Disappointed you haven't made it to Las Vegas to see Barry Manilow at the Hilton?

Cheer up -- Manilow is bringing his hits-filled Vegas show to the Mellon Arena Monday night.

The singer/songwriter/musician was last in Pittsburgh for his "One Last Time" tour in 2004. He hasn't toured since then, but when he gets a few weeks off from the ongoing Vegas show, which has been running since 2005, he heads out for some quick gigs.

"I say, 'Come on, let's go out and visit the folks. As long as it's not a tour I'm OK doing these one-nighters in an arena here and there in cities that I love. Pittsburgh is one of them," Manilow said by phone from his home in Palm Springs, Calif.

"They are just one-nighters. We have the show, we have the set, we have everybody in it. It's relatively simple to put one of these things up. It's just that I don't want to tour ever again. But one-nighters? I'm fine."

It may be for just one night, but the size of the show is substantial, requiring 11 truckloads of light and sound equipment, instruments and whatever else the musicians need.

"It's not a nightclub production, I'll tell you that," Manilow said.

The concert also comes packed with something else: the songs that have made the Grammy, Emmy and Tony winner famous in the nearly 40 years since his debut album.

"The audiences, they get younger, and even the older folks, they want to hear the hits. You know, no matter what I do, they want to hear the hits. ... Luckily enough, I have enough familiar songs in my catalog to fill up a full evening's worth of music," he said. "I see what they want. And I'm happy to give it to them."

The show will follow much the same format as the latest incarnation of the Vegas show, "Ultimate Manilow: The Hits." "It's based on all the hits, so we've got basically a show that does this. And in the middle of this show I can stick in cuts from my first album to 'Here at the Mayflower' to '2:00 a.m. Paradise Cafe.' But the basis of it is the hits."

Fans never tire of hearing such chestnuts as "Mandy," "Copacabana" and "I Write the Songs," and Manilow never tires of singing them.

"I am honored. I am grateful. I am a very grateful man to be able to have an audience that still wants to hear these songs," he said.

One of those classics, "Copacabana," became a full-scale Broadway-style show co-produced by Pittsburgh CLO. "Barry Manilow's Copacabana" made its American debut at the Benedum Center in 2000, and Manilow was in town working closely with CLO executive producer Van Kaplan and the rest of the production team. "It was a beautiful production and a gorgeous theater," Manilow said.

He knew from Kaplan that patrons have repeatedly voted for the show's return in annual polls, and CLO will bring "Copacabana" back to the Benedum July 21-Aug. 2. "I assume it will be a great show again," Manilow said.

In his most recent recordings, Manilow has departed from his own music, singing compilations of what he considers the greatest songs of the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s.

"It was [producer] Clive Davis and myself making a list of the most well-known titles that we could think of for each decade. The challenge was that each song of each decade that we chose, we wanted them all to have been a No. 1 record, so that they were all terribly popular."

Manilow enjoyed recording the well-known tunes, but that doesn't mean the projects were easy. "On one hand it was great, an honor, honestly, to sing these very very famous, beautiful well-written songs. On the other hand it was a challenge to compete with the original. The closer they got to contemporary world, like the '80s, the more difficult it was for me to make a new record, because the records that were made were so famous. ... If I changed one little chord, it would hurt the memory of these songs."

Manilow has been putting together a new album of original music, a work in progress for the past two years. Two songs out of 16 have been recorded so far.

"These original albums take a long time to do. It's easier for me to do the cover albums because I know how to do 'Arthur's Theme.' When you finish 'Arthur's Theme' you've got 'Arthur's Theme.' But when you start with an original song, you really don't know what you've got until you're done. And they take long. ... With my stuff I usually have a concept to them and it starts here and ends there and it's got a little story, so they take longer."

He said the new album will be out "as soon as I can wrangle it together," within the next year, he guessed.

While working on his own music, Manilow is finding time to help a younger generation through the Manilow Music Project, which replaces shoddy musical instruments in high schools and middle schools in the Coachella Valley, where Manilow lives.

"Yamaha and myself, a couple more publishing companies, we all chipped in and sent out 13 trucks on the same day, same morning, and delivered 13 trucks' worth of musical instruments, music stands, sheet music to all of the schools down here in the Coachella Valley," he said.

Twenty-two schools benefited from more than $500,000 worth of musical instruments.

"It's a big passion of mine these days when I found out the condition of musical instruments and music classes all over the country. I'm doing as much as I can and whenever I can."