Cabana?"

There was also a New York nightclub called the Copacabana, which had opened in 1940. Decked out in Brazilian décor and featuring Latin-themed orchestras (while serving Chinese food 😁), it was partly owned and operated by mobster Frank Costello. Inspiration wasn’t hard to find.

The song’s Lola was loosely inspired by Lola Falana, the American actress, singer, and dancer of Afro-Cuban descent. But the Lola of the lyrics is broader, the showgirl archetype: feathers, a smile, and a precarious life spent in the orbit of men with money and tempers.

The speed: Manilow says the tune arrived in a flash, “less than 15 minutes.” It’s one of those songwriter “flow state” moments you can hear in the music, the melody slipping naturally between despair and dazzle, like a scene change.

The skepticism: Producer Ron Dante wasn’t convinced when he first heard it. : “It sounded very un-Manilow,” he says. “We had been doing big-sounding pop ballads and suddenly here he was with an uptempo, very rhythmic story-song. Then he told me, ‘If this is going to be a hit, then it’s going to be a very big hit,’ and I thought, ‘He’s right. Go for it. Let’s take a chance.’”

They were meticulous about achieving the right sound in both the recording and production “We had to keep it current but with some retro flavor to it. The percussion really made a difference with that. But it could have gone over the edge, easily” said Dante

🪘Was “Copacabana” Really Disco?

Yes… and no. Rhythmically, it’s Latin disco, all percussion and drums, but dressed like a Broadway show tune in its orchestration. Trade press at the time picked up on the unusual blend; Cash Box highlighted its hybrid of percussion, strings, and Latin flavour.

For DJs in 1978, that was both a blessing and a curse. Many clubs wanted long, instrumental grooves they could ride for minutes. Copa kept pulling you back into the story, verse, chorus, bridge, then that devastating last verse. Brilliant pop architecture, but less cooperative for a seamless mix. That’s one reason why, despite being huge on pop radio, it only reached #15 on the U.S. Dance Club Songs chart.

It’s not as if they didn’t try. Arista issued a promo 12-inch, and Barry and producer Ron Dante even road-tested it in a club, getting a strong initial reaction. But it never became the all-conquering disco smash you might expect.

Three practical reasons why:

1. Format fit – In 1978, disco hits were engineered for the 12-inch format: long intros, percussion-only bridges, DJ-friendly breakdowns. Copa’s promo mix had a taste of that, but not enough. Manilow and Dante simply didn’t have experience crafting a club-optimized twelve-inch. Handing it to one of the era’s top remixers might have yielded a different result.

2. Label focus – Arista, founded in 1974, wasn’t Casablanca, TK, or Salsoul. They pressed 12-inches, but their real muscle was in pop radio, not club promotion. That didn’t kill the record, obviously, but it may have capped its dance chart performance.

3. Theatricality – DJs will tell you: sometimes an audience wants less lyric, more loop. Copa gives you both… but it keeps dragging you back into the plot. That’s fantastic songwriting, just not the formula for dominating a chart that also welcomed side-long mixes.

🎶 Why It Popped in the Benelux (and Not So Much in the UK)

In 1978, the Netherlands had just one national pop radio station, and if your single was chosen as “Record of the Week,” a chart entry was almost guaranteed. Copacabana was a natural pick, though for reasons opposite to its mixed reception on the dancefloor. Dutch listeners loved story songs, and the track arrived in summer, when Latin-tinged tunes felt like the perfect seasonal soundtrack. Add to that the peak of Saturday Night Fever–era disco, and Copacabana ticked every box.

Flemish audiences in Belgium often tuned into Dutch radio, so Dutch hits tended to spill over into Belgian charts. The result: #6 in the Netherlands and #5 in Belgium.

Elsewhere in Europe, the same magic didn’t work. In Germany and the UK, it was only a minor hit. In Britain especially, the punk/new wave moment made a theatrical disco show tune a harder sell.

👔The Ruffled Shirt, the TV Special, and the Critics

When The Second Barry Manilow Special aired in 1978, the ‘Copacabana’ wardrobe was pure flamboyance. Barry’s shirt had massive ruffles down each side, completely over the top. He later explained: “I was fooling around, but the critics thoughts I was serious and they hated it”

Over the top? You don’t say 😁

Seen today, that ruffled shirt reads like a manifesto: I’m a showman who loves theater. If you understand that, “Copa” makes perfect sense.

🕺Why Barry Manilow Didn’t Return to Disco

It’s tempting to link Manilow’s New York roots and sexuality to disco’s strong ties to gay culture. But by his own account, he kept his sexuality private for decades out of fear of disappointing fans or jeopardizing his career, only coming out publicly in 2017, to overwhelming support. What’s certain is that Copacabana wasn’t written as an entry ticket into the booming disco business. Just as true, however, is that once disco’s gay associations became a target for critics, it likely reinforced his instinct to steer clear of the genre to avoid risking being outed.

He had, in fact, flirted with disco before Copacabana. “It’s a Miracle” from 1974 reached the Billboard Dance chart, and “New York City Rhythm”, the B-side to his third and final #1 “Looks Like We Made It”, wasn’t far from a disco groove. With a remix, it could easily have worked on the dancefloor.

Timing played its part too. Copacabana was recorded in 1977 but not released until June 1978. By the time it became a hit and a follow-up could be considered, it was 1979, the year of the disco backlash. And its chart success was largely confined to the US and the Benelux, hardly a unanimous signal from his audience to repeat the experiment. Manilow could sell millions simply by doing “Barry,” and that’s exactly what he did.

The final reason may be the most personal. Success had come at lightning speed, with all the pressures that entailed. Years later, he described a burnout moment on tour, alone, unhappy, and wondering what it was all for. In that state of mind, chasing trends would have felt pointless.

💃What Happened After “Copacabana”?

In the US, Manilow carried on delivering adult-contemporary hits and, in a very Barry move, expanded Copacabana into a 1985 TV musical, later turning it into a full West End stage show in 1994, proof the song was always theatrical at heart.

In the ’80s, as dance music retreated to the underground and pop acts scrambled to get club play, Manilow released dance remixes of some of his songs. Copacabana itself was remixed multiple times, with a 1993 version even breaking into the UK Top 40.

Ron Dante revisited disco in 1979 with his one-album project Dante’s Inferno. It never set the dancefloor alight, but it’s since become a prized disco collector’s item.

🥁Why “Copacabana” Matters in the 1975–1995 Dance Story

Copa is both an outlier and a connector:

• Back to cabaret and Broadway, narrative arcs, key changes, grand finales.

• Sideways into Latin orchestration within disco, congas, cowbells, horn sections.

• Forward to the pop-house theatricality of the early ’90s, when big choruses and dance beats learned to coexist again.

It also shows the limits of crossover: a record can dominate pop radio yet remain only a modest club hit if it doesn’t fully bend to DJ-friendly form.

And then there’s the meta-story: Manilow, the artist critics loved to hate, accidentally crafts a dancefloor staple, wins his only Grammy for it, and spins it into a stage franchise. Not bad for a so-called “novelty.”

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💬 Your Turn (and a Little Homework)

Where did you first hear the long “Copa”? Radio, a roller rink, a wedding, a club? Were you familiar with the twelve inch version? Or just the seven 7 inch?

Drop your memories & remarks in the comments. I love to hear from you.

Further reading (or should I say watching)

There are a number of interesting video’s/links :

1. What is often used as the “official” video nowadays.

2. What I consider the real video, from his second TV special, complete with the much-criticised shirt. Unfortunately, I could only find a version with a questionable remix of the song.

3. A 1978 BBC special

4. Researching the videos, you come across all kinds of gems, like this version by the West Sussex Youth Wind Orchestra 😁

So You Wanna Hear More ?

I thought you would !

It’s fun to write about music but let’s be honest. Music is made to listen to.

Every week, together with this newsletter, I release a 1 hour beatmix on Mixcloud and Soundcloud. I start with the discussed twelve inch and follow up with 10/15 songs from the same timeframe/genre. The ideal soundtrack for…. Well whatever you like to do when you listen to dance music.

Listen to the Soundtrack of this week’s post on MIXCLOUD

Or on Youtube :

So what’s in this week’s mix ?

This week’s mixtape is pure classic disco, 1978 in full glittering swing. We kick things off with the extended 12-inch of Barry Manilow’s Copacabana (At The Copa) and launch straight into a high-energy, no-holds-barred dancefloor session. With 18 tracks packed in, there’s no time to catch your breath, the groove never lets up.

You’ll hear some familiar anthems, like Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy in a Jim Burgess 12-inch mix, Bebu Silvetti’s Spring Rain (via the Canadian PAJ disco version), and Maynard Ferguson’s Gonna Fly Now from Rocky, here in a rare 12-inch take.

But the real treats are the deeper dancefloor cuts: Ronnie Dyson’s If The Shoe Fits (Dance In It), a killer Michael Zager production, Richard T. Bear’s Sunshine Hotel, and the always-magnetic Norma Jean Wright with Sorcerer.

Get ready to sweat, this one’s a non-stop ride.

Remember Malcolm McLaren? During his time as an artist, he put out some truly unusual albums, always chasing inspiration from different genres. Next week, we’ll talk about the time he fused classical music with a dance beat. And no, it’s not Madame Butterfly 😁