Squeaky Clean band's husband-and-wife duo has been making music together for 50 years

From the start of a recent assembly at North Ridge Primary School in Commack, the members of the Squeaky Clean band had the students’ full attention.

Just moments into their performance, the more than 100 kids in attendance were enthusiastically slapping their thighs once, then twice, followed by a single clap over their heads in sync with the words “We Will Read You” to the tune of Queen’s “We Will Rock You.”

Guitarist and singer Glenn Manion talked about C.S. Lewis’ book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” then got the kids to fiercely roar in unison like lions. And, by the time the band wrapped up the show, meant to promote reading, with the song, “Sugar Sugar,” most of the pint-sized kids in the crowd were on their feet exuberantly dancing along.

For the members of the Squeaky Clean band — Manion, his wife, Suzanne Smithline on the bass guitar and their longtime drummer, Phil Leone — it was all in a day’s work.

Manion and Smithline, both 68, recently celebrated 50 years of performing together — a career that has taken them from the coffeehouses of Greenwich Village, where they started out as folk singers, to the set of a beloved Nickelodeon television show and, more often these days, to the schools and senior centers of Long Island and New York City.

The New Hyde Park residents said they have been able to eke out a living doing what they love for five decades through steady work, ingenuity and a willingness to adapt to the times.

“Not that it’s been easy to cobble together an income, but somehow we managed to get a house and raise three kids,” said Manion, who also teaches guitar at the Gold Coast Arts Center in Great Neck.

Michelle Bell, principal of the Parkville School in New Hyde Park, said the band has performed for the past three years during the school’s Parents as Reading Partners program.

“Their Reading Rocks show gets our students and staff singing, dancing and learning about the magic of books — all while enjoying fantastic music,” said Bell, noting that Smithline is a Parkville alum. “We’re so grateful for the fun and excitement they bring to our school each year.”

GREENWICH VILLAGE DEBUT

The couple met their freshman year at New York University, where they lived one floor apart in the same dorm, Manion recalled.

“I carried my guitar up to the fourth floor and Suzanne asked if I would be interested in singing with her,” said Manion, who plays electric and acoustic guitar, banjo and trombone.

They made their first appearance on Oct. 15, 1974, at an open-mic night at Gerde’s Folk City, a legendary Greenwich Village coffeehouse.

The pair married in 1978 and performed on the road as a lounge act from 1979 to 1984. Around the same time, Manion said they sang and played older pop songs and standards for seniors in nursing homes.

When they first started playing together, Manion said they called themselves Suzy and Glenn. From 1977 to 1983, they went by Bes’ Friends after a Lovin’ Spoonful song.

In the early 1980s, Manion said, “A lot of the bands sort of affected a big, tattooed, greaser kind of look.” Realizing they couldn’t pull that off, they decided to distinguish themselves with a clean-cut vibe and renamed their band Squeaky Clean. “When we got into schools, that name made us seem less threatening,” he said. “It’s an identity that’s proved durable.”

BEST UNSIGNED BAND

During the 1980s they also had another band, Combo Limbo, which specialized in mostly original, contemporary tunes. In 1989, they won a Best Unsigned Band award, presented to them by Lou Gramm of Foreigner at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan.

“This was probably the closest we came to a commercial breakthrough. Close, but no cigar,” said Manion.

The pair performed on Nickelodeon’s “Eureeka’s Castle,” a children’s puppet show that first aired in 1989, and recorded 45s, an album and a full-length CD, as well as a six-song EP with Richie Cannata, a tenor sax player who has accompanied Billy Joel.

In 1985, Manion said they were invited to perform a program for children at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, where they were asked to provide context for the music they performed. This led to their attending a Nassau BOCES Arts in Education workshop to help them develop school musical programming, which they began in earnest in 1988.

Although the couple’s original plan was to get signed to a record label and go on tour, over time Manion said they realized they needed steady work and a reliable income.

“Instead of asking people to pay money and come out to see us, we said, ‘Well, let’s go where they are,’ ” Manion said.

In addition to the educational programs for kids and senior shows, they have incorporated a multicultural holiday show they call “Mistletunes” into their repertoire. They also get some gigs through the Westchester County Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation and at local libraries through the Town of Oyster Bay’s Distinguished Artist Concert Series. Their youngest daughter, Addison, 28, sometimes accompanies them on alto sax.

Recently, Manion sang the national anthem with a choral group before a packed audience at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

“Two days after that, I’m singing one-on-one in a hospital room,” said Manion, who volunteers with Musicians On Call, an organization that brings musical cheer to patients, families and caregivers.

Said Smithline, “Pretty much we work wherever somebody could imagine us being. We’ve worked on the beach, we’ve worked in Bloomingdale’s in Manhattan, we’ve worked on boats, we work in theaters.”

Since 1988, when Manion started keeping precise records, the pair said they have done 8,267 shows — more than 200 performances per year.

PICKING THEIR HITS

Though they boast an eclectic repertoire, including songs like “As Time Goes By,” “Rock Around the Clock” and “Mrs. Robinson,” they don’t play every genre, said Manion.

“We’re not going to do hip-hop,” Manion said. “We’re not going to do electronic dance music. We’re not going to try to sound like the pop singers now.”

In health facilities where people are confined to their beds, Manion said he goes from room to room dressed as a singing cowboy performing mostly country and western songs, “and hopefully don’t scare them to death.”

One of the most rewarding parts of their job, the couple said, is watching seniors with memory loss brighten to the sounds of familiar tunes.

Manion and Smithline are sensitive to the population they are playing to, said Renee Hartmann, program coordinator for the Memory Connection program at the Mid-Island Y JCC in Plainview.

“As you’re watching the people watch him, you can see the toes tapping,” Hartmann said of a recent solo Manion performance. “Some of the participants will sing to the song or call out the name of the song. And Glenn makes a point of trying to have that audience participation.”

‘EXTREMELY APPEALING’

Manion said the band is more like friends to the audience than simply entertainers. “For better or worse, we come off as very approachable,” he said.

The duo also regularly performs for the general population at senior communities, regaling audiences with music from many different areas, including popular classic tunes like “Downtown,” “Tennessee Waltz” and “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”

“We always get a lot of feedback about how much they appreciate the selection of songs that we do for them,” Manion said.

Patricia Shih, a singer-songwriter, filmmaker and author who lives in Huntington, said of the couple, “They’re extremely appealing, which is the secret to their success. Their choice of material is perfect. They do a lot of popular songs from different periods of music. They’re just tons of fun. They’re consummate entertainers.”

At a certain point, when they realized they weren’t going to become rich-and-famous rock ’n roll stars, Manion said they began to take a different perspective about their work and have come to see themselves as providing a service.

“We know we’re connecting,” Smithline said. “We know we’re making people happy.”