Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 05/03/2011
Run Time: 60:36
Duets is a canny compilation of duets
Barry Manilow has recorded over his years at
Arista. These 15 tracks span from 1980’s
Barry to 2008’s
Greatest Songs of the Eighties, so this isn’t quite prime
Manilow; in other words, there are no big hits but there are plenty of big names, including
Bette Midler,
Reba McEntire,
Dionne Warwick,
Sarah Vaughan, and
Barbra Streisand, a cast of characters which also suggests the range of the tunes here.
Barry does hold his own singing a torch song with
Tormé, trading lines with
Barbra, and proves a good foil for
Vaughan, and he’s also quite comfortable using
the Association as his support on a medley of their hits
“Cherish” and
“Windy.” It should come as no great surprise that most of this is straight down the middle of the road, because that is where
Barry is at his strongest, so that makes the inclusion of the wild
Kid Creole & the Coconuts duet
“Hey Mambo” most welcome: it shows that when he wants to,
Manilow can have some knowing fun with his
Copacabana persona.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
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