I moved to New York from California in 1968, 41 years ago. My "old man", Stuart Scharf was a studio guitar player and produced Spanky and Our Gang, he wrote "I'd Like To Get To Know You" which was a big hit and he always used to talk about Henry and we used to go buy strings and picks and scoring paper at Manny's and joke about how he constantly had to tune his guitar.
All the studio musicians had 4 and 5 dates a day. In those days you'd walk into A&R or any of the recording studios within a 5 block radius of Manny's, and there would be entire string and horn sections, full orchestras, all superstars, played on every hit record ever made.
All the 'cats' used to hang at Jim and Andy's between dates. There was a phone on each table, a direct line to Radio Registry, which was the service that booked all the musicians.
Henry told me that the Everly Brothers used to come to Manny's, they would give their wives money to shop at Bloomingdale's and they would hang at Manny's for hours.
All the musicians used to have their instruments delivered to Manny's from the factories. Ringo's drums, McCartney and Hendrix's guitars. Henry said he wished he'd kept the boxes, and, he wished he'd had the yellow guitar that he made all of them play...autographed.
But the thousands of pictures on the wall, each with a personal sentiment to Henry or his father Manny, are priceless.
But the thing all the musicians say they will miss the most about Manny's is....the hang!
Sandi Bachom
Music (musician) Lover
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