Music legend Barry Manilow is full of excitement and energy in a ‘really great’ 2018

WHAT a year for Barry Manilow – a spectacular return to Las Vegas for a long season AND a six-date trip to his second home – Britain.

Oh, yes, and Barry has another big day on Sunday June 17, when he will be 75!

“This is turning out to be a really great year – I am so happy and excited,” said Barry, who is buzzing about the future.

“Can you believe this? I’m supposed to be at an age when I am comfy in slippers and with a pipe but I’m starting another residency at the Westgate International Theatre in Las Vegas.

“Shouldn’t I be taking a cruise or being wheeled around a park? Nah! Not me! Being in your 70s is like being in your 50s these days and I feel great.

“Yes, I have had a few ops here and there but I can sing, I can dance, I can do almost all the things I did when I was in my 20s but I am better now.

“It probably takes me a little longer to get my breath back but I am having fun.

“I have nothing but great memories of Las Vegas.

“When I first did a residency there all those years ago, people told me it would be difficult, but the audiences every night were just fantastic.

“The band, my crew, we all had such a great time – it is no wonder that we are all excited about being back.

“We have a nine-piece band but the way we are staging the whole thing, it will sound like a 900-piece.

“We will give them more than just a guy standing in front of the band – Sinatra used to do that brilliantly but I also like the production stuff.

“I’ll be able to change the show every night in some areas, and keep those big Vegas moments, too.

“I honestly feel about 35. I am pretty fit and I have as much passion and energy as ever.

“Age only matters if you’re a banana and have limited time before you start to go a funny colour.

“Being active is the answer to being young. If I stopped and just sat around on the couch all day glued to the television, I would get old really quick.

“I’m not at all like that. I am always looking forward to the next album, tour, production… whatever.

“The show is called Barry Manilow Las Vegas: The Hits Come Home and that’s exactly what we are going to do – have a big party to celebrate all the hits.

“I am doing two nights in the great national stadium in Mexico City and then in September I shall be in my second home – Great Britain!” he enthused.

“I am so looking forward to that – we are going to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and London.

“I have so many fantastic memories of my visits to London – I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to be back again.

“I have found you can drop into any roadside cafe or pub and you are just treated like an ordinary guy, an old friend who has just called in. That’s so great, I love it.

“We are squeezing these dates in among the residency and I know that as well as coming to Britain, there are a lot of fans planning holiday trips to Vegas to come and see me, and that is just so good.

“Imagine people jumping onto a plane and travelling thousands of miles just to come to see my show. I am really amazed by that, and a big thank you to all of them.”

Barry has never drifted from his fans. He knows what it is like to be a fan himself, coming as he does from humble beginnings.

“I was a Brooklyn kid from a typically Jewish family,” he said.

“We all loved music and we sang and played instruments. In those days, you just had to play the accordion, it was almost a tradition and I was no different.

“It was my grandfather, Joe Manilow, who got me into recording when I was just five years old.

“We used to have recording booths in shops in those days and he used to take me each week to make a recording of a song and playing the accordion.

“I loved those occasions but it did not give me any great ambitions towards showbusiness. I was just an average kid.

“I got average grades at school and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I just took each day as it arrived.”

When Barry was 13, his mother married an Irishman named Willie Murphy who also loved music.

At Barry’s bar mitzvah, his new dad gave him a celebratory present of a piano and thus unwittingly began a journey into the exciting world of showbusiness.

“Playing the accordion helped a lot because I knew my way around a keyboard,” said Barry.

“I took to the piano very quickly and began giving recitals. I was hooked on music and I knew there was only one life for me.

“Performing was not the first option. I studied music and became a musical director. That was really how it all started.

“I was still a teenager and doing some arranging and accompanying people on piano. Then one day, I had a real break when I was asked to accompany Bette Midler.

“From then on, we worked together on tours and even though we were both strong characters who wanted to get our own way, we worked well together.

“It is history now that I began to do more numbers and got a good reaction from the audience and that was it, Barry Manilow was doing his own thing.

“Bette and I are still friends and never rule out doing more together.”

So here is Barry some years later and still an international star with more energy than entertainers a third of his age.

“I don’t know what is in store for my actual birthday,” he said.

“It is on the Sunday just after our official opening in Las Vegas and I shall have a big drink – probably a latte, my favourite coffee.

“It is hard to think about something like that when your head is full of performing and making sure you put on the best possible show.

“I don’t think you should ever forget that when the lights go out and you leave the theatre, you are just the same ordinary guy who went to the same schools as everyone else and did the same things as everyone else.

“Your path just took you in a different direction to most and you were able to follow your star. That doesn’t make you special, that makes you very lucky.”

Although Barry considers himself to have been fortunate, there is no doubt that to the rest of us, he’s just a massive talent that has brought delight to millions all over the world – and he is still doing it.

“The last time I started a residency in Vegas, we aimed for about a few months and ran for about eight years,” he said. “Imagine if that happens again – I’ll be celebrating my 83rd birthday singing Copacabana amid a group of dancers on a fantastic stage. How good will that be!”