Barry Manilow doesn’t just write the songs that make the whole world sing.
He sings the songs that my sister and I memorized every lyric to, starting in the 1970s, when Penny washed dishes while I dried. Penny is older by 10 years, so I adopted lots of her interests. (Why else would I buy a 45 of The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar?”)
But nothing connected us quite like Barry, whom we will see in concert when, at 83, he brings his farewell tour to Chartway Arena in Norfolk on Saturday night.
I can’t count the number of times I’d plug in the little radio while we were clearing the table and tell Penny that I’d actually gotten through to the station DJ in D.C., and requested “Mandy.”
She’d shoot me a look.
“I have that! Why can’t you ask them to play something we don’t have?”
“But you won't play it for me,” I’d grumble back.
We loved “Mandy.” I was going to name my daughter that, but I had two boys.
Penny and I may have been the only two people who went to see Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn in “Foul Play” just to hear, “You remind me, I live in a shell. …” I still listen to “Ready to Take a Chance Again,” though it sounds a tad dated on my Spotify.
When you grow up a decade younger than your sister, she’s your never-fun babysitter. The kind who won’t play board games or make cookies. But once in a while, I could get her hopping … the Philadelphia way … to “American Bandstand.”
Mom and Dad let us stay up late to watch the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon in 1980 when Barry sang “One Voice.”
I wanted “Mandy.” I always wanted “Mandy.”
My Big Band-loving father couldn’t stand a crooner who wasn't Frank Sinatra.
“He sounds like he’s dying,” Dad would mutter if Penny and I turned Barry's sound up. I taped a centerfold photo of him from Rona Barrett’s Hollywood magazine on my bedroom wall, though we never thought of him as a heartthrob.
“He looks like Joe Montana with his helmet on,” my sister would say.
We were never “Copacabana” lovers, though as Fanilows, we did watch the TV movie inspired by Lola the showgirl in 1985.
I can’t remember the first time Penny and I saw Barry perform live. Money was tight, and neither of us got to many concerts. I’m pretty sure it was when I talked her into bad seats at Merriweather Post Pavilion in suburban Maryland. Barry came out in this glitzy jacket that we could barely make out from so far away. I never wanted the night to end. I think that’s when I fell in love with “Lay Me Down.”
“Now listen to my story. Cause I haven’t told it all.”
Penny and I saw him again in 1994 when he debuted “Sweet Heaven.”
“That’s going to be his next hit,” she said at the time; only musical tastes were evolving. Not that I ever remember a time when being a Barry fan was cool. Other than Penny, I wouldn’t confess it to anybody. I remember him congratulating his fans about their resilience at one show.
“I know it’s tough being a Barry Manilow fan all these years,” he quipped.
Still, I’d raise my hand and jump up and down to be picked as his onstage partner for “Can’t Smile Without You.” I never got chosen, but unlike Penny, at least I put my hand up.
“If you only knew what I’m going through. I just can’t smile …”
As we aged, Penny got more persnickety about travel. Barry came to the Portsmouth Pavilion in July 2002 on an uncomfortably hot evening, and she would not travel three hours down I-95 to go. I toted my husband instead. Next to us was this Navy guy, 25-ish or so, who looked like he just stepped out of the gym. His pretty girlfriend was on his other side.
“What did she have to do to get you here?” I asked.
“I dragged her!” he insisted.
The last time Penny and I saw Barry was in Baltimore nearly 15 years ago. It should have been a seamless experience, but the Orioles were playing that night, and traffic hit a standstill near the exit. We barely made curtain. The wait in the parking garage afterward was endless. Penny said she was done going to concerts forever.
Then late last year I saw that Barry was coming this way. A date in Greensboro gave me pause, but when I saw the Norfolk date, it seemed too good to be true. I joined the Barry Manilow Fan Club just to get access to advance tickets.
The concert, scheduled for March, got postponed until Saturday after Barry’s recovery from lung cancer surgery took longer than expected.
I was afraid Penny would say it was too much of a hassle. I had long since expended whatever leverage I had from agreeing to go with her to see Gary Puckett & the Union Gap all those years ago. But my elder son dropped some hints to his aunt at Christmas and told me all signs pointed to her going.
His latest single, “Once Before I Go,” reached Top 10 on the Adult Contemporary Chart in March, and I texted her the song.
“Once before I go, I want you to know that I would do it all again.”
You see, I wanted a dishwasher so badly all those years ago, but today a part of me yearns to dry while Penny washes. Mom and Dad are gone, and so are those days.
I don’t know if Penny longs for them as much as I do. We’re so very different now, somewhere down the road from that time, and yet, I couldn’t imagine seeing Barry one more time, the final time, without her sitting next to me.
We’ve got floor seats, Row E, seats 8 and 9.
Together we’ll hear Barry, who writes the songs that make the whole world cry.
And I’m sure “Mandy” will join us for the night, too.
The Norfolk show is sold out. Visit barrymanilow.com for more information about the tour.
