TART- MAN 1 VE • H A D • I T-'T HE BEIN’-WH OER.RE E-LOVE’S WOR SMALL-ÀD 0- ì 0K0RAli i IH- 0HA- I-K-KAH-Kf-Nili- i l i -SKOfl- N I9-3KÓ-.KIAVH -H A H ,0 n - 1 0 A -3 H -I n 9 -iH l-i0 A R 0 K O -0 a 2 S ,ìà ¥ - -3 i0 songs as a w ay to explore the fu ll spectrum ll fu the explore to ay w a as songs recent collaborations w ith producer R ick ick R producer ith w collaborations recent Rubin, he has consistently turned to his his to turned his to consistently has he Building Rubin, rill B the in days early offers a chance fo r revelation. From his his From still revelation. song r fo every chance a Diamond, offers r fo though, been grateful fo r it, and I’ve always felt felt ill.” w always always I and I’ve and it, r fo grateful been a sense o f responsibility to m y audience, audience, y m to responsibility f o sense a Stone Roll H all o f Fame induction. “I ’ve always always ’ve “I induction. Fame f o all H Roll star that I travel under,” he told told he under,” travel I that star some sort o f lucky f o sort there’s some that lieve the globe. the ing acts around around acts ing te o tour­ top one the f o remains he Top Forty. M ore than four decades into into decades career, four the than legendary hit a ore have M songs genera­ Forty. his f o two Top r fo irty-six h T charts tions: pop the on force ers H all o f Fame, he has been a dominant dominant a been rit­ has he albums Songw Fame, f the o f illion all o m H ers member a 125 lready A over sold. ith w ers, form m DIAMOND Beyond the sales and statistics, statistics, and sales the Beyond “I secretly be­ secretly “I on hearing the news o f his Rock and and Rock his f o news the hearing on m ost popular per­ popular ost m one o f the w orld’s orld’s w the f o one Diamond. eil N r fo O f course, be is is be course, f O has always been been always has about discovery discovery about ONGWRITING EN A MUCH AS MEANS NEIL B AA LIGHT ALAN [ BY S Y FIRST MY AS AH ALBUM EACH RECORD lng llin o R

et mc a otie mot the f o ost m outsider an much retty p making friends was im possible. I was was I stances, possible. circum im was the friends nder U making school. to various dry-goods stores. dry-goods various m y childhood,” Diam ond said in 19 7 1, 1, 7 19 in said ond Diam childhood,” y m “was the constant moving from school school from moving constant the “was cated frequently when his father opened opened father his when frequently cated different neighborhoods as his fam ily relo­ ily fam his as neighborhoods different concert halls. N eil Diam ond was born in in born was ond Diam eil N halls. concert Brooklyn, N ew York, and grew up there in in there up grew and York, ew N greatest Brooklyn, world’s the f o some and screens itinerant childhood to television and movie movie and television to childhood itinerant Ten albums, including his first- first- his including albums, Ten lated person . . . and eager to take on m y y m on take to eager and . . . person lated n pnt ie.” life to open and ’m I “ rote, w he release, album’s the ith W other identity: extroverted, fun-loving, fun-loving, extroverted, iso­ identity: other introspective, the shed to relieved into the songw riter and the perform er. er. perform the and riter divides he songw which the into personality, his f o , sides rk a D re fo e B from m ortality to romance. to ortality m from o f human emotion, from loneliness to joy, joy, to loneliness from emotion, human f o “W hat I rem em ber m ost about about ost m ber em rem I hat “W H is work w ith Rubin— three Top Top three Rubin— ith w work is H In the notes to his 2008 album album 2008 his to notes the In the singer addressed the two two the addressed singer the PART-TIME-THING - PART-TIME-THING taken him from an an from him taken man whose life has has life whose renaissance man true w ith ith w naissance for this this for naissance k r a D rmral re­ remarkable a ever Num ber One ber Num ever me ore fo e B e om H — capped me om H

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1 DON’ time. I was never accepted. That’s why I took to writing so passionately.” He attended New York University on a fencing scholarship but was getting drawn deeper and deeper into music, especially into lyric writing. “I was bored by school, and writing lyrics in class was interesting,” he once said. “I never really chose songwriting. It just absorbed me and became more and more impor­ tant in my life as the years passed.” After a failed first single with Columbia Records, Diamond became a w riter at the fabled Brill Building. His true arrival came when the Monkees scored a Number One smash with his song “I’m a Believer” in 1966. The band had sev­ eral m ore hits w ith Diamond songs, including “A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You” -^though Diamond wrote all of these songs to record himself. After signing a solo deal with Bang Records, Dia­ mond began tak­ ing the pop world by storm. “Solitary Man” was his first hit, followed by “Cherry, Cherry,” “Kentucky Wom- t h 1 s page N eil Diamondgets bis start, an,” and many others. In his 2006 history of the Brill Build- 1963 (top); marquee man, 1967. o p p o s it e y)Jway S M agic in the A ir, Ken Emerson notes “how inven- p a g e In the studio, mid-seventies. | | | | an(j variej [Diamond’s] initial singles were, running the gamut from folk to Latin to blues and nearly garage rock, plus a few pop ballads.” (One notable difference between Dia­ mond and the other Brill Building writers is that he always worked on guitar, whereas virtually everyone else wrote on the piano.) In 1970, Diamond moved from New York to California, after signing with M CA Records. His sound was transforming with songs like “Cracklin’ Rosie,” “Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good),” and “Song Sung Blue” taking on a less punchy, country-flavored feel. “Cracklin’ Rosie” was his first Number One. Meanwhile, Diamond was establishing himself as a consummate stage performer and drawing larger and larger audiences. He was growing into a new sense of himself through his confidence in concert. “In a sense, I discovered myself onstage, discovered myself as a person,” he once said. “And that's all I’ve done ever since. Everything I’ve done onstage since my very early years is development, an enlargement of that whole thing.” The 1972 live double-album H o t A u g u st N ig h t is generally considered the definitive document of Neil Diamond onstage. In 1973,, Diamond returned to Columbia Records, where he remains to this day. His first release was the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but around that time, he also announced that he was taking a hiatus from performing, which wound up lasting more than three years. When he returned to touring in 1976, he said, “I had secretly hoped . .. that I would never have to come back and perform. I was exhausted. But then I got itchy about wanting to be in front of an audience again. I wanted to test myself again.” That same year, he released the sweeping Beautiful Noise, produced by the Band’s Robbie Robertson. On Thanksgiving SMUKWp SEPTEMBER sm* '10

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■ night, 1976, he appeared at the Band’s farewell f concert, The Last Waltz, and his performance of THIS “Dry Your Eyes” was featured in Martin Scorseses documentary page In L o s of the evening. (Asked how he felt about playing the show, he Angeles, late-seventies; Las Vegas, 1977. said, “I don’t "fit in. But you could put me in any show and I o p p o s it e page A t M ad ison wouldn’t fit in.”) Square Garden, 2001. After “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” gave him another Number One hit, Diamond turned his attention to the silver screen, starring in the 1980 remake of the A 1 Jolson classic T h e Jazz Singer, opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The soundtrack included the Top Ten singles “Love on the Rocks,” “Hello Again,” and “America.” Over the past few decades, Diamond has continued his reign as an international touring sensation. Meanwhile, an as direct as he’s ever been with his lyrics, which give them an ex­ array of artists keep covering his work: In the eighties, the tra poignancy and... a simple profundity.” British reggae band UB40 had a worldwide smash with his W ith Home Before Darl(, he pushed himself even harder. composition from almost twenty years earlier, “Red Red Wine.” “That first 1 2 Songs album was more of a testing of the wa­ The same year the UB40 song reached Number One in the ters and a getting to know you’ album,” he said. “This one is U.S., “America” served as the theme song for Michael Dukakis’s W e know each other and respect each other, and let’s try and 1988 presidential campaign. knock people’s socks off,’ and that’s what we went for.” On the Iwtn 1994, Urge Overkills ominous cover of Diamond’s “Girl, album’s disarmingly honest “Act Like a Man,” he laid it all on the You’ll Be a Woman Soon” was an unforgettable highlight of the table: “Songwritin’/It’s just a little bitfrightenin’/Like playing multiplatinum soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. w ith lightnin’ .” As Diamond became ever more iconic, he even demonstrated Diamond’s 2008 tour, the most ambitious stage productionofhis the ability to laugh at his own image, appearing on S a tu rd a y career, took him to thirty-seven North American cities and to Eng­ N ig h t L iv e opposite a Diamond-impersonating W ill Ferrell, and land’s massive Glastonbury Festival. The show was documented accepting a role with the H o t A u ­ playing himself in gust Night/NTC the 2001 comedy DVD, which not Saving Silverman. only went double In 2001, John­ platinum but also ny Cash won a aired as a wildly Grammy for his successful T V spe­ version of “Solitary cial on C B S. Man,” a song that Diamond was provided the title honored as the to the third vol­ 2009 MusiCares ume of his historic Person o f the Tear, American Record­ and fans from Tim ings series. (The McGraw to Cold- song also served as play, from the Jonas the title for a 201® Brothers to Jenni­ film starring Mi­ fer Hudson, turned chael Douglas and out to celebrate his Susan Sarandon.) career and char­ M eanwhile, “Sw eet ity work. In No­ Caroline” was as­ vember of 2010, suming anthemic Diamond returned proportions, most to his role as an notably as the interpretive singer eighth-inning sing- w ith the D ream s along for Boston album, a collec­ Red Sox home tion of fourteen of games (Diamond his favorite songs announced his by such songwrit­ 2008 world tour, ers as Leonard including a stop at Cohen and Randy Boston’s Fenw ay N ewmanHand Park, in an appear­ brought it all ance on the stadi­ back home with um’s video screen a stripped-down during the season’s version of his own opening game). breakthrough, “I’m a Believer.” But in 2005, focus on the cover ver­ More than forty-five years after his sions and the touring persona shifted back first recording, Neil Diamond continues to Neil Diamond the songwriter. Rick to work with the fire and drive of a new Rubin wanted to see Diamond get back artist. At a stage in his life when he could to wliere he once belonged and created a easily be humming along on cruise control, sound more stripped-down than anything he still wants to explore the limitless pos­ we had ever heard from him. The response sibilities of songwtiting. to this approach was overwhelming: 12 “Each album means as much as my Songs, written entirely by Diamond, de- l very first record—if not more,” he recently buted at Number Four on the B illb o a r d said, “and the experience of creation has album chart, his highest-ever debut. In a yet to become easy. In truth, I’m as hungry four-star review, Rolling Stone wrote “He’s as I ever was.” &