After surviving my older Sister's obsession with Barry when I was a teen, I actually took my wife to see him about ten years ago when he brought his Vegas stage show to Portland for a charity concert at the Rose Garden(now the Moda Center). I actually got excited about it to the point of humorously shushing my wife when she said, "I can't hear him very well"(we were in the nose-bleed section as I bought, probably, the last two tickets available). I replied, "You don't need to hear him, It's Barry "freakin" Manilow!"
As far as Barry "lifting" this song from Chopin, as suggested by JSBach earlier, Barry gave full credit to Chopin before he started playing the chords. As a musician, I have many influences(mostly hard rock) and I'm sure I've played a riff or two that sounds like something, someone else has done before. It's inevitable. I've even heard chord progressions that I came up with played by other recording artists. I don't think they were spying on me and stole my ideas. It's just bound to happen.
After surviving my older Sister's obsession with Barry when I was a teen, I actually took my wife to see him about ten years ago when he brought his Vegas stage show to Portland for a charity concert at the Rose Garden(now the Moda Center). I actually got excited about it to the point of humorously shushing my wife when she said, "I can't hear him very well"(we were in the nose-bleed section as I bought, probably, the last two tickets available). I replied, "You don't need to hear him, It's Barry "freakin" Manilow!" As far as Barry "lifting" this song from Chopin, as suggested by JSBach earlier, Barry gave full credit to Chopin before he started playing the chords. As a musician, I have many influences(mostly hard rock) and I'm sure I've played a riff or two that sounds like something, someone else has done before. It's inevitable. I've even heard chord progressions that I came up with played by other recording artists. I don't think they were spying on me and stole my ideas. It's just bound to happen.