Barry Manilow, at 80, still has the drive to play live
The last time Barry Manilow came through these parts he was on his One Last Time! Tour, promising it would be his last major road trip.
“But I didn’t want to retire,” the man who writes the songs that make the whole world sing (though, ironically, not THAT one), says by phone from his home in California. “I just had to get off the road. After awhile it just got to me — the hotels and airplanes and bad room service. I was in some locker room that was a dressing room and I looked at my manager Garry (Kief) and said, ‘I think I’m done.’”
As he noted, Manilow, 80, has found other ways to occupy his time. He’s released two albums since then and had an expected hit in 2020 when his 1989 song “When the Good Times Come Again” was renewed during the pandemic. He also got “Harmony,” his stage musical about the Comedian Harmonists in Germany during the 1920s, bound for Broadway, where it opens during October.
And he’s continued to perform, with a regular residency at the Westgate Resort & Casino in Las Vegas and occasional short-burst forays to “some of our favorite cities.”
“It’s perfect because I can still do my thing on stage and not be away from home the way I used to,” Manilow explains. “I still have the passion and the edge. I’ve got this great catalog of songs and this great band and it’s just a wonderful experience. I still love performing but I love being home as well as I love being on stage. So the way we’re doing it now is perfect.”
Manilow’s current show is titled Hits! 2023, and that’s exactly what he delivers. And he has the goods; 17 Top 20 singles on the Billboard 200 chart since his debut album came out 50 years ago, and 15 of those hit No. 1 on the Adult Contemporary chart — including pop staples such as “Mandy,” “It’s a Miracle,” “Can’t Smile Without You,” “Looks Like We Made It” and “I Write the Songs.” (“Copacabana (At the Copa)” was Top 10.)
“The audience now wants to hear the stuff that they know,” notes Manilow, who through his Manilow Music Project also honors a music teacher in each municipal area he plays (Michael Steele of Lake Orion High School will received a $5,000 prize and another $5,000 to buy instruments for his program).
“Every time I try to put an album cut in I can feel the air go out of the room — not every time, but overall they want to hear the stuff they know, and I am one of the lucky guys who has enough familiar songs that I can fill out the whole evening. So I give that to them, and I’m happy to do it.”
Manilow was, nevertheless, caught off guard that “When the Good Times Come Again” has jumped onto the list of songs fans know.
“I had forgotten totally about that song when it jumped on the charts,” he says. “We were all surprised. I guess it was very appropriate for where we were at that point — and I think it’s appropriate any ol’ time. That’s a wonderful lyric, wonderful melody. Most of my songs have a lot of feeling to them, but that one was right on the money. It said what we were all feeling at the time.”
Manilow will be adding music to his canon as well. He’s “just finishing” a new pop album, though he quips that, “you tell me how to sell one of those now.” He’s also working on a Christmas album, while the upcoming Broadway run of “Harmony,” which premiered 26 years ago in San Diego, will bring greater attention to the songs he wrote for the piece.
“That feels unbelievable,” Manilow says. “I was raised with this attitude of ‘Don’t get your hopes up because it’ll never happen,’ about so many things. But as it’s gotten closer and closer to actually happening, it was thrilling. We hit a lot of brick walls, but we always came back…and now, here we are.
“Like I said, I still feel the passion. I still feel the edge. And the day that I don’t, that’s when I actually will hang it up. But I’m still there. I still have a head of hair. I don’t have a big pot belly. I’m still able to run around on stage without limping. So far nothing seems to have changed drastically yet. I know it will, because I’m a man of a certain age…but not yet.”