Barry Manilow is taking a victory lap within the type of a farewell live performance tour that the 82-year-old pop legend jokes is his “see him before he croaks tour.”
With every live performance, he’s saying farewell to a sure area, and on July 18 he says goodbye to Oakland and on Sunday, July 20, he says goodbye to San Jose. These are the final scheduled dates on the present leg of the Final Live shows tour, however the always-working Manilow will resume his Las Vegas residency on the Worldwide Theater from September into December, so he’s probably not accomplished.
Talking by way of cellphone earlier than a Rhode Island present, Manilow seems to be again on a unprecedented profession that exploded in 1974 when “Mandy” grew to become a large hit, and Brooklyn-born Barry Alan Pincus (Manilow is his mom’s maiden identify) as a result of an unlikely pop famous person.
Earlier than “Mandy,” Manilow spent a lot of his early profession, throughout the Sixties, writing and singing industrial jingles for such iconic manufacturers as State Farm Insurance coverage, Pepsi, Band-Help, McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Rooster. A few of his creations are nonetheless in circulation: The following time you hear the State Farm track (“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there …”) know that you’ve got Manilow to thank for it.
He additionally started working as a songwriter, conductor and arranger for a wide range of tv productions. However Manilow says he by no means actually supposed to be the man within the highlight however relatively the pianist, the composer, “the guy in the background,” as he places it.
“I had been playing piano for all these great singers, but I had made demos of my songs that I was sending around, and Bell Records wanted to make a whole album with me singing,” Manilow recollects. “I said that was ridiculous, but that’s what they wanted.”
Then got here “Mandy,” after which the hits stored coming, and Manilow had to determine methods to be a performer.
“I had worked with Bette Midler, playing for her for a couple of years, and I learned a lot from her,” Manilow says. “She was the bravest performer you will ever see, and she just got into the craziest things. When I had to tour, I was not good at it. I remember at the Bijou in Philadelphia, I stunk. I was really terrible. I told my manager I didn’t want to do this anymore, but the audiences liked me.”
And Manilow was studying to love them again.
“I began to get comfortable talking to them, and my songs were solid, and my arranging was solid,” he says. “After a while, I could tell the audiences were having a good time, so I owe my career to these people who let me learn how to be a performer while I was being a performer.”
If music snobs turned their noses up at Manilow’s open-hearted love songs, audiences by no means did. Because the blockbuster singles like “I Write the Songs,” “Copacabana” and “Could It Be Magic” continued to dominate the charts, Manilow by no means misplaced his everyman appeal.
“People see me on stage and know this guy is real,” he says. “I’m not a phony. You know who I am. I’ve never figured out a way of not being myself on stage, and I think that has worked in my favor.”
In reality, that is the important thing to Manilow’s superpower. Take his 1977 hit “Looks Like We Made It.” The track begins quietly, relatively ordinarily, with Manilow desirous about a former love and contemplating how they’ve each moved on from each other. However then the orchestra winds up, and Manilow goes from Clark Kent to Superman in a single seismic step-up key modulation for the ultimate, impassioned refrain. The track all of a sudden turns into arena-sized, and it’s undeniably Manilow at his most Manilow.
“Whether a song ends big or not depends on the song I’m singing. But you’re right. I do build a song and not just keep it on one level,” he says modestly. He additionally acknowledges that earlier than he was a pop music grasp, he was steeped in Broadway musicals, the place the calibration of emotion is engineered for optimum leisure worth and dramatic influence.
Manilow is, the truth is, a part of an esteemed membership that features George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim. He added “Broadway composer” to his resume in 2023 when his musical “Harmony” opened on the Nice White Manner. Getting there was an extended, tough course of, however ultimately, Manilow says he’s happy with the rating, which is preserved on the unique forged album.
Manilow scoffs on the concept of some form of jukebox musical primarily based on his life and hit songs.
“I’m still doing it myself,” he says with fun.
And he’s not accomplished creating, both. He’s ending up an album of authentic songs that he’s been engaged on for years, regularly tweaking preparations right here and there.
“They’re solid, solid songs,” he says. “I keep thinking of the word ‘old-fashioned,’ and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. Maybe ‘classic’ is a better word, but they’re the kind of songs you don’t hear much anymore.”
“I’m still doing it myself,” he says with fun.
Getting again to his present gig, Manilow acknowledges that he doesn’t actually need to tour anymore. “I’ve got more money than I ever thought I’d have,” he says.
However Manilow does assume it’s necessary to say a correct farewell.
“With this tour, it’s kind of bittersweet because we’re going places that have always been supportive of me,” he says. “People are coming to see their old friend Barry because I’m not coming back to their city, and they want to say goodbye. I love being with all these people, and I’m going to make them feel good. That’s my job. If I can make them forget for 90 minutes what they’re going through, what everybody is going through, then that’s what I’m going to be doing until I can’t do it anymore.”
Chad Jones has been writing about Bay Space arts since 1992; theaterdogs.web
BARRY MANILOW
The Final Live shows tour
When & the place: 7 p.m. July 18 at Oakland Area, 7000 Area Manner, Oakland; $31-$231; 7 p.m. July 20 at SAP Middle, 525 W. Santa Clara, San Jose
Tickets: $31-$231 Oakland, $34-$183 San Jose, (each topic to alter); ticketmaster.com.
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