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BBC Radio 2 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Light Programme.

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They Write the Songs

Music

Barry Manilow looks at the lives and works of composers of the Great American Songbook.

Barry Manilow looks at the lives and works of ten famous composers of the Great American Songbook, playing rare recordings and de-constructing their songs at his piano.

Barry Manilow

Anthony Cherry

They Write the Songs: Series 1: Episode 10: Kander and Ebb

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Kander and Ebb

Episode 10

Episode 10: Kander and Ebb

Series 1

BBC Radio 2 - They Write the Songs, Series 1, Kander and Ebb

Barry Manilow concludes the series with a look at Kander and Ebb.

Barry Manilow concludes the series with a look at composer John Kander and lyricist and librettist Fred Ebb, the creative duo behind Cabaret, Chicago and New York, New York.

Barry Manilow concludes this series with a look at composer John Kander and lyricist and librettist Fred Ebb, whose long and successful songwriting partnership ended with the latter's death in 2004.

They've been rewarded with Tonys on Broadway, Oscars in films, and Emmys on television, and as Kennedy Center honourees they were praised for tackling "serious, challenging subjects - Nazism, abortion, murder, capital punishment, prison torture, greed, corruption - with an originality and fearlessness rarely seen in popular entertainment".

Kander and Ebb were behind some of the great creations of the musical stage including Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as New York, New York, a song immortalized by Frank Sinatra. As a neighbour of Fred Ebb's in New York, Barry Manilow was the first to hear the famous opening vamp of this tune. He heard it over and over again, as the pair searched for the lyric, while brushing his teeth in the bathroom!

They Write the Songs: Series 1

Amazing music. Played by an amazing line up.

Radio 2: Amazing music. Played by an amazing line-up. The home of great music, entertainment and documentaries

Barry Manilow looks at the lives and works of composers of the Great American Songbook

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They Write the Songs

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Episode 10: Kander and Ebb

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