At almost 83 years old, Barry Manilow’s voice is raspier than his fans remember.
“It’s only been four months and they say it takes a year before you come back from something like that,” he told Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep about his recovery from lung cancer surgery.
As if that diagnosis wasn’t scary enough, the singer says surgeons had to pass through his vocal cords on their way to excising a portion of his lung. “They promised me that they were very gentle and they didn’t hurt my vocal cords,” he said. “But I’m not so sure.”
Manilow is busy rehabilitating his singing voice in the hopes of getting back on stage again, in support of a new album recorded before his surgery, What a Time. It’s his first collection of new songs in almost 15 years.
“This album is filled with my favorite, favorite songs that I’ve ever written,” Manilow said. “And I’m so happy there’s now a place for them.”
The orchestration is classic Manilow — instantly familiar for any fan of his 1970’s work — but surprisingly, that wasn’t how the album’s writing got started.
“I actually tried to write in the style of Billie Eilish,” he said. He abandoned his attempt to modernize with the admission: “To my ear, I can’t find the chorus. I can’t find the hook.”
Before his fame, Manilow learned how to write a hook (and pay the bills) by penning jingles for commercials, many of which are still used today. State Farm Insurance, Pepsi, McDonalds and Band-Aid all benefited from Manilow’s earworms.
“It taught me how to write a pop song because the rules are the same,” he remembered. “You’ve got to grab the listener within the first 15 seconds… I attribute my ability to actually write pop songs because I had a couple of years of writing jingles.”
What a Time will be released on June 5.
The audio version of this story was produced by Paige Waterhouse.
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