Barry Manilow wants to duet with Bruno Mars.

Barry Manilow

Barry Manilow

The 'Mandy' hitmaker was asked if he'd like to collaborate on a song with Ed Sheeran, but he said he could see himself working with the '24K Magic' hitmaker more and Manilow is hoping he'll take him up on the offer.

He said: "Yeah but I think I would choose Bruno Mars because he's right up my alley. He's a crazy performer, he comes from the kind of performing family and I just love him. That would be so great if he were interested. I met him once and it was great, we both gushed about each other but nothing has ever come out of it."

The 73-year-old music legend also revealed that he has never been asked to play Britain's legendary Glastonbury festival in Somerset, South West England, but he is unlikely to do it as he admitted just the thought of playing at a big event with loads of "loud rock bands "terrifies" him.

He told Forbes magazine: "It's never come up but those big rock and roll festivals would terrify me. I don't think anybody would come (to see me). I'm not a rock and roll artist and that's what those kinds of huge festivals have, they have loud bands and that's not me. No-one's offered that to me."

Manilow - who secretly tied the knot with his manager and long-term partner Garry Kief in 2014 - is a New Yorker though-and-through and says the people of the Big Apple have "big bullsh*t metres", which has come in useful in the showbiz industry.

He explained: "If you get into trouble then you want someone from New York standing next to you because if there's a building on fire they will run into the building, not away from it. It's one of the things that I treasure about being raised in New York and that bullsh*t meter that I have in me has served me very well in this world of showbusiness."