Barry Manilow [ tickets ] has returned to Las Vegas' Hilton Theater to kick off the fifth year of his Sin City residency.

"Boy, time sure flies when you're having fun!" Manilow said in a statement. "The Las Vegas Hilton is a wonderful place to play. Now I know why Elvis never wanted to leave."

The pop icon also has a couple of shows left on his "Ultimate Manilow; The Hits ... and Then Some" tour, which rolls through the Washington cities of Spokane and Everett in mid-March. Details are listed below.

His Vegas spectacular, dubbed "Ultimate Manilow: The Hits," plays this weekend and then resumes in late March. Around three to nine dates are booked every month through December, most on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, and tickets range from $96 to $225 plus service charges. The shows, which draw from Manilow's vast catalog of music, are different every night.

In 2006, the acclaimed singer/songwriter/producer started a series of popular music tributes with "Greatest Songs of the Fifties." The latest in the collection, "Greatest Songs of the Eighties," surfaced in November and features versions of chart-topping hits including Journey's "Open Arms," Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and Phil Collins' "Against All Odds."

Though the tribute albums have burned up the US album chart (most debuting in the Top 5 and the "Fifties" set reaching No. 1), Manilow says he's done looking back. His next record will be a set of original songs, according to the Associated Press.

"I've gotta get back to writing my own stuff," the Grammy-winner told AP in a recent interview. "This has been a lot of fun, and it's great that it's always been successful, but I'm done."

Manilow added that the material he's working on for his next effort is more rock-and-roll than anything he's done before.

"If you dig into my earlier albums, you'll see that there are a lot of moments where I try to break the rules and go away from the adult-contemporary world, into some aggressive, guitar-driven songs," he told AP. "I really loved writing them, and I don't think I sound too bad on them."

Manilow ranks as the top adult-contemporary chart artist of all time, with more than 75 million records sold worldwide and 29 platinum-album certifications, according to a press release. His career includes 25 consecutive Top 40 hits, including "Even Now," "I Write the Songs," and "Copacabana (At the Copa)."