Could It Be Magic. Barry Manilow. 1973. Arista.
From the time of Liberace’s postwar popularity, the piano has come to play multi-faceted roles in popular music. From an instrument of grossly simplistic, kitsch derived, populist entertainment—Liberace, Roger Williams, Floyd Cramer—to a stationary force of rhythmic bombast—Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis—the piano has gratifyingly served the human impulse to express our emotional venture in exalted musical terms. Somewhere between both poles falls a quartet of commercially successful masters—Billy Joel, Elton John, Barry Manilow, Stevie Wonder—whose talents for audience engagement helps explain the likable proficiency of the bulk of their songwriting output. Could It Be Magic opens the second side of Barry Manilow’s debut record, and your feelings about the song could be wholly dependent upon your feelings for camp. I’m tempted to say that Could It Be Magic is easy listening’s Stairway To Heaven, but not even Robert Plant is shameless enough a lyricist to conceptualize the metap...