Barry Manilow attends 76th Annual Tony Awards at United Palace Theatre in New York on June 11, 2023. Photo: Lev Radin/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

Award-winning American singer Barry Manilow has set the record for having the longest-running show at the Westgate Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, surpassing a mark held for decades by Elvis Presley.

Manilow — who was born in Brooklyn, New York and had a Jewish upbringing — last week performed his 637th show at the Westgate, where he began his historic run in 1985.

Presley began his own residency at the venue — then called the International Hotel — on July 31, 1969, and performed a total of 636 sold-out shows over the course of seven years, until December 1976, at which point the spot was renamed the Las Vegas Hilton. It was later renamed the Westgate Resort & Casino Hotel.

Manilow, 80, officially broke Presley’s record with a series of concerts benefiting charities that took place from Sept. 21-23. The Copacabana singer was recognized for the achievement last week when Clark County Commissioner Vice Chairman Tick Segerblom interrupted his concert to come on stage and present Manilow with the key to the Las Vegas Strip. He was also presented with a proclamation in recognition of his contributions to establish Las Vegas as the “entertainment capital of the world,” and Sept. 23 was declared as Barry Manilow Day in Las Vegas.

To celebrate, the award-winning performer and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee performed on stage Hound Dog, a song made famous by Presley.

Manilow was born Barry Alan Pincus and has Russian Jewish roots on his father’s side. He reportedly adopted the maiden name of his Irish-Catholic mother upon his bar mitzvah. Speaking to the New York Jewish Week last year about his Jewish childhood in Brooklyn, the Can’t Smile Without You singer reminisced about playing Yiddish folk songs on the accordion.

“I loved those Yiddish songs,” he said. “The family would sing a lot. I got a very musical Yiddish upbringing. When I left Williamsburg, I knew that world of Yiddish folk songs. I played them, I sang them, I arranged them, I knew everything about them.”

Manilow recently wrote the original score for Harmony: A New Musical, a show produced by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene that will debut on Broadway in New York next month. It is a musical about the Comedian Harmonists, a performing troupe of Jews and gentiles in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s.