Manilow back in Arkansas for One Last Time!

Pop legend Barry Manilow appreciates the success he has had and still loves performing for audiences.

After having spent nearly half a century touring, it's the getting there that's getting to him.

"It's not time to stop singing or performing but it is time to get off the road," Manilow says via phone; the Brooklyn native now lives in Palm Springs, Calif. "I do love the job. I love performing and the audiences; it's terribly exciting. It's just the road. I can't even say it's physically taxing. It's 45 years of room service. It just gets old after a while. Leaving home, getting on a plane, going to a hotel. It's turned into my life. And I just wanted my life back."

The singer first performed in Arkansas on April 11, 1975, at Arkansas State University at Jonesboro.

"That was a million years ago," he says, chuckling.

Manilow, whose achievements include 50 Top 40 hits, began his One Last Time! Tour in Europe last year before bringing it to the United States. He says he'll conclude it in England.

He stresses that he's not moving into retirement and will still perform one-night engagements or possibly a Las Vegas residency, which he has done in the past.

"It's not the end of my performing career," assures Manilow, whose career spans from arranging and producing to composing and performing.

As a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame he recently received his 15th Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for his 2015 release My Dream Duets. He has been nominated for a Grammy in each of the last five decades.

In June, he'll turn 73 and Manilow, whose records have worldwide sales in excess of 80 million, is currently in the midst of creating another album which he expects will be released next year.

"It's a tribute to New York City," he says. "Half of it is standards about New York and the other half are original songs."

Manilow, whose given name is Barry Alan Pincus, chose to work as a musician but never aspired to be a star.

"The last thing I wanted to do was singing or performing," he says. "It was the last thing on my mind. My goal was to be a musician, arranger, conductor, a songwriter -- anything in the background. I never had any desire to be a singer or a performer -- my career chose me."

He says he was perplexed when he was offered a recording contract.

"I didn't understand why they even wanted me to sing on a record because I never considered myself to be a singer. But those days in the '70s, it was the years of singer-songwriters -- Joni Mitchell, Carole King and those people.

"I sang my own demos and Bell Records heard my demos of my own songs and offered me a record deal because I guess I was a singer-songwriter," Manilow recalls. "And I said yes only because it was a great way to get my songs out there. I didn't think it would sell. And the first record didn't, even though it had some really nice songs on it like 'Could It Be the Magic ' but I thought, 'Well, that'll be the end of that.' But they said, 'Let's make a second album' and it had 'Mandy' on it. And everything changed from that moment on."

And when success arrived, that's when things became challenging.

"I sometimes think failure is easier to deal with than success," Manilow says. "Fame is a difficult thing to deal with. It hits out of the blue and suddenly you are a big name on a marquee and everybody is telling you how great you are. ... When I see these young kids from American Idol and shows like that and they get famous overnight, I say a little prayer for them because I know it's a complicated and difficult life they've just been thrown into."

Manilow's show Friday at Verizon Arena in North Little Rock will have two local elements including the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Concert Choir, who will perform the final three songs with him, "I Write the Songs," "Copacabana" and "It's a Miracle."

"I think 'I Write the Songs' deserves a choir and it's fun to have a local choir to do it instead of taking one around the country with me for just two or three songs at the end," the singer said.

The choir, made up of students, faculty and staff, was contacted by Manilow's choir director in late February.

Initially, Bevan Keating, coordinator of vocal studies at UALR, wondered if the invitation to sing with Manilow might be a joke.

"I took it with a grain of salt, because I thought the concert being on April 1 might have been an April Fools' prank someone was playing on me," he said in a news release. "They called us again and said we want your group to be the choir that backs Barry up in the concert."

The other local connection is an instrument drive for North Little Rock School District students. Through his Manilow Music Project, he collects new or gently used musical instruments that are reconditioned and donated to local schools.

"I've been doing this for many years," he says. "When I get to a city, I donate a piano and ask the audience to bring down instruments to the arena that are in attics, basements, or just collecting dust and they don't need anymore -- any instrument, guitars, drums, trumpets. All of that will help these schools for the kids in the music classes."

A limited number of free tickets will be given to those who donate instruments (one pair per instrument) at the Verizon Arena box office between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Friday.

Dave Koz, a nine-time Grammy nominee saxophonist, will open the show. The smooth jazz performer who hosts the syndicated Dave Koz Radio Show weekdays and the Dave Koz Lounge, a two-hour Sunday morning show, previously toured with Manilow in the United Kingdom in 2015.

"It's been a very fun experience to get out there and perform by myself for 30 minutes," Koz says. "His audience didn't know who I was and I had a great time introducing myself to them."

Weekend on 03/31/2016