Unlike Ms. Keys, Mr. Manilow actually can lay some claim to having "classical chops" --remember his dreadful abuse of the Chopin c minor prelude. Songs like "Mandy" and "copacabana" are the kinds of dreck that get stuck in one's head at the supermarket... SO vegas seems a natural.
But shouldn't Barry get at least a little respect.. I think the article makes a compelling case for the affirmative.
"It's his reputation as a master entertainer that's kept Manilow viable ever since the hits dropped off in the '80s and he started making noncommercial jazz albums. Last year his supposed farewell tour sold out stadiums across the country. "It must have been another generation that discovered me," Man-ilow says. "Or maybe they were brainwashed by their parents and wanted to see me before I died. 'Look, he's still breathing. Buy the ticket!' "
Manilow has been performing ever since he was a kid himself. He was raised in Brooklyn by his mother, the daughter of Russian immigrants—his father, a truck-driver for a beer company, left shortly after Barry was born—and "a billion" cousins. Music figured prominently in the household. "If it had been another time and place, my mom could have been Ethel Merman," says Manilow, in his still-strong Brooklyn accent. "But she couldn't, so I did it." He went to Juilliard out of high school, got a job in the CBS mailroom and was married by 22. Four years later he'd left the day job—and the marriage—to jam in Manhattan's jazz clubs and cabarets."
It's actuall a good read.
Check it out
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