Barry Manilow always finds it a “surprise” that people enjoy his singing.
The 80-year-old music legend – who is one of the biggest-selling recording artists of all time and has had hits with ‘Mandy’, ‘Could It Be Magic’ and ‘Copacabana’ – considers himself a musician and not a singer or performer and can’t see why anyone would like his singing.
He told Parade magazine: “I never had ambitions to perform.
“It surprises me to this day that I’m still doing it, because I don’t think of myself as a singer or a performer. I’m a musician. And performing and singing it’s always a surprise that anybody likes it.”
Despite this, Manilow still loves to perform his most famous tracks at his shows and could never grow tired of them as the audience makes him feel like he’s “never heard” the songs before.
He told USA Today in 2019: “I’ve stopped performing album cuts and medleys of big bands and stuff. I know what the audience wants. They want the hits. And I am happy to give that to them. I’m one of those lucky guys who has a catalogue of hits that can fill up 90 minutes. I don’t know how that happened, but I’m very grateful. And I want to give them every song they know. So it’s a very happy audience out there …
“I could see the difference. When I would do something, they didn’t know, they would be very polite. And then when I would do ‘Looks Like We Made It,’ the roof would cave in. They were telling me what they wanted. And it’s my pleasure, honestly. It’s theirs. They gave these hits to me. So I’m happy to do it. I don’t mind it. I really don’t. You would think that I’d be sick of them by now. But I really am not because they make it brand new for me. It’s as if they’ve never heard these songs before.”