Barry Manilow isn’t the first singer who has recorded a song with the departed. A famous example is Natalie Cole singing “Unforgettable” with her deceased father, Nat King Cole. But when faced with putting out a new album, Barry Manilow wanted to do duets, and it seemed that everyone on his dream list was deceased, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Death be not proud. Barry Manilow has put out the album anyway, with duets alongside such deceased greats as Sammy Davis Junior, Marilyn Monroe, John Denver, Whitney Houston, Dusty Springfield and Judy Garland. The result is his newest album, “My Dream Duets.”
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Judy Garland is the ghostess with the mostest, and his virtual duet with her, “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” from her 1938 film, “Listen, Darling” is what Manilow describes as the centerpiece of the album. Manilow was a Garland fan from the time his family played her records in their home; “Her voice, her interpretations, her honest delivery and her musical arrangement were tremendously exciting.” The night that “changed” Manilow’s life was watching her perform live. The band made his “head spin” and having Judy Garland so close was “like being shot with machine gun bullets. To this day, I’ve never seen or felt anything like it.”
