Dancing behind Manilow

Three years ago, when Pam Gattis' husband Bill was dying a slow, tortured death of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an illness similar to mad cow disease, she lay with him for four days, stroking his cheeks and hair and cooing into his ear. Barry Manilow played incessantly and softly in the background.

Not softly enough for Gattis' family, none of whom shared her affection for Manilow.

"My brother finally had had enough," Gattis said as she and I sat eating lunch last week and talking about her love of all things Barry.

"He said, 'Bill, you've got to hurry up and die 'cause Barry Manilow is killing us,' " Gattis recalled, laughing heartily and genuinely at the memory.

Considering the deep feelings inspired by Manilow's music, for it and against it, it's unlikely Gattis is the only person with such a story.

Unlike the thousands of other Manilow groupies, though -- some of whom reportedly follow him from venue to venue Grateful Dead-style -- Gattis, 60, has actually been onstage and performed with her idol. In 1993, when she was assistant principal at Lead Mine Elementary School, a guidance counselor and singer named Juanita Jones-Hall approached her in the break room. "She asked me 'Can you sing?' I said 'No.' Then she asked 'Can you mime?' "

Quicker than you could sing "Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl," Gattis was onstage at the then-Walnut Creek Amphitheater. She danced and sang behind Manilow and in front of thousands of fans. More memorably, she got to hang out with him in the dressing room after the show.

"He was delightful," she squealed, still excited at the 15-year-old memory. "He kept asking us if everything was all right, and he actually thanked us for performing. ... Just as genuine as his music is, that's how he is."

Gattis, now a second-grade teacher at Quest Academy in Raleigh, won't be onstage Sunday when Manilow performs at the RBC Center. She'll still be close enough to see the maestro of maudlin music's nose hairs when he sings "Tryin' To Get the Feeling Again," "Copacabana" and a score of other songs that make him so beloved or beloathed: Her boyfriend bought two sixth-row-seat tickets online for $800.

Lest you think Gattis is some maudlin dame who equates Manilow only with death -- the way I do with Michael Bolton, for instance -- she's not.

Manilow was also there, she swears, at the beginning of a life. "In my 20s I was told I couldn't have kids. ... When I found out I was pregnant, I counted back" and realized it happened while she and her fiance sipped cheap wine and listened to Manilow on their small portable record player.

"I couldn't wait 'til I had a little girl, so I could name her 'Mandy,' " Gattis said. She had a son, though, and named him Max, as close as she dared get to invoking the name of Manilow's first hit song for a male child.

Max, now 33, must love Manilow's music just like his mama, right?

"No. He hates it," she said.