Barry Manilow ( MAN-il-oh; born Barry Alan Pincus; June 17, 1943) is an American singer and songwriter with a career spanning over sixty years. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", "Looks Like We Made It", "Mandy", "I Write the Songs", "Ready to Take a Chance Again", "Can't Smile Without You", "Weekend in New England", and "Copacabana (At the Copa)".
Manilow has recorded and released 51 Top 40 singles on the Adult Contemporary Chart, including 13 that hit number one, 28 that appeared within the top ten, and 36 that reached the top twenty. He has released 13 platinum and six multi-platinum albums. Although not a favorite artist of music critics, Manilow has been praised by his peers in the recording industry. In the 1970s, Frank Sinatra predicted: "He's next."
As well as producing and arranging albums for himself and other artists, Manilow has written and performed songs for musicals, films, and commercials for corporations such as McDonald's, Pepsi Cola, and Band-Aid. He has been nominated for a Grammy Award (winning once) as a producer, arranger and performer fifteen times (and in every decade) from 1973 to 2015. He has also produced Grammy-nominated albums for Bette Midler, Dionne Warwick, Nancy Wilson, and Sarah Vaughan. Manilow has sold more than 85 million records as a solo artist worldwide, making him one of the world's bestselling artists.
Early life
Barry Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus on June 17, 1943, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. He is the son of Harold Kelliher, a truck driver of Irish descent, and Edna Manilow. Barry's mother made his father change his name to Pincus, the name of a Jewish uncle of his father from the 1800s. Barry's parents divorced when he was a baby, and his mother's family allowed no further contact between Barry and his father. Barry's maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, and his paternal grandfather was Jewish, while his grandmother was a Catholic of Irish descent. His Irish roots trace back to Limerick, Ireland. Barry's grandfather had his surname changed to Manilow a few weeks before Barry's bar mitzvah.
Manilow grew up in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn and graduated in 1961 from the now-defunct Eastern District High School. In high school, he met Susan Deixler, and they later married for a short time. He enrolled in the City College of New York, where he briefly studied before entering the New York College of Music. He also worked at CBS to pay his expenses while he was a student. Afterward he studied musical theater at Juilliard Performing Arts School.
Career
1960s
In 1964, Manilow met Bro Herrod, a CBS director, who asked him to arrange some songs for a musical adaptation of the melodrama, The Drunkard. Instead, Manilow wrote an entire original score. Herrod used Manilow's composition in the Off Broadway musical, which had an eight-year run at New York's 13th Street Repertory Theatre.
During this time, Manilow began work as a commercial jingle writer and singer, which continued through the remainder of the 1960s. He performed many of the TV jingles he composed, including State Farm Insurance ("Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there") or Band-Aid ("I am stuck on Band-Aid, 'cause Band-Aid's stuck on me!"), for which he adopted a childlike voice and wrote the music (Donald B. Wood wrote the lyrics). His singing-only credits include commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi ("all across the nation, it's the Pepsi Generation"), McDonald's ("you deserve a break today"), and Dr Pepper. Manilow was awarded an Honorary Clio at the 50th Anniversary Clio Awards in Las Vegas in 2009 for his 1960s work as a jingle writer and singer. When accepting the award, he said he learned the most about making pop music by working for three or four years as a writer in the jingle industry.
By 1967, Manilow was the musical director for the WCBS-TV series Callback, which premiered on January 27, 1968. He next conducted and arranged for Ed Sullivan's production company, arranging a new theme for The Late Show, while writing, producing, and singing his radio and television jingles. At the same time, he and Jeanne Lucas performed as a duo for a two-season run at Julius Monk's Upstairs at the Downstairs club in New York.
By 1969, Manilow was signed by Columbia/CBS Music vice-president and recording artist Tony Orlando, who went on to co-write with and produce Manilow and a group of studio musicians under the name "Featherbed" on Columbia Pictures's newly acquired Bell Records label.
1970s
Manilow recorded and accompanied artists on the piano for auditions and performances in the first two years of the 1970s. He recorded four tracks as Featherbed, produced by Tony Orlando on Bell Records. Three of the tracks were "Morning", a ballad; "Amy", a psychedelic-influenced pop song; and an early, uptempo version of his own co-composition (with Orlando) "Could It Be Magic". The fourth tune recorded was "Rosalie Rosie," which was to be the flip side of "Could It Be Magic", but Bell Records went with "Morning" as the flip for Featherbed's second release instead. Neither of two singles released impacted the charts.
Bette Midler saw Manilow's act in 1971 and chose him as her pianist at the Continental Baths in New York City that year, and subsequently as a producer on both her debut and second record albums, The Divine Miss M (1972) and Bette Midler (1973). He also acted as her musical director on the tour mounted for her first album. In 1973, Manilow was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his production role on The Divine Miss M at the 16th Grammy Awards. Manilow worked with Midler from 1971 to 1975.
After the Featherbed singles failed to impact on the music charts, in July 1973, Bell Records released the album Barry Manilow, which offered an eclectic mix of piano-driven pop and guitar-driven rock music, including a song called "I Am Your Child", which Manilow had composed with Marty Panzer.
Among other songs on the album were Jon Hendricks' vocalese jazz standard "Cloudburst", most successfully recorded by his group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross in 1959, and a slower-tempo version of "Could It Be Magic". The latter's music was based on Chopin's "Prelude in C Minor" and provided Donna Summer with one of her first hits. It was also covered by Take That in the 1990s, as an upbeat disco song.
In 1974, former CBS Records chief Clive Davis became temporary president of Bell with the goal of revitalizing Columbia Pictures's music division. With a $10 million investment by CPI, and a reorganization of the various Columbia Pictures legacy labels (Colpix, Colgems, and Bell), Davis introduced Columbia Pictures' new record division, Arista, in November 1974, with Davis himself owning 20% of the venture. Bell had its final number 1 hit in January 1975 with Manilow's breakthrough 1974 release of the single "Mandy" (Bell 45,613), followed shortly by the label's final hit, as well as its final single, "Look in My Eyes Pretty Woman" by Tony Orlando and Dawn (Bell 45,620—US No. 11), after which the more successful Bell albums were reissued on Arista. The final releases using the Bell imprint have the designation "Bell Records, Distributed by Arista Records, 1776 Broadway, New York, New York 10019" around the rim of the label.
Davis' reorganization efforts continued to bear fruit in 1974, with the release of Manilow's second album, Barry Manilow II, with "Mandy" as the lead single. Manilow had not wanted to record the song, which had originally been titled "Brandy" when recorded by its co-writer Scott English, but the song was included at Davis's insistence. The title was changed to "Mandy" during the recording session on August 20, 1974, because there had already been a song called "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" performed by Looking Glass and released in 1972 on Davis's Epic label.
"Mandy" was the start of a string of hit singles and albums that lasted through the early 1980s, coming from the multi-platinum and multi-hit albums Tryin' to Get the Feeling, This One's for You, Even Now, and One Voice. Following the success of Barry Manilow II, the first Bell Records album was remixed and reissued on Arista Records as Barry Manilow I. When Manilow went on his first tour, he included in his show what he called "A V.S.M.", or "A Very Strange Medley", a sampling of some of the commercial jingles that he had written, composed, and/or sung in the 1960s. The medley appeared later on his triple-platinum 1977 album Barry Manilow Live.
Beginning with Manilow's March 22, 1975, appearance on American Bandstand to promote the second album, a productive friendship with Dick Clark started. Among their projects together were numerous appearances by Manilow on Clark's productions of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, singing his original seasonal favorite "It's Just Another New Year's Eve", American Bandstand anniversary shows, American Music Awards performances, and the 1985 television movie Copacabana, starring Manilow and executive produced by Clark.
Despite being a songwriter in his own right, several of Manilow's commercial successes were songs written by others. In addition to "Mandy", written by Scott English and Richard Kerr, other hits he did not write or compose include "Tryin' to Get the Feeling Again" (by David Pomeranz), "Weekend in New England" (by Randy Edelman), "Ships" (by Ian Hunter), "Looks Like We Made It" (by Richard Kerr and Will Jennings), "Can't Smile Without You" and "Ready to Take a Chance Again" (by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel). His number 1 hit "I Write the Songs" was composed by Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys. According to album liner notes, Manilow did, however, perform co-production as well as arrangement duties on all the above tracks along with Ron Dante, most famous for his vocals on records by The Archies.
Manilow's breakthrough in Britain came with the release of Even Now, the first of many top-20 albums on that side of the Atlantic, which contained four singles that became major hits in the US. This was quickly followed by Manilow Magic – The Best Of Barry Manilow, also known as Greatest Hits. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, ABC aired four variety television specials starring Manilow, who served as an executive producer. The Barry Manilow Special with Penny Marshall as his guest premiered on March 2, 1977, to an audience of 37 million. The special was nominated for four Emmys at the 29th Primetime Emmy Awards and won in the category of Outstanding Special–Comedy, Variety or Music. The Second Barry Manilow Special in 1978, with Ray Charles as his guest, was also nominated for four Emmys at the 30th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Manilow's "Ready to Take a Chance Again" originated in the film Foul Play, which also featured "Copacabana", from his fourth studio album Even Now. "Ready to Take a Chance Again" and its songwriters Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel were nominated that year for the "Best Original Song" Oscar at the 51st Academy Awards. On February 11, 1979, a concert from Manilow's sold-out dates from his Even Now Tour at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles aired on the HBO series Standing Room Only, which was the first pay-television show to pose a serious threat to network primetime specials for ratings. From the same tour in 1978, a one-hour special from Manilow's sold-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall aired in the UK.
On May 23, 1979, ABC aired The Third Barry Manilow Special, with John Denver as his guest. This special was nominated for two Emmy awards at the 31st Primetime Emmy Awards and won for Outstanding Choreography. Also in 1979, Manilow produced Dionne Warwick's "comeback" album Dionne, her first to go platinum. He scored a top ten hit of his own, in the fall of 1979, with the song "Ships" (written and composed by Ian Hunter, former lead singer of Mott the Hoople) from the album One Voice.
1980s
During the 1980s, Manilow topped the Adult Contemporary radio charts with songs such as "The Old Songs", "Somewhere Down the Road", "Read 'Em and Weep" (by Jim Steinman), and a remake of the 1941 Jule Styne and Frank Loesser standard "I Don't Want to Walk Without You". Manilow's songs continued to receive frequent radio airplay throughout the decade. In the UK, Manilow performed five sold-out concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. In the United States, at Radio City Music Hall, his 1984 ten-night run set a box-office sales record of nearly $2 million, making him the top draw in the 52-year history of the venue. In 1980, Manilow's One Voice special, with Dionne Warwick as his guest, was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Music Direction at the 32nd Primetime Emmy Awards.
Also in 1980, a concert from Manilow's shows at London England's Wembley Arena was broadcast while he was on a world tour. Manilow released the self-titled Barry (1980), which was his first album to not reach the top ten in the United States, stopping at number 15. The album contained the top 10 hits "I Made It Through the Rain" (originally a minor hit for its writer, Gerard Kenny) and "Bermuda Triangle". The album If I Should Love Again followed in 1981, with two top 40 recordings that both hit number 1 on the AC chart—"The Old Songs" and "Somewhere Down The Road"—and a third single that became a hit in the UK, a cover of the 1965 The Four Seasons smash "Let's Hang On!". This was the first of his albums that Manilow produced without Ron Dante. Manilow's sold-out concert at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena aired nationally on Showtime and locally on Philadelphia's now-defunct PRISM. In 1982, a concert from his show at the Royal Albert Hall was broadcast in England. The live album and video Barry Live in Britain also came from his Royal Albert Hall shows.
On August 27, 1983, Manilow performed a landmark open-air concert at Blenheim Palace in Britain, an event that he told the audience was "one of the most exciting nights" in his life. It was the first such event ever held at that venue and was attended by an estimated 40,000 people. This concert was also taped for airing on Showtime. In December 1983, Manilow was reported to have endowed the music departments at six major universities in the United States and Canada. The endowments were part of a continuing endeavor by Manilow to recognize and encourage new musical talent.
In 1984, Manilow released 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe, a jazz/blues collection of original barroom tunes recorded in one live take in the studio. That same year, Showtime aired a documentary of Manilow recording the album with a number of jazz legends including Sarah Vaughan and Mel Tormé. In 1984 and 1985, England aired two one-hour concert specials from his National Exhibition Centre (NEC) concerts. Barry also produced more songs for Dionne Warwick 6 songs on her Finder Of Lost Love album and 1 on her Friends album both albums released in 1985. In 1985, Manilow left Arista Records for RCA Records, where he released the pop album Manilow, and began a phase of international music, as he performed songs and duets in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. The Manilow album was a complete about-face from the Paradise Cafe album, containing a number of uptempo tracks that featured synthesizers. In 1985, Japan aired a Manilow concert special where he played "Sakura" on the koto.
In his only lead acting role, Manilow portrayed Tony Starr in the 1985 CBS film Copacabana, based on his 1978 song "Copacabana", alongside Annette O'Toole as Lola Lamarr and Joseph Bologna as Rico Castelli. Manilow wrote all the songs for the movie, with lyrics provided by his longtime collaborators Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman. A soundtrack album for the TV film, Copacabana: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Album, was released on RCA Records.
In October 1986, Manilow, along with Sussman, Tom Scott, and Charlie Fox, went to Washington, D.C. for two days of meetings with legislators, including lunch with then Senator Al Gore. They were lobbying against a copyright bill put forward by local television broadcasters that would mandate songwriter-producer source licensing of theme and incidental music on syndicated television show reruns and would disallow the use of the blanket license then in effect. The songwriters said without the blanket license, artists would have to negotiate up front with producers individually, without knowing if a series would be a success. The license now pays according to a per-use formula. Manilow said that such a bill would act as a precedent for broadcasters to get rid of the blanket license entirely.
The following year, McGraw-Hill published Manilow's autobiography, Sweet Life: Adventures on the Way to Paradise, which took three years to complete. While promoting the work, Manilow defended his music in a telephone interview: "I live in laid-back L.A., but in my heart, I'm an energetic New Yorker and that's what has always come out of my music. I've always been surprised when the critics said I made wimpy little ballads." Manilow returned to Arista Records in 1987 with the release of Swing Street. The album, a mixture of traditional after-dark and techno jazz, contained "Brooklyn Blues", an autobiographical song for Manilow, and "Hey Mambo", an uptempo Latin style duet with Kid Creole, produced with the help of Emilio Estefan, Jr., founder of Miami Sound Machine.
CBS aired Manilow's Big Fun on Swing Street special in March 1988. It featured songs and special guests from his Swing Street and 2:00 am Paradise Cafe albums, including Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Phyllis Hyman, Stanley Clarke, Carmen McRae, Tom Scott, and Uncle Festive, a band within Manilow's band at the time. The special was nominated for two Emmys in technical categories, and won in the category of Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety or Music Program at the 40th Primetime Emmy Awards.
In 1988, Manilow performed "Please Don't Be Scared" and "Mandy/Could It Be Magic" at That's What Friends Are For: AIDS Concert '88, a benefit concert for the Warwick Foundation headed by Dionne Warwick and shown on Showtime a few years later. In the 1988 Walt Disney Pictures animated feature Oliver & Company, Bette Midler's character sang a new Manilow composition, "Perfect Isn't Easy". The 1989 release of Barry Manilow, which contained "Please Don't Be Scared", "Keep Each Other Warm", and "The One That Got Away", ended Manilow's streak of albums of original self-written material (he wrote or arranged only two of the album's songs) and began a phase of his recording career consisting of covers and compilations.
From April 18 to June 10, 1989, Manilow put on a show called Barry Manilow at the Gershwin, making 44 appearances at the Gershwin Theatre (also known as the Uris Theatre), where he had also recorded Barry Manilow Live in 1976. A bestselling 90-minute video of the same show was released the following year as Barry Manilow Live on Broadway. The Showtime one-hour special Barry Manilow SRO on Broadway consisted of edited highlights from this video. Manilow followed this set of shows with a world tour of the Broadway show.
1990s
Manilow released a number of cover tunes during the 1990s, starting with tracks on the 1989 release Barry Manilow, and continuing with his 1990 Christmas LP Because It's Christmas. On the Christmas album, Manilow was joined by pop girl trio Exposé and together they recreated, note for note, a 1943 million-selling recording of "Jingle Bells" by Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters. Manilow has credited Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne Andrews as inspiring him, perhaps most evident in his recording of "Jump, Shout Boogie". More "event" albums followed, including Showstoppers, a collection of Broadway songs (1991), Singin' with the Big Bands (1994), and a late 1970s collection Summer of '78 (1996), which included the hit "I Go Crazy", a hit for Paul Davis in 1978. The decade ended with Manilow recording a tribute to Frank Sinatra, Manilow Sings Sinatra (1998), released months after Sinatra's death.
In 1990, Japan aired National Eolia Special: Barry Manilow On Broadway where he sang the title song "Eolia", which was used as a song there in a commercial for an air conditioner company of the same name, as well as other songs from his 1989–1990 Live on Broadway tour. In the early 1990s, Manilow signed on with Don Bluth to compose the songs with lyricists Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman for three animated films. He co-wrote the Broadway-style musical scores for Thumbelina (1994) and The Pebble and the Penguin (1995). The third film, Rapunzel, was shelved after the poor performance of The Pebble and the Penguin. Manilow was to be cast as the voice of a cricket. He also composed the score and wrote two songs with Sussman for Disney Sing Along Songs: Let's Go To The Circus.
Manilow produced the 1991 album With My Lover Beside Me by legendary jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson. The record is based on lyrics left behind by famed composer Johnny Mercer that had never been set to music. Manilow was invited in 1993 by Mercer's widow to complete the songs. His own recording of "When October Goes", with lyrics by Mercer, was released as a single in 1984, from his album 2:00 AM Paradise Cafe. Further Mercer compositions were set to music by Manilow over the following years, culminating in the 1991 Nancy Wilson release. Manilow is featured in a duet on the record in the final cut "Epilogue".
On February 19, 1992, Manilow testified before the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration House Committee in support of H.R. 3204, The Audio Home Recording Act of 1991. The bill was signed into law on October 28, 1992, by President George H. W. Bush and became effective immediately. In 1993, PBS aired Barry Manilow: The Best of Me, which was taped at Wembley Arena in England earlier that year. The BBC also played a one-hour version of the same show including "The Best of Me", sung during the concert, as a bonus song or "lucky strike extra" as Manilow says, not seen in The Complete Collection and Then Some..., the video release of the show, but the song was included on the DVD of the same title, with Manilow seated in front of a black curtain, lip-syncing to the recording. He performed 14 concerts as part of an extended tour of Germany, Austria, and Denmark. Manilow branched out in another direction and, with Sussman, launched Copacabana, a musical play based on previous Manilow-related adaptations. They wrote new songs and it ran for two years in London's West End, and a tour company formed.
In December 1996, A&E aired Barry Manilow: Live By Request, the first of his two Live By Request appearances. The broadcast was A&E's most successful music program, attracting an estimated 2.4 million viewers. The show was also simulcast on the radio. In March 1997, VH-1 aired Barry Manilow: The Summer of '78, a one-hour special of Manilow solo at the piano being interviewed and playing his greatest hits as well as songs from Summer of '78, his latest release at the time.
In another collaboration, Manilow and Sussman co-wrote Harmony: A New Musical, based on the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a male singing group popular in Germany from 1928 to 1934. The musical previewed from October 7 to November 23, 1997, at the La Jolla Playhouse. In 2003, Harmony was originally scheduled for a tryout run in Philadelphia before going to Broadway, but was canceled after financial difficulties. In a legal battle with Mark Schwartz, the show's producer, Manilow and Sussman in 2005 won back the rights to the musical. The work was staged in Atlanta in 2013 and Los Angeles in 2014, had its New York debut in 2022 at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene and came to Broadway in late 2023 for a three-month run at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
In 1998, Manilow released the record album Manilow Sings Sinatra which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album at the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards in 1999.
On October 23, 1999, NBC aired the two-hour special StarSkates Salute to Barry Manilow, taped at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, featuring numerous figure skaters performing to Manilow's music. Manilow also performed.
2000s
In 2000, Manilow had two specials, Manilow Country and Manilow Live!, taped over two consecutive days at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, Tennessee. On April 11, 2000, The Nashville Network (TNN) aired the two-hour Manilow Country, which featured country stars Trisha Yearwood, Neal McCoy, Deana Carter, Jo Dee Messina, Lorrie Morgan, Kevin Sharp, Lila McCann, Gillian Welch, and Jaci Velasquez singing their favorite Manilow hits with a "country" twist; Manilow also performed. This special was TNN's first High Definition (HD) broadcast and became one of TNN's highest rated concert specials.
In June 2000, DirecTV aired the two-hour concert special Manilow Live! where Manilow had his band, a 30-piece orchestra, and a choir. This HDTV special documented the concert tour at the time with the greatest hits of his career and was also released to video. Also that year, he worked with Monica Mancini on her Concord album The Dreams of Johnny Mercer, which included seven songs of Mercer's lyrics set to Manilow's music. Meanwhile, Manilow's record contract with Arista Records was not renewed due to new management. He then got a contract at Concord Records, a jazz-oriented label in California, and started work on the concept album Here at the Mayflower. The album was another eclectic mix of styles, almost entirely composed and produced by Manilow himself.
While Manilow was at Concord Records, the Barry Manilow Scholarship was awarded for four consecutive years (2002–2005) to the six highest-achieving students to reward excellence in the art and craft of lyric writing. The UCLA Extension course "Writing Lyrics That Succeed and Endure" was taught by long-time Manilow collaborator Marty Panzer, and each student received three additional "master class" advanced sessions as well as a three-hour private, one-on-one session with Panzer. Scholarship recipients were selected by the instructor based on progress made within the course, lyric writing ability, and the instructor's assessment of real potential in the field of songwriting. In February 2002, Manilow returned to the charts when Arista released a greatest hits album, Ultimate Manilow. On May 18, 2002, he returned to CBS with Ultimate Manilow, his first special on the network since his Big Fun on Swing Street special in 1988. The special was filmed in the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, and was nominated for an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Music Direction at the 54th Primetime Emmy Awards.
Produced by Manilow, Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook was released on September 30, 2003. It was the first time the pair had worked together in more than twenty years. The album went gold, and they collaborated again in 2005 on Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook. On December 3, 2003, A&E aired A Barry Manilow Christmas: Live by Request, his second of two concerts for the series. The two-hour special had Manilow taking requests for Christmas songs performed live with a band and an orchestra. Manilow told the audience that he was what Clay Aiken was going to look like in thirty years, acknowledging an ongoing comparison of the two. Also on the special were guests Cyndi Lauper, José Feliciano, and Midler (who, busy preparing her own tour in Los Angeles, appeared only in a pre-taped segment).
In 2004, Manilow released two albums: a live album, 2 Nights Live! (BMG Strategic Marketing Group, 2004); and Scores: Songs from Copacabana & Harmony, an album of Manilow singing songs from his musicals. Scores was the last of Manilow's creative projects with the Concord label.
During his third appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on September 15, 2004, Winfrey announced that Manilow is one of the most requested guests of all time on her show. On the show, he promoted his One Night Live! One Last Time! tour. It was around this period that Manilow appeared for the first time on the mainstream FOX program American Idol in which his back-up singer, Debra Byrd, doubles as voice coach on the series. Manilow also appeared on Clay Aiken's TV special A Clay Aiken Christmas.
Las Vegas Hilton executives in a press conference with Manilow on December 14, 2004, announced his signing to a long-term engagement as the house show. He began the residency in February 2005 with a show entitled Manilow: Music and Passion. In March 2006, Manilow's engagement was extended through 2008.
Manilow returned to Arista Records under Davis for a new covers album, released on January 31, 2006, The Greatest Songs of the Fifties. Manilow said he was blown away by the idea, which Davis presented when he visited Manilow's Las Vegas show. "When he suggested this idea to me, I slapped my forehead and said, 'Why hasn't anyone thought of this idea?'" Manilow said. It was an unexpected success, debuting at number one in the Billboard 200, marking the first time a Manilow album debuted at the top of the album chart as well as the first time a Manilow album had reached number one in 29 years. It was eventually certified Platinum in the U.S., and sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.
In March 2006, PBS aired Barry Manilow: Music and Passion, a Hilton concert recorded exclusively for the network's fundraising drive. Manilow was nominated for two Emmys, winning for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards. A sequel album to his bestselling fifties tribute album, The Greatest Songs of the Sixties was released on October 31, 2006, including songs such as "And I Love Her" and "Can't Help Falling in Love". It nearly repeated the success of its predecessor, debuting at number 2 in the Billboard 200.
In January 2007, Manilow returned to New York City for three shows at Madison Square Garden. These included showing onscreen Manilow performing in one of his first television appearances, while the "live" Manilow played along onstage. In August, he played several shows on the east coast of the United States. Four more took place in December, half in the New York tri-state area in Uniondale and East Rutherford, and two in Cleveland and Detroit. Manilow launched another short tour in early 2008, visiting several large venues, including the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. A further album in the decades themed series, The Greatest Songs of the Seventies, went on release September 18, 2007. Barry Manilow: Songs from the Seventies, a PBS concert special based on the work, was taped in Brooklyn in October 2007. The show aired on PBS in December 2007 and was rebroadcast over New Year 2009. He appeared on American Idol on February 3, 2009, during Hollywood Week to give advice to the contestants.
Manilow released his third Christmas album in November 2007, In the Swing of Christmas, which went Gold and earned him another Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Grammy Award nomination at the 51st Grammy Awards in 2008.
In December 2008, Manilow narrated the animated Christmas special Cranberry Christmas, which was broadcast on ABC Family and sponsored by Ocean Spray. In addition to narrating, he also contributed two original songs that he composed with his long time collaborator, lyricist Bruce Sussman: "Christmas Is Just Around the Corner" and "Watch Out for Mr. Grape". "Christmas Is Just Around the Corner" was also released as a single, and appeared as a bonus track on the 2009 re-release of In the Swing of Christmas.
He performed in A Capitol Fourth in 2009, when he took part in both the opening and closing performances, singing patriotic songs accompanied by the National Symphony Orchestra.
In October 2009, Manilow TV, a monthly video subscription service, launched. Once a month, Barry Manilow picks a different concert from his personal archive to show to subscribers. In the first month, the first episode showed performances on April 20–21, 1996, at Wembley Arena in London.