Barry Manilow Reveals His Thoughts on Outlasting His Peers: ‘Am I the Only One Left?’

Lauren Novak June 17, 2:27 pm

Barry Manilow performs on the runway during the Michael Kors Collection Fall 2019 Runway Show at Cipriani Wall Street on February 13, 2019 in New York City — Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Michael Kors

Barry Manilow is celebrating his 82nd birthday today, while continuing his “Last Concerts” farewell tour. While on tour, Manilow has been reflecting on his decades-long career and wonders if he is the only musician left performing from his time period. He explained to Billboard, “It’s like, ‘What? Am I the only one left?’ It’s Billy Joel, and Elton [John] is not well and Rod [Stewart] and Neil [Diamond]. Diana Ross is still in great shape I think. There must be only a handful of people in my world that are still there. I’m still healthy. I’m strong and I’ve still got my voice and my energy. The night I can’t hit the F natural on ‘Even Now,’ that’s the night I throw in the towel. But I can still do it.”

Although Manilow may be hanging up the microphone after this tour, he has said that he isn’t actually retiring right now, and still hopes to release a new album, which may be his last. His latest album, Night Songs II, was released in 2020. He shared about potential new songs, “I’ve been working on it for a long time … for so long that the style of music has changed. [Laughs] I had to go back and redo [the songs] so they sounded a little more contemporary. I had to take all the strings out, all the background vocals out ’cause they don’t do that anymore. They don’t use strings and background vocals and all that. Even I heard that it sounded dated, so we had to go back and redo it.”

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Manilow added that he isn’t try to compete with the current pop singers and admitted that he believes “songwriting has changed.” He said, “Young people don’t write the way I was trained to write. There’s no verse which goes into the chorus which goes back to the verse which goes to ending, and you change keys. They don’t do that. They start the song and then they just … it feels like a run-on sentence to me. I can’t find the hook. I can’t find the chorus. It just keeps on going, and then it ends. That’s not what this album is, and that’s not the way I know how to write, and I think my contemporary songwriters and people I work with would say the same.”

Meanwhile, Manilow is also celebrating the 50th anniversary of his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit, “Mandy.” While he is still out on the road and showcasing his hit songs, he shared that it does feel bittersweet to know that he likely won’t return to perform in many cities. He concluded, “I’ve never felt that before. Usually I know that [on] the next tour, I’ll probably come back here. But this time I know I’m not coming back to these cities. I’ve been doing this for so many years, and I’ve done these cities over and over and over, but this is it.”