USA Today article

Music
He writes the songs and covers others from the '70s

Having covered classics from the '50s and '60s with platinum-plus results, Barry Manilow is ready to revisit the decade that made him a star. On Sept. 18, the pop veteran will release The Greatest Songs of the Seventies.

Available as both an 18-track CD and a two-disc set with audio and video, Seventies features golden oldies such as Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Way We Were and How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, plus a pair of duets: You've Got a Friend, with Melissa Manchester, and Don't Go Breaking My Heart, with Rosie O'Donnell.

To choose the material, Manilow says, "I sent a list of every No. 1 record in the '70s to everybody I knew, and asked them to pick their 13 favorites." The results, he reports, were very similar to the selections that he and label boss Clive Davis had in mind.

Seventies also includes a bunch of Manilow's own hits, from Mandy to Copacabana, in new, stripped-down versions. "There was this idea of, how could I possibly leave them out? So I'm redoing them with a small, intimate band."