Carnegie Hall to honor Barry Manilow

NEW YORK CITY - At Carnegie Hall, Barry Manilow is honored for the New York Pops 40th Birthday Gala tonight! The Grammy, Tony, and Emmy winner will be on hand as some of the best voices from the recording industry and Broadway pay tribute to the music legend. 

FOX 5’s Ryan Kristafer sat down with Mr. Manilow to learn how he feels about tonight’s big honor:

While he’s excited, Manilow doesn’t know what’s in store on stage:

"I'm not really sure what they're doing. At the very end… they want me to go up and say thank you and then sing something. So I'll do something." 

Beyond being honored, Manilow has a lot to celebrate as his music with his co-writer, Bruce Sussman – ‘Harmony’ has just secured a theater for its Broadway run this fall! 

Manilow shared how much he’s anticipated this show making it to the Great White Way:

"Finally! We've been working on it for a long time, and Bruce and I believed in this show ever since we came up with the idea. And certainly, after we wrote it, and we've had four productions of Harmony during the years, but it never made it to New York. But because of Ken Davenport, our producer, he actually got it to New York. And so that's going to be… you want to talk about getting the Kleenex ready? Holy moly. That's going to be a big night, opening night on Broadway, finally for Harmony."

While he’s had concerts on Broadway – this will be Manilow’s first stage production on Broadway:

"Well, not only does the story have a personal connection because it's about a six-man singing group and it's all about music, but their story is very, very deep. And they were so popular. So popular, and we never heard of them. Well, ‘Harmony’ is about why we don't know them. And it's a deep story, very deep. It's funny. It's full of music, just the way they were. They were The Manhattan Transfer meets the Marx Brothers, funny and musical… and destroyed. Everything they did was destroyed. We don't know them at all because. Well, you'll see.

Broadway previews for ‘Harmony’ begin October 18th, with opening night slated for November 13th at the Barrymore Theatre.

Everybody loves Barry! And here's proof - a Good Day viewer Carmela sent us this video this morning of Julia Kinnally from The College of New Jersey softball team - who plays "Copacabana (At the Copa)" as her walkup song, when she goes to bat! Kinnally is a Junior Shortstop, and gets the crowd signing along when she steps to the plate!