The Brill Building (built 1931 as the Alan E. Lefcourt Building and designed by Victor Bark Jr.^[1][2]) is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the Manhattan borough of New York City, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood. It is famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American music tunes were written. The building has been described as "the most important generator of popular songs in the Western world."^[3]

The building is 11 stories and has approximately 175,000 square feet (16,300 m²) of rentable area. The "Brill" name comes from a haberdasher that operated a store at street level and subsequently bought the building^[1].

The "Big Band Era"[link]

Even before World War II it became a centre of activity for the popular music industry, especially music publishing and songwriting. Scores of music publishers had offices in the Brill Building. Once songs had been published, the publishers sent song pluggers to the popular white bands and radio stations. These song pluggers would sing and/or play the song for the band leaders to encourage bands to play their music.

During the ASCAP strike of 1941, many of the composers, authors and publishers turned to pseudonyms in order to have their songs played on the air.

Brill Building songs were constantly at the top of the Hit Parade and played by the leading bands of the day:

• The Benny Goodman Orchestra
• The Glenn Miller Orchestra
• The Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra
• The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra

Publishers included:

• Leo Feist Inc.
• Lewis Music Publishing
• Mills Music Publishing

Composers included:

• Buddy Feyne
• Johnny Mercer
• Rose Marie McCoy
• Irving Mills
• Billy Rose
• Peter Tinturin

Racial politics of music publishing[link]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008)

The music publishers at this time occasionally followed the racial codes of the day. They either had their own (typically white) contract writers composing songs or they opened their doors to publish songs of others, but sometimes hid the fact that songs were created by non-white or non-Christian artists. Yet black songwriters such as James Bland, Scott Joplin, and Eubie Blake never felt the need to resort to this kind of subterfuge and were internationally renowned for their compositions.

Some Jewish songwriters did adopt anglicized noms de plume, but most did not. While anti-semitism was widespread in America, it was not characteristic of the music industry in which Jewish composers, such as Kern, Gershwin, Rodgers, and many others flourished without significant discrimination.

In the 1930s some publishers in the Brill Building specialized in publishing the songs of African American Swing composers. For example, Lewis Music published the songs of Erskine Hawkins and Avery Parrish, among others. These tunes were called "Race Music", the euphemism for songs written by black artists. If a composer wrote an instrumental (and even sometimes if there were already lyrics), the publishers provided their own lyricists. Top selling songs on the (white) Hit Parade, such as Tuxedo Junction and Jersey Bounce, were originally composed as instrumentals by black swing artists, but were not played by white bands on the radio until they had been published with lyrics, often by white writers.

The "Brill Building Sound"[link]

The Brill Building's name has been widely adopted as a shorthand term for a broad and influential stream of American mainstream popular song (strongly influenced by Latin music and rhythm and blues) which enjoyed great commercial success in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. Many significant American and international publishing companies, music agencies and recording labels were based in New York, and although these ventures were naturally spread across many locations, the Brill Building was regarded as probably the most prestigious address in New York for music business professionals. The term "The Brill Building Sound" is somewhat inaccurate, however, since much of the music so categorised actually emanated from other locations — music historian Ken Emerson nominates buildings at 1650 Broadway and 1697 Broadway as other significant bases of activity in this field.

By 1962 the Brill Building contained 165 music businesses^{[citation needed]}: A musician could find a publisher and printer, cut a demo, promote the record and cut a deal with radio promoters, all within this one building. The creative culture of the independent music companies in the Brill Building and the nearby 1650 Broadway came to define the influential "Brill Building Sound" and the style of popular songwriting and recording created by its writers and producers.^[4]

Carole King described the atmosphere at the 'Brill Building' publishing houses of the period:

"Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You'd sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific — because Donny (Kirshner) would play one songwriter against another. He'd say: 'We need a new smash hit' — and we'd all go back and write a song and the next day we'd each audition for Bobby Vee's producer." — quoted in The Sociology of Rock by Simon Frith (1978, ISBN 0-09-460220-4).

Writers[link]

Many of the best works in this diverse category were written by a loosely affiliated group of songwriter-producer teams — mostly duos — that enjoyed immense success and who collectively wrote some of the biggest hits of the period. Many in this group were close friends and/or (in the cases of Goffin-King, Mann-Weil and Greenwich-Barry) married couples, as well as creative and business associates — and both individually and as duos, they often worked together and with other writers in a wide variety of combinations. Some (Carole King, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Boyce and Hart) recorded and had hits with their own music.

• Burt Bacharach and Hal David
• Bert Berns
• Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart
• Neil Diamond
• Andy Kim
• Giant, Baum & Kaye
• Gerry Goffin and Carole King
• Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry
• Hugo & Luigi
• Artie Kornfeld
• Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
• Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil
• Shadow Morton
• Laura Nyro
• Claus Ogerman [1]
• Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman
• Tony Powers
• Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield
• Paul Simon as Jerry Landis [2]
• Phil Spector
• Eddie Snyder

Other famous musicians who were headquartered in The Brill Building:

• Bobby Darin [3]
• Connie Francis
• Ben E. King
• Tony Orlando
• Gene Pitney

Among the hundreds of hits written by this group are "Yakety Yak" (Leiber-Stoller), "Save the Last Dance for Me" (Pomus-Shuman), "The Look of Love" (Bacharach-David), "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (Sedaka-Greenfield), "Devil in Disguise" (Giant-Baum-Kaye), "The Loco-Motion" (Goffin-King), "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" (Mann-Weil) and "River Deep, Mountain High" (Spector-Greenwich-Barry).

Musicians[link]

The list below is a partial list of the studio musicians who contributed to the Brill Building sound:

• Arrangers, conductors: Alan Lorber, Teacho Wiltshire, Artie Butler, Garry Sherman
• Stan Applebaum, Charlie Calello.
• Bass: Wendell Marshall, Russ Savakus, Russ Saunders, Joey Macho, Jr., Chuck Rainey, George Duvivier, Milt Hinton, Al Lucas, Dick Romoff,
• Drums: Gary Chester, Buddy Saltzman, Sticks Evans,, Herbie Lovelle, David "Panama" Francis.
• Guitar: Al Gorgoni, Carl Lynch, Bill Suyker, Charles Macy, Everett Barksdale, Bucky Pizzarelli, Art Ryerson, Al Caiola, Trade Martin, Don Arnone, Tony Mottola, Bob Bushnell, Al Casamenti, Billy Butler, George Barnes, Allan Hanlon, Vinnie Bell, Eddie Ims, Sal Ditroia, Ralph Casale,
• Percussion: George Devens, Phill Kraus, Nick Rodriguez, Martin Grupp
• Piano: Paul Griffin, Hank Jones,, Leroy Glover, Stan Free
• Saxophone: Artie Kaplan, Frank Haywood Henry, Phil Bodner, Romeo Penque
• Trombone: Urbie Green, Frank Saracco, Jimmy Cleveland
• Trumpet: Irwin "Marky" Markowitz, Ernie Royal, Jimmy Nottingham, Jimmy Sadler, Dud Bascomb

Aldon Music — 1650 Broadway[link]

Many of these writers came to prominence while under contract to Aldon Music, a publishing company founded ca. 1958 by aspiring music entrepreneur Don Kirshner and industry veteran Al Nevins. Aldon was not initially located in the Brill Building, but rather, a block away at 1650 Broadway (at 51st St.).

1650 Broadway[link]

1650 Broadway was built to be a musician's headquarters, so much so that the laws at the time required that the "front" door be placed on the side of the building due to laws restricting musicians from entering buildings from the front. Most so-called 'Brill Building' writers began their careers at 1650 Broadway, and the building continued to house many record labels throughout the decades.

Toni Wine explains:

Selection of businesses located 1619 Broadway (Brill Building) and 1650 Broadway[link]

1619 Broadway[link]

• Broadway Video
• Postworks LLC/Orbit Digital
• Famous Music
• Coed Records, Inc.
• Mills Music
• Southern Music
• TM Music
• SoundOne
• Helios Music/Glamorous Music
• KMA Music
• New Vision Communications
• Paul Simon Music
• Broadway Across America
• Maggie Vision Productions
• Colony Records^[5]

1650 Broadway[link]

• Aldon Music
• Action Talents agency
• Bang Records
• Bell Records, Inc.
• Buddah Records, Inc.
• Capezio Dance Theatre Shop
• Gamble Records, Inc.
• H/B Webman & Co.
• Princess Music Publishing, Corp.
• Scepter/Wand Records
• Web IV Music, Inc.
• We Three Music Publishing, Inc.

In fiction[link]

The 1996 movie Grace of My Heart is in parts a fictionalised account of the life in the Brill Building. Illeana Douglas plays a songwriter loosely based on Carole King.

In Sweet Smell of Success, J.J. Hunsecker and his sister Susie live on one of the upper floors of the Brill Building. This is unusual since it is not a residential building.

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} Gray, Christopher, "Streetscapes: The Brill Building: Built With a Broken Heart", The New York Times, December 30, 2009
2. ^ New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, "Brill Building", New York City, March 23, 2010
3. ^ "Eddie Snyder obituary". The Telegraph (London). 2011-03-31. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8419821/Eddie-Snyder.html. Retrieved 2011-04-02. 
4. ^ "Don Kirshner". The Daily Telegraph (London). April 18, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8459328/Don-Kirshner.html. 
5. ^ Schwartz, Andy (April 16, 2009). "THE BRILL BUILDING & COLONY RECORDS (1619 Broadway)". New York Rocker. http://www.nyrocker.com/blog/?p=109. Retrieved Aug. 31, 2009. 

Further reading[link]

• Emerson, Ken, Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era, Viking Penguin, 2005 (ISBN 0-670-03456-8) (Reviewed by The New York Times here)
• Scheurer, Timothy E., American Popular Music: The age of rock, Bowling Green State University, Popular Press, 1989. Cf. especially pp. 76, 125
• "The Brill Building," Designation report, prepared by Matthew A. Postal (LP-2387) (New York: Landmarks Preservation Commission, 2010). See: http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/reports/brill.pdf

External links[link]

• Brill Building - The History of Rock
• About.com: Brill Building - about.com
• Times Square Attractions
• AOL Music - Pop Artists in the Brill Building - AOL Music
• Interview with Toni Wine, Songfacts
• Brill Building at the Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Spectropop's Brill Building
• The Brill Building Songwriters
• New York Architecture Images- Brill Building
• Regarding Claus Ogerman & his music publishing companies located at The Brill Building
• Brill Building Is Named a Landmark

Coordinates: 40°45′40″N 73°59′04″W / 40.7611°N 73.9845°W / 40.7611; -73.9845

Coordinates: 51°49′12″N 1°03′07″W / 51.820°N 1.052°W / 51.820; -1.052

Brill
Brill windmill
Brill  Brill shown within Buckinghamshire
Population	1,190 (2001 census)[1]
OS grid reference	SP658139
Civil parish	Brill
District	Aylesbury Vale
Shire county	Buckinghamshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Aylesbury
Postcode district	HP18
Dialling code	01844
Police	Thames Valley
Fire	Buckinghamshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	Buckingham
Website	Brill Village Website
List of places: UK • England • Buckinghamshire

Brill is a village and civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England, close to the boundary with Oxfordshire. It is about 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of Long Crendon and 7 miles (11 km) south-east of Bicester. It has a Royal charter to hold a weekly market, but has not done so for many years.

Toponym[link]

Brill's name is a combination of Brythonic and Anglo Saxon words for 'hill' (Brythonic breg and Anglo Saxon hyll). In the reign of Edward the Confessor it was a town called Bruhella.

Manor[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Brill

The manor of Brill was the administration centre for the royal hunting Forest of Bernwood and was for a long time a property of the Crown. King Edward the Confessor had a palace here. There is evidence that Henry II, John, Henry III and Stephen all held court at the palace.^{[citation needed]} It remained in place until the time of Charles I, who turned the building into a Royalist garrison in the English Civil War. This led the Parliamentarian John Hampden to destroy it in 1643.

Church and Priory[link]

The Church of England parish church of All Saints was built early in the 12th century, and its nave and chancel remain essentially Norman structures.^[2] The chancel's north wall has a blocked lancet window from that period.^[3] The pointed chancel arch is 13th century.^[3] The Perpendicular Gothic^[3] west tower was built early in the 15th century.^[2] The present chancel roof dates from the 17th century.^[2][3]

The north aisle was built in 1839 but its east window dates from about 1275.^[3] In 1888 All Saints' was largely rebuilt under the direction of John Oldrid Scott.^[3] Scott extended the chancel eastwards^[3] by about 6 feet (1.8 m) and added a new Gothic Revival east window.^[2] He added the south aisle and porch at the same time but its east and west windows are re-used Perpendicular Gothic ones, probably dating from early in the 16th century.^[2]

All Saints was a chapel of ease to the nearby parish of Oakley from the 12th until the 16th century.^[2] It belonged to the Priory of St Frideswide, Oxford until the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Brill had a hermitage or priory dedicated to St. Werburgh that was annexed to Chetwode Priory from 1251.^[2] Chetwode Priory surrendered the advowson of the hermitage to the Bishop of Lincoln in 1460.^[2]

Brill Windmill[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Brill Windmill, Brill

Brill is also known for its windmill, last owned and used by the Pointer and Nixie family who also baked bread in their house in the village.^{[citation needed]} With timbers dating from 1685, Brill Windmill provides one of the earliest and best preserved examples of a post mill (the earliest type of European windmill) in the UK.^{[citation needed]} Management and ownership of the Grade II* listed mill was passed to Buckinghamshire County Council in 1947 who, through a number of major interventions, have ensured that the mill still stands today. In 1967 the Council installed a structural steel framework that helps to support the mill's ancient timber frame but means that the mill is static and can no longer turn to face the wind.

Restoration Project[link]

By the 2000s water ingress and weathering had caused timber decay to the extent that the structure's integrity was described as "At risk". The Brill Windmill Management Group was established in 2007 to help plan a restoration project and to seek the necessary funds. With funding from English Heritage and WREN, full repair and preservation work was completed by July 2009. The mill is now structurally sound and once again open to the public, once a week, between March and September.

Brill Tramway[link]

Former site of the Brill Tramway terminus

Brill railway station was once a north-western terminus of the London Underground system.^[4]

After the completion in 1868 of the Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway, the Duke of Buckingham built the light railway to provide freight access by rail to his estates at Wotton Underwood. The extension to Brill gave access to a brickworks there. The line was opened in 1871, and following public demand passenger facilities were provided early in 1872. Originally known as the Brill Tramway, the line’s name changed to "Oxford and Aylesbury Tramroad" when a company was formed in an abortive attempt to extend the line to Oxford; the biggest hindering expense was the cost of tunnelling under Brill Hill.

The original Quainton Road station was north of the Quainton-Waddesdon road, and wagons from the Brill line reached it by means of a wagon turntable; there was no direct access.^[5] When the Metropolitan Railway took over the line in 1896, it doubled the main line from Aylesbury and re-sited the station to its present position, replacing a level crossing with the present road over bridge; a running connection between the Brill line and the main line was constructed at that time. In 1935, on the creation of the LPTB, control was transferred to it from the Metropolitan and Great Central Joint Committee which had taken it over in 1906; the whole branch was closed on 30 November 1935.

Little London[link]

The hamlet of Little London to the south was part of Brill parish until 1934, when Buckinghamshire County Council moved the parish boundary and transferred the hamlet to Oakley. When the Metropolitan railway built Brill station, it has been said^{[by whom?]} that in honour of the metropolitan ambience the planners were trying to evoke, another Little London was founded to the north of the village.^{[citation needed]}

Amenities[link]

Brill Church of England Combined School is a mixed, voluntary controlled, Church of England primary school. It takes children from the age of four through to the age of eleven. The school has about 175 pupils.

Notable people[link]

James Govier (1910–74) the British painter, etcher and engraver produced images of Brill church and windmill, along with images of Buckinghamshire. Govier's family originated from Brill and the adjoining parish of Oakley, and he was born in Oakley. Examples of Govier's work can be seen at the County Museum in Aylesbury and at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

The perpetrators of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 hid at the remote Leatherslade Farm on the boundary with the village of Oakley.

References in literature[link]

Brill is featured in the novel The Book of Dave by Will Self. Set 2,000 years in the future, Brill (spelled 'Bril' in the novel) is the location of a manor of Plateist Queers.

It is also often said^{[citation needed]} that J. R. R. Tolkien based the village of Bree in The Lord of the Rings on Brill.^[6] He used other nearby places in Oxfordshire as part of the Shire, sometimes using the same names, such as Buckland.

References[link]

Sources and further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Brill

• Brill Village Website
• Brill Church of England Combined School
• Brill windmill restoration – Buckinghamshire County Council

v t e Metropolitan line Stations Central London section Aldgate Barbican Euston Square Farringdon Great Portland Street King's Cross St. Pancras Liverpool Street Moorgate Core section Baker Street Finchley Road Harrow-on-the-Hill Northwick Park Preston Road Wembley Park Uxbridge branch Eastcote Hillingdon West Harrow Ickenham Rayners Lane Ruislip Ruislip Manor Uxbridge Outer section & branches Amersham Chalfont & Latimer Chesham Chorleywood Croxley Moor Park North Harrow Northwood Northwood Hills Pinner Rickmansworth Watford Click to enlarge Rolling stock Present rolling stock A60 and A62 Stock S Stock History Former lines Brill Tramway Metropolitan Railway Metropolitan line (1933-88) Aylesbury and Buckingham Railway Closed stations Brill Granborough Road Lord's Marlborough Road Quainton Road Swiss Cottage Uxbridge Road Verney Junction Waddesdon Waddesdon Road Westcott Winslow Road Wood Siding Wotton Former stations Aylesbury Dollis Hill Great Missenden Kensington (Olympia) Kilburn Neasden Stoke Mandeville Wendover West Hampstead Willesden Green Transferred lines Aylesbury Line East London Line Hammersmith & City line Jubilee line Great Northern & City Railway Former rolling stock Metropolitan Railway electric multiple units GN&C Stock S Stock T Stock Circle Stock O/P/CP/CO/P1 Stock F Stock Main Line Stock Former locomotives A Class B Class C Class D Class E Class F Class G Class H Class K Class Metropolitan Railway electric locomotives Metropolitan departmental ex GWR Wotton Tramway Metro-Land Metro-land Metro-land (TV) Future proposals Croxley Rail link Croxley Rail Link Ascot Road Watford General Hospital Watford High Street Watford Junction Future rolling stock S Stock (Currently being rolled out) Other West Hampstead interchange London Underground Transport for London London Transport portal

v t e Aylesbury Vale District Buckinghamshire County Council elections District Council elections Aylesbury Constituency Buckingham Constituency Towns (Component Areas and Hamlets) Aylesbury Bedgrove Broughton California Elm Farm Elmhurst Haydon Hill New Zealand Prebendal Farm Quarrendon Queens Park Southcourt Turnfurlong Walton Walton Court Buckingham Bourton Buffler's Holt Castle Fields Mount Pleasant Page Hill Wendover Cobblers Hill Concord Dean Hazeldean Kings Ash Little London Lower Bacombe Scrubwood Smalldean The Hale Upper Bacombe Wendover Dean Wendover Marsh World's End Winslow Shipton Shipton Brook Other Civil Parishes (Component Villages and Hamlets) Addington Adstock Akeley Akeley Stockholt Ashendon Ashendon Lower Pollicott Upper Pollicott Aston Clinton Aston Clinton Chivery Vaches Aston Abbotts Aston Sandford Barton Hartshorn Beachampton Biddlesden Bierton with Broughton Bierton Broughton Broughton Crossing Burcott Boarstall Boarstall Honeyburge Brill Brill Little London Buckingham Park Berryfields Weedon Hill Buckland Buckland Buckland Wharf Calvert Green Calvert Charndon Chearsley Cheddington Cheddington Cooks Wharf Chetwode Chilton Chilton Easington Coldharbour Fairford Leys Creslow Cublington Cuddington Dinton-with-Ford and Upton Aston Mullins Dinton Ford Gibraltar Upton Waldridge Westlington Dorton Drayton Beauchamp Drayton Parslow Dunton East Claydon Botolph Claydon East Claydon Edgcott Edlesborough Northall and Dagnall Dagnall Edlesborough Northall Ringshall Fleet Marston Foscott Gawcott with Lenborough Gawcott Lenborough Granborough Granborough Green End Great Brickhill Great Horwood Great Horwood Singleborough Grendon Underwood Haddenham Haddenham South End Halton Hardwick Hillesden Hoggeston Hogshaw Fulbrook Hogshaw Hulcott Ickford Ivinghoe Greatgap Horton Ivinghoe Ivinghoe Aston Ringshall Kingsey Kingswood Kingswood Tetchwick Leckhampstead Lillingstone Dayrell with Luffield Abbey Lillingstone Dayrell Luffield Abbey Lillingstone Lovell Little Horwood Long Crendon Ludgershall Maids Moreton Marsh Gibbon Marsh Gibbon Little Marsh Summerstown Marsworth Marsworth Startop's End Mentmore Crafton Ledburn Mentmore Middle Claydon Middle Claydon Verney Junction Mursley Nash Nether Winchendon Newton Longville North Marston Oakley Addingrove Little London Oakley Oving Padbury Pitchcott Pitstone Barley End Pitstone Pitstone Green Pitstone Hill Poundon Preston Bissett Quainton Quainton Shipton Lee Quarrendon Berryfields Radclive-cum-Chackmore Radclive Chackmore Shabbington Shalstone Slapton Grove Horton Wharf Slapton Soulbury Bragenham Chelmscote Hollingdon Soulbury Stockgrove Steeple Claydon Stewkley North End Stewkley Stewkley Dean Stoke Hammond Stoke Mandeville Stone with Bishopstone and Hartwell Bishopstone Hartwell Lower Hartwell Sedrup Stone Stowe Boycott Dadford Lamport Stowe Swanbourne Nearton End Swanbourne Thornborough Thornton Tingewick Turweston Twyford Upper Winchendon Waddesdon Eythrope Waddesdon Wormstone Water Stratford Watermead Weedon East End Weedon Weedon Hill Westbury Westcott Weston Turville Bye Green Weston Turville Whaddon Whitchurch Wing Ascott Burcott Littleworth Wing Wingrave Burston Nup End Rowsham Wingrave Woodham Worminghall Wotton Underwood Former Districts and Boroughs Municipal Borough of Aylesbury Municipal Borough of Buckingham Buckingham Rural District Long Crendon Rural District Wing Rural District Former Constituencies Buckinghamshire County Constituency Wendover Constituency List of Parliamentary constituencies in Buckinghamshire List of places in Buckinghamshire List of civil parishes in Buckinghamshire

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2012)

Neil Sedaka
Neil Sedaka in 2005
Background information
Born	(1939-03-13) March 13, 1939 (age 73)
Origin	Brooklyn, New York, United States
Genres	Pop
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist, record producer
Instruments	Vocals, Multiple instruments
Years active	1957–present
Labels	RCA Victor Records, MGM Records, Polydor Records, Rocket Records, Elektra Records, Neil Sedaka Music, Razor & Tie Records
Website	www.neilsedaka.com

Neil Sedaka (born March 13, 1939) is an American pop/rock singer, pianist, and composer. His career has spanned nearly 55 years, during which time he has sold millions of records as an artist and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard Greenfield and Phil Cody.

Early life: Juilliard and the Brill Building[link]

Sedaka was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Mac Sedaka (aka Sedacca), a taxi driver, was of Sephardic Turkish-Jewish descent. ("Sedaka" and "Sedacca" are variants of tzedaka, which translates in both Hebrew and Arabic as the word charity). Sedaka's mother, Eleanor (née Appel), was of Polish-Russian Jewish descent (or generally referred to as Ashkenazi-Jewish descent). He grew up in the then-heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach, which lies on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.^[1] Sedaka is a cousin of singer Eydie Gormé.

He demonstrated musical aptitude in his second-grade choral class, and when his teacher sent a note home suggesting he take piano lessons, his mother took a part-time job in an Abraham & Straus department store for six months to pay for a second-hand upright. In 1947, he auditioned successfully for a piano scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music's Preparatory Division for Children, which he attended on Saturdays. His mother wanted him to become a renowned classical pianist such as the contemporary of the day, Van Cliburn, but Sedaka was discovering pop music. When Sedaka was 13, a neighbor heard him playing and introduced him to her 16-year-old son, Howard Greenfield, an aspiring poet and lyricist. They became two of the legendary Brill Building's composers.

Sedaka and Greenfield wrote songs together throughout much of their young lives, with Sedaka going on to being a major teen pop star and the pair also writing hits for a litany of other artists as well as for Sedaka's own career. However, when The Beatles and the British Invasion took American music in a different direction, Sedaka was left without a recording career and decided a major change in his life was necessary, moving his family to Britain in the early 1970s. Sedaka and Greenfield mutually agreed that their partnership reached an end with "Our Last Song Together". Sedaka began a new composing partnership with British lyricist Phil Cody. After Sedaka returned to the US, however, the Sedaka-Greenfield team eventually reunited and continued until Greenfield's death in 1986.^{[citation needed]}

Early career[link]

Rise to fame with RCA Victor: the late 1950s[link]

After graduating from Lincoln High School, Sedaka and some of his classmates formed a band called The Tokens. The band had minor regional hits with songs like "While I Dream", "I Love My Baby", "Come Back, Joe", and "Don't Go", before Sedaka launched out on his own in 1957. However, after a few personnel changes, in 1961, The Tokens would hit #1 on the Billboard pop charts with the international smash "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Meanwhile, the very young Sedaka's first three solo singles, "Laura Lee", "Ring-a-Rockin'", and "Oh, Delilah!" failed to become hits (although "Ring-a-Rockin'" earned him the first of many appearances on Dick Clark's American Bandstand), but they demonstrated his ability to perform as a solo singer, so RCA Victor signed him to a recording contract.

His first single for RCA, "The Diary", was inspired by Connie Francis, one of Sedaka and Greenfield's most important clients, while the three were taking a temporary break during their idea-making for a new song. Francis was writing in her diary, Sedaka asked if he could read it, and Connie promptly replied no. After the song was passed on by Little Anthony and the Imperials, Sedaka recorded it himself, and his debut single hit the Top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #14 for Sedaka in 1958. His followup, a novelty tune titled "I Go Ape", just missed the Top 40, peaking at #42. The third single, "Crying My Heart Out for You", did even worse, missing the Hot 100 entirely, peaking at #111 (although it went to #6 on the pop charts in Italy). Desperate for another hit, he bought several hit singles and listened to them repeatedly, studying the song structure, chord progressions, lyrics and harmonies — and he discovered that the hit songs of the day all shared the same basic musical anatomy. Armed with his newfound arsenal of musical knowledge, he set out to craft his next big hit song, and he promptly did exactly that: "Oh! Carol" delivered Sedaka his first domestic Top 10 hit, reaching #9 on the Hot 100 in 1959 and going to #1 on the Italian pop charts in 1960, giving Sedaka his first #1 ranking. The song was dedicated to his girlfriend at the time, Carole King, a fellow Brill Building composer and future pop star. In terms of the title, however, Sedaka and Greenfield used the more traditional spelling of the word "Carol" without the "e"; King would respond with her own novelty song, "Oh! Neil", later that year.

Big hits in the early 1960s[link]

After establishing himself in 1958, Sedaka kept churning out new hits from 1960 to 1962. His flow of Top 30 hits during this period included: "Stairway to Heaven" (#9, 1960); "You Mean Everything to Me" (#17, 1960); "Run, Samson, Run" (#27, 1960); "Calendar Girl" (#4, 1961; also reached #1 on the Japanese pop charts); "Little Devil" (#11, 1961); "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" (#6, 1961); his signature song, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" (#1, 1962); and "Next Door to an Angel" (#5, 1962). Singles not making the Top 30 during this time period included "Sweet Little You" (#59, 1961) and "King of Clowns" (#45, 1962). RCA issued four LPs in the U.S. and Britain of his works during this period, and also produced Scopitone and Cinebox videos of "Calendar Girl" in 1961, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" in 1962, and "The Dreamer" in 1963. He made regular appearances on such TV programs as American Bandstand and Shindig! during this period.

Writing for other performers[link]

Connie Francis[link]

When Sedaka was not recording his own songs, he and Howard Greenfield were writing for other performers, most notably in their earliest days Connie Francis. Francis began searching for a new hit after her 1958 single "Who's Sorry Now?". She was introduced to Sedaka and Greenfield, who played every ballad they had written for her. Francis began writing in her diary while the two played the last of their songs. After they finished, Francis told them they wrote beautiful ballads but that they were too intellectual for the young generation. Sedaka suggested to Greenfield a song they had written that morning for a girl group. Greenfield protested because the song had been promised to the girl group, but Sedaka insisted on playing "Stupid Cupid". Francis told them they had just played her new hit. Francis' song reached #14 on the Billboard charts.

While Francis was writing in her diary, Sedaka asked her if he could read what she had written. After she refused, Sedaka was inspired to write "The Diary", his own first hit single. Sedaka and Greenfield wrote many of Connie Francis' hits, such as "Fallin'" and the "Theme from Where the Boys Are", the film in which she starred. Although the latter hit the Top 5 on the Billboard pop singles chart and Francis had several #1 singles, "Where the Boys Are" eventually became her signature song.

Jimmy Clanton[link]

Sedaka and Greenfield also wrote some of Jimmy Clanton's hits, such as "Another Sleepless Night," "What Am I Gonna Do?" and "All the Words in the World." Sedaka himself recorded each of these three songs: "Another Sleepless Night" appears on his Rock With Sedaka debut album; "What Am I Gonna Do?" was the B-side of "Going Home to Mary Lou" and appeared on his 1961 album Neil Sedaka Sings "Little Devil" and His Other Hits; and "All the Words in the World" was recorded but was kept in the RCA vaults until 1977, at the height of Sedaka's return to popularity, when it was released on the album Neil Sedaka: The '50s and '60s.

Foreign-language recordings[link]

Sedaka was very popular in Italy. Many of his English-language records were released there and proved quite successful, especially "Crying My Heart Out For You" (Italian #6, 1959) and "Oh! Carol" (Italian #1, 1960).

In 1961, Sedaka began to record some of his hits in Italian, starting with "Esagerata" and "Un Giorno Inutile", local versions of "Little Devil" and "I Must Be Dreaming". Other recordings were to follow, such as "Tu Non Lo Sai" ("Breaking Up Is Hard to Do"), "Il Re Dei Pagliacci" ("King of Clowns"), "I Tuoi Capricci" ("Look Inside Your Heart"), and "La Terza Luna" ("Waiting For Never"). "La Terza Luna" reached #1 on the Italian pop charts in April 1963. Cinebox videos exist for "La Terza Luna" and "I Tuoi Capricci". From a language standpoint, his recordings in Italian had very little American accent. RCA Victor's Italiana office distributed his records in Italy and released three compilation LPs of Sedaka's Italian recordings.

Sedaka also recorded in Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Japanese. Even in these countries, his English-language recordings were quite popular; "Calendar Girl" scored a #1 on the Japanese pop charts in the autumn of 1961. He enjoyed popularity in Latin America for his Spanish-language recordings. Many of these were pressed onto 78 rpm discs.

Mid-1960s decline[link]

The year 1962 provided Sedaka with one of his career's most important years, as Sedaka scored a #1 with "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" and a #5 with "Next Door To An Angel". But after 1962, Sedaka's popularity began to wane. His singles for 1963 enjoyed modest success: "Alice In Wonderland" (#17), "Let's Go Steady Again" (#26), "The Dreamer" (#47), and "Bad Girl" (#33). "Bad Girl" would be Sedaka's last Top 40 hit in the US until 1974.

Starting in 1964, Sedaka's career went into a sharp decline, hastened by The Beatles' arrival on the radio and especially their much-hyped February 1964 appearance on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show and the rest of the British Invasion. When describing The Beatles' effect on his career in the mid-'60s, he puts it brusquely: "The Beatles — not good!" ^[2] From 1964 to 1966, only three of his singles cracked the Hot 100: "Sunny" (#86, 1964), "The World through a Tear" (#76, 1965), and "The Answer to My Prayer" (#89, 1965). His other singles from this era - "The Closest Thing To Heaven", "I Hope He Breaks Your Heart", "Let The People Talk", "The Answer Lies Within" and "We Can Make It If We Try" - were all commercial failures.

To make matters worse, Sedaka's employers at RCA Victor refused to release his new recording, "It Hurts to Be in Love", because he had not recorded it in their studios, as stipulated by his contract. Sedaka attempted another recording of this song in RCA's studios, but the results were unsatisfactory. Howard Greenfield and Helen Miller, the song's co-writers, offered it to Gene Pitney instead, and he took the existing musical track, replacing Sedaka's lead vocal track with Pitney's own. Everything else was Sedaka's, including his own arrangement and backing vocals, piano-playing, and usual female backup singers. Pitney ended up with a #7 hit for himself and his record label, Musicor, in 1964.

For the remainder of his tenure with RCA Victor, Sedaka never fully recovered from the effects of "Beatlemania", the loss of "It Hurts to Be in Love" to Pitney, or the failure of his recordings. RCA chose not to renew his contract when it expired in 1966, leaving him without a record label.

Although Sedaka's stature as a recording artist was at a low ebb in the late 1960s, he was able to maintain his career through songwriting. Thanks to the fact that his publisher, Aldon Music, was acquired by Screen Gems, two of his songs were recorded by The Monkees, and other hits in this period written by Sedaka included The Cyrkle's version of "We Had a Good Thing Goin'" and "Workin' on a Groovy Thing", a Top 40 R&B hit for Patti Drew in 1968, and a Top 20 pop hit for The 5th Dimension in 1969. Also, "Make the Music Play" was included on Frankie Valli's charting album Timeless.

On an episode of the quiz show I've Got a Secret in 1965, Sedaka's secret was that he was to represent the United States in classical piano at the 1966 Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow, and he impressed the panelists with his performance of Frederic Chopin's "Fantaisie Impromptu" on the show. Prior to his piano performance, panelist Henry Morgan challenged Sedaka with the fact that the Soviet bureaucracy despises — and, in fact, outlaws — rock 'n' roll music and that any Western music that young Russians have was by underground smuggling. This exchange continued before the panel learned that Sedaka was to represent the USA at the Tchaikovsky classical piano competition, which Van Cliburn had won in 1958. Unfortunately, Morgan's warning turned out to be true. Despite Sedaka's classical roots, because of Sedaka's "other" life as a pop star, he was disqualified by the USSR as the US entrant for the competition.

Sedaka also made an appearance in the 1968 movie Playgirl Killer, with a scene of him performing a song called "The Waterbug".

The late 1960s to early 1970s[link]

Time in Australia[link]

Sedaka worked to revive his solo career in the early 1970s. Despite his waning chart appeal in the USA in the late 1960s, he remained very popular as a concert attraction, notably in the UK and Australia. Years later he thanked Bob Rogers and Australia for standing by him. "...You know, Bob, in my lean years — I called them The Hungry Years — it was Bob Rogers and Australia who welcomed me." ^[3] He made several trips to Australia to play cabaret dates, and his commercial comeback began when the single "Star-Crossed Lovers" became a major hit there. The song went to #5 nationally in April 1969 ^[4] — giving Sedaka his first charting single anywhere in four years. It also came in at #5 in Go-Set magazine's list of the Top 40 Australian singles of 1969.^[5]

Later that year, with the support of Festival Records, he recorded a new LP of original material entitled Workin' on a Groovy Thing (released in the United Kingdom as Sounds of Sedaka) at Festival Studios in Sydney. It was co-produced by Festival staff producer Pat Aulton, with arrangements by John Farrar (who later achieved international fame for his work with Olivia Newton-John) and backing by Australian session musicians including guitarist Jimmy Doyle (Ayers Rock) and noted jazz musician-composer John Sangster.^[6]

The title track from the album, "Wheeling, West Virginia," reached #20 in Australia in early 1970.^[7] The LP is also notable because it was Sedaka's first album to include collaborations with writers other than longtime lyricist Howard Greenfield; the title track featured lyrics by Roger Atkins and four other songs were co-written with Carole Bayer Sager.

[edit] Emergence and Solitaire

In 1971, Sedaka released the Emergence album. Singles from that album included "I'm A Song (Sing Me)," "Silent Movies," "Superbird," and "Rosemary Blue." Emergence and the next year's Solitaire album were both released on the RCA Victor label, marking a short-lived reunion between Sedaka and RCA. Good friend and New York music impresario Don Kirshner attempted to make the U.S. release of Emergence a comeback for Sedaka, but the album and single releases had no appreciable success. After the failure of Emergence in the U.S., Sedaka left his hometown of New York and moved his family to the UK.

In 1972, Sedaka embarked on a successful English tour and in June recorded the Solitaire album at Strawberry Studios in Stockport, working with the four future members of 10cc (best known to American audiophiles for "I'm Not in Love" and "The Things We Do for Love"). As well as the title track, which was successfully covered by Andy Williams (UK Top 5 singles chart) and The Carpenters (US Top 20), it included two UK Top 40 singles, including "Beautiful You," which also charted briefly in America, Sedaka's first US chart appearance in ten years; but its minor performance did little to generate interest in restarting Sedaka's career.

The mid- to late 1970s: Sedaka's Back I[link]

Neil Sedaka (1974)

Newfound success[link]

A year later he reconvened with the Strawberry team, who had by then charted with their own debut 10cc album, to record The Tra-La Days Are Over for MGM Records, which started the second phase of his career and included his original version of the hit song "Love Will Keep Us Together" (also a US #1 hit two years later for The Captain & Tennille). This album also marked the effective end of his writing partnership with Greenfield, commemorated by the track "Our Last Song Together." They would reunite, however, and begin composing together again before Greenfield's death in 1986. From 1974 onward, Sedaka's records were issued in Europe and around the world on the Polydor label. His first album of new material with Polydor was Laughter in the Rain.

Career with Rocket Records[link]

Elton John and Sedaka met at a party in London in 1973. When John realized Sedaka had no American record label, John suggested he sign with Rocket, and Sedaka accepted the proposition. When John visited Sedaka's London apartment, they discussed the plans for relaunching his career in the US.^[8]

John said he had "always been a Sedaka fan anyway".^[8] He went on to say:

So the basic plan was as simple as finding out what he wanted to have on his album - which turned out to be a compilation from his British albums. It had been like Elvis coming up and giving us the chance to release his records. We couldn't believe our luck.^[8]

[edit] Sedaka's Back

Sedaka returned to the U.S. album charts with the release of Sedaka's Back, a compilation of songs from three British albums he had already recorded in Britain, namely "Solitaire," "The Tra-La Days Are Over," and "Laughter In The Rain." It was only the second Sedaka album ever to chart in the U.S. Sedaka was known principally as a singles artist to that point, his only other American charting album being Neil Sedaka Sings His Greatest Hits, a compilation of his early singles.

Although the single was released in the autumn of 1974 and was slow in building, eventually Sedaka found himself once again topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts with "Laughter in the Rain" in early 1975. This song re-established the popularity of Sedaka in America.

One of Sedaka's most well-received compositions during this period was the second single, "The Immigrant" (US pop #22, US AC #1). Critics hailed its beautiful orchestration and evocative lyrics: wistful, nostalgic, and no doubt enhanced and embellished by both pride and disillusion with the state of affairs in the contemporary life in the nation in which Sedaka was raised. It was at one time welcoming of strangers from afar, willing to allow emigrants from faraway lands to enter our shores as immigrants, being allowed to try to find a place in that new home of their dreams – possibly not necessarily as perfect as initially hoped – but still the great land called America.^[9] But it was also was a protest ode dedicated to his friend (ironically, a former Beatle who had shooed him across the Atlantic in the opposite direction), John Lennon.

The third consecutive Billboard Top 25 hit from Sedaka's Back was the uptempo rocker "That's When the Music Takes Me" (US pop #25, US AC #7), originally from the 1972 "Solitaire" album. This song was a rarity at the time as it was one of the few songs Sedaka wrote by himself, without a collaborator. It remains today his standard curtain-call concert closer.

In the US, Sedaka's records were issued first on the Rocket label from 1974–77 and on the Elektra label from 1977-81.

Writing for artists of the 1970s[link]

Sedaka and Greenfield co-wrote "Love Will Keep Us Together," a No. 1 hit for The Captain & Tennille and the biggest hit for the entire year of 1975. Toni Tennille paid tribute to Sedaka's welcome return to music-business success with her ad lib of "Sedaka is back" in the outro while she was laying down her own background vocals for the track.^[10] "Captain" Daryl Dragon and Toni also recorded a Spanish-language version of the song the same year that cracked the top half of Billboard's Hot 100 chart ("Por Amor Viviremos," US pop #49). If you listen carefully, you will notice that the backing track is exactly the same as the English-language version, in English—including "Sedaka is Back".

In 1975, Sedaka was the opening act for The Carpenters on their world tour. According to The Carpenters: The Untold Story by Ray Coleman, manager Sherwin Bash fired Sedaka at the request of Richard Carpenter, allegedly because Sedaka was becoming more popular than the Carpenters. The firing resulted in a media backlash against The Carpenters after Sedaka publicly announced he was off the tour.^{[citation needed]} This, however, was before Karen and Richard recorded Sedaka's "Solitaire" which became a Top 20 hit for the duo. Richard Carpenter denied that he fired Sedaka for "stealing their show", stating they were proud of Sedaka's success. However, Bash was fired as The Carpenters' manager a short time after.

[edit] The Hungry Years

In late 1975, Sedaka earned more chart success with the release of his second Rocket album, The Hungry Years. This album was an American edition of Sedaka's British Polydor album "Overnight Success". Near the close of 1975 and lasting into early 1976, Sedaka would have another big single with "Bad Blood". The song stayed at #1 for three weeks and was certified Gold^® by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the most individual commercially successful single of his career. Elton John provided uncredited backing vocals for "Bad Blood" and has been credited by Sedaka as being responsible for his breakthrough back into the US pop music scene.^[11] Elton has been quoted as saying: "I only appear on the records of people I really know or like."^[8]

Another highlight from "The Hungry Years" was Sedaka's new version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do." His 1962 original, a #1 hit single, was an upbeat pop song, while the remake was a ballad, based on a similar arrangement used by Lenny Welch when he recorded a version of it in 1970. Sedaka's ballad version hit #8 on the Hot 100 in early 1976, making him the only artist to ever record entirely reworked and rearranged versions of the same song to reach the Top 10 by the same artist. Sedaka's second version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart in 1976. The same year, Elvis Presley recorded the Sedaka song "Solitaire". This was followed by Sedaka's Top 20 hit "Love in the Shadows", also from 1976.

Transition from Rocket to Elektra[link]

Later in 1976, Sedaka released a second (and final) collaboration with Elton John, with Elton once again on uncredited backing vocals on the title song to Sedaka's third and final Rocket album "Steppin' Out". While it would crack the Hot 100's Top 40, it would also signal the beginning of a slowdown in Sedaka's music sales and radio play not unlike what he experienced in 1964 when The Beatles and the "British Invasion" arrived. In this version of another fading of his music sales, it was the arrival of the disco era. In 1977, Sedaka, now with Elektra Records, released his next album "A Song" which had moderate success. While Sedaka attempted to release disco-themed music himself in the late 1970s, his album sales were weak and singles could not get a foothold on the radio. In 1980, Sedaka had his final Top 20 hit with "Should've Never Let You Go", which he recorded as a duet with his then 17-year-old daughter, Dara.

Re-issue of RCA-era recordings[link]

Throughout the 1970s, Sedaka's old record company, RCA, would re-issue his 1960s-era songs on several compilation LPs on the RCA Victor and RCA Camden labels, a practice which continues to this day. The idea was to capitalize on Sedaka's newfound popularity by making his RCA-era recordings available to younger generations of fans.

Sedaka also released one final album of new material with RCA, consisting of a live concert he gave in Sydney, Australia. The album was released on the RCA International label in Australia and Europe as Neil Sedaka On Stage in 1974. It saw a US release on the RCA Victor label in 1976 as Sedaka Live In Australia. The songs on the album were mostly cover versions of rock and pop songs from the previous twenty-five years, such as "Proud Mary", "Everything Is Beautiful", and "The Father Of Girls."

RCA and Sedaka have been at odds for decades over ownership rights over Sedaka's original master tapes from his late 1950s/early 1960s hits. RCA has released assorted repackaging of his old hits, forcing Sedaka to re-record his old hits and make them sound as close and authentic to the originals as possible.

The 1980s and 1990s: The struggles return[link]

A change in record companies in the early 1980s also required him to, for the first time in his career, record cover versions of other artists' "oldies". Only two singles on two albums, spaced three years apart, managed to land on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart; none charted on the Hot 100 at all. Another duet with Dara, a remake of the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell 1967 Top 5 smash "Your Precious Love", placed high enough on the AC chart (making the Top 15) for one final album to be released. But the second album's only release did not fare well on the AC chart, barely cracking its Top 40, and by 1985, Sedaka was once again without a recording contract. Concertgoers filled theatre seats while Sedaka created his own music label. That would assure that his catalog of hits would find the marketplace, and he released occasional CDs of self-produced new, original material.

Other successes[link]

Ben Folds, an American singer-musician-songwriter and judge on NBC's hit a cappella vocal-group competition series The Sing-Off, credited Sedaka on his "iTunes Originals" album as an inspiration for song publishing. Hearing Sedaka had a song published by the age of 13 gave Folds the goal of also getting a song published by his 13th birthday, despite the fact that Sedaka did not actually publish his first song until he was 16.^[12]

In 1985, songs composed by Sedaka were adapted for the Japanese anime TV series Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. These included the two opening themes "Zeta - Toki wo Koete" (originally in English as "Better Days Are Coming") and "Mizu no Hoshi e Ai wo Komete" (originally in English as "For Us to Decide", but the English version was never recorded), as well as the end theme "Hoshizora no Believe" (written as "Bad and Beautiful"). Due to copyright, the songs were replaced for the North American DVD.

In 1994, Sedaka provided the voice for Neil Moussaka, a parody of himself in Food Rocks, an attraction at Epcot from 1994-2006.

A musical comedy based around the songs of Sedaka, titled Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,^[13] was written in 2005 by Erik Jackson and Ben H. Winters; it is now under license to Theatrical Rights Worldwide.

A biographical musical, Laughter in the Rain, produced by Bill Kenwright and Laurie Mansfield, starring Wayne Smith as Sedaka, had its world premiere at the Churchill Theatre, in the London borough of Bromley, on 4 March 2010. Sedaka attended the opening and joined the cast onstage for an impromptu curtain call of the title song.

The 21st century: Sedaka's Back II[link]

Sedaka maintains a rigorous concert schedule in the second decade of the 21st century, in the U.S. and around the world, despite having passed the age of 70. He was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1983,^[14] has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was an October 2006 inductee of the Long Island Music Hall of Fame. His ardent fans have appealed for his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, due to his longevity, contributions to contemporary music, and hit songwriting for himself and dozens of other artists.

[edit] American Idol

In May 2003, near the end of the second season of the Fox TV series American Idol, Sedaka appeared as a guest judge and mentor to the five remaining finalists. (The "guest judge" aspect of the series has long since been discontinued.) Several of the contestants' performances from Sedaka's songbook sparked particular praise from the guest judge. One of those performances came from eventual third-place finalist Kimberley Locke, who sang the "Theme from Where the Boys Are." The Sedaka/Greenfield composition was originally recorded by Connie Francis and has gone on to become her signature song. Sedaka termed Locke's performance "ear-licious."

Eventual Season 2 runnerup Clay Aiken chose Sedaka's 1972 song "Solitaire" for his performance. As Aiken explained to the studio and TV audiences, host Ryan Seacrest, and the four total judges, "Solitaire" had long been one of his mother's all-time favorite songs. When she learned that Sedaka was going to be a guest judge and that the finalists would be singing Sedaka's songs, she begged him to sing "Solitaire." The performance was uniformly given extraordinarily high praise by the judges (including perennial skeptic Simon Cowell). Sedaka dissolved into tears, telling Aiken that he officially passed ownership of the performance of "Solitaire" to Clay, offering to record and produce a single of the song or an entire CD with him.

Although it did not appear on his debut CD itself, Aiken recorded and added "Solitaire" as the B-side to the single "The Way," whose sales were faltering. "Solitaire" was quickly moved to the A-side, and radio airplay and single and download sales responded immediately. "Solitaire" hit #1 on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart and was, in fact, the top-selling single for all of 2004. It also hit the Top 5 on Billboard's Hot 100. Sedaka was invited back to American Idol to celebrate the success of "Solitaire" several times, as it continued to reach new milestones. Since then, Aiken has mined the Sedaka songbook again, recording a cover of probably Sedaka's best-known song, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," on the "deluxe version" of his 2010 CD release, Tried and True.

Sedaka continues to be seen in the American Idol studio audience on at least an annual basis — most recently on May 19, 2011, when Seacrest had Sedaka stand and greet the audience on-camera during Season 10's "Top 3" results show.

Guinness World Record[link]

When Sedaka moved his family to the UK, British singer Tony Christie recorded and released the Sedaka/Greenfield composition "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?" in 1971. The song did relatively well on the UK singles chart, peaking in the Top 20. The song would lie dormant for more than three decades, when UK comic Peter Kay lip-synched the song for a 2002 video in his TV series Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights. For the 2005 annual Comic Relief charity drive, he solicited a number of celebrity friends of his and updated the video, and it became an enormous hit. The original 1971 Tony Christie single was re-released to radio and CD/download sales, and hit #1 for seven weeks and was the biggest hit in Britain for all of 2005.

When interviewed for an "extras" feature for a DVD set of a concert filmed in London on 7 April 2006 (see below), Sedaka jokingly had heard that Christie had retired and was "golfing in Spain." ^[15] The sudden revival of "Amarillo" summoned Christie back to the UK for an unexpected return to fame. Sedaka also released the song in the U.S. in 1977 as the shortened "Amarillo," but it was only a mid-chart entry, peaking just shy of the Top 40. In early 2006, the song received new life yet again when it received a dance beat and revised lyrics to become a novelty hit for the UK team's FIFA World Cup finals with "Is This the Way to the (England) World Cup?" It was used yet again later that summer by the Central Band of the Royal British Legion prior to the Men's Finals of the 2006 Wimbledon tennis tournament.^{[citation needed]}

On 7 April 2006, Sedaka was appearing at the Royal Albert Hall and filming for the above-referenced CD/DVD package, when he was interrupted mid-concert by a gentleman who walked onstage from the wings. The planned scenario was that Sedaka was to begin performing "Amarillo", and after one verse, the audience was to be surprised by the appearance of Christie for an eventual duet. But at the interruption, a seemingly annoyed Sedaka asked, "What is this?" The interloper was a representative from Guinness Records, and he was there to present Sedaka with an award from Guinness World Records: British Hit Singles and Albums for composing "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo?", the most successful UK single of the 21st century (up to that date, of course).^[16][17] After the presentation, Sedaka proceeded into "Amarillo", Christie entered onstage to an eruption of cheers from the audience, and after the successful duet performance, the two men walked offstage together as the first half of Sedaka's concert came to a close – with the entertainer the latest recipient of a new Guinness World Record.^{[citation needed]}

New recording contract, new chart success[link]

Since Sedaka had lost his recording contract in the mid-1980s, he had used his own business, Neil Sedaka Music, to finance the recording, production, and distribution of new CDs and repackaging of his existing catalog of music. Because of ongoing disputes with RCA Victor Records over the ownership of Sedaka's original late 1950s/early 1960s hits, in 1991, Sedaka re-recorded those early recordings, note-for-note. Sedaka had taken meticulous care of his voice over the years and still sang in the original keys recorded in his youth (and still does today). This allowed him to repackage his catalog to include both his early recordings along with his mid- to late '70s hits and later recordings.

In early 2007, Sedaka signed his first recording contract in more than two decades with Razor and Tie Records, a small-but-growing, New York-based independent label with a talent roster that also includes Joan Baez, Vanessa Carlton, Foreigner, Joe Jackson, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The first release was The Definitive Collection, a life-spanning compilation of his hits, along with outtakes and songs previously released but unavailable in CD and/or download format. It debuted in the Top 25 on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart in May 2007, one of the highest-charting albums of his entire career. Best known as a "singles artist," this album chart activity was considered a significant comeback for the veteran entertainer. The last time Sedaka had an album on the Top 200 albums chart was in 1980, with his 1979 album In the Pocket – when "Should've Never Let You Go," the 1980 duet with Sedaka and daughter Dara, was Sedaka's last Top 20 hit on the Hot 100 singles chart.

Waking Up Is Hard to Do was Sedaka's next release with Razor and Tie, hitting the albums chart in May 2009. The CD was a children's album that used the melodies of many of Sedaka's best-known songs but changed the lyrics to fit, and hopefully have fun with, the everyday lives of babies and toddlers, along with their parents, grandparents, babysitters, and other caregivers. The CD title is an example. Lastly, The Music of My Life entered the albums chart in February 2010 ^[18] and comprised almost all new material. The first track, "Do You Remember?," is Sedaka's first foray into spicy salsa and was produced by music producer, composer, and pianist David Foster. "Right or Wrong," co-written with original music partner Howard Greenfield, was done in traditional street-corner, layered doo-wop vocal harmonies with Sedaka overlaying his own voice to achieve the effect for which he was well known in his "early" heyday of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The final track, "You", has been previously released, but was remastered for this project and is often one of several titles dedicated to his wife and career guide of nearly 50 years, Leba. Neil Sedaka Music continues to be listed as co-producer along with Razor and Tie.

A concert performance on 26 October 2007 at the Lincoln Center in New York City paid homage to the 50th anniversary of Sedaka's debut in show business. Music impresario (and producer for The Music of My Life track "Do You Remember?") David Foster served as emcee. Other guests included The Captain and Tennille; Natalie Cole; Connie Francis; recording legend and decades-long Sedaka friend and former manager Don Kirshner; and new Solitaire "owner" Clay Aiken, among many others.

During his 2008 Australian tour, Sedaka premiered a new classical orchestral composition entitled "Joie de Vivre (Joy of Life)."^[19] Sedaka also toured The Philippines for his May 17, 2008 concert at the Araneta Coliseum.^[20]

In early 2010, his original uptempo version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (performed by a group of uncredited singers) was being heard as the impetus for a series of insurance TV commercials, featuring actor Dennis Haysbert assuring that TV viewers not insured by Allstate can break up with their current insurer without much ado at all.

On September 11, 2010, Sedaka performed to a public and TV audience at the Hyde Park, London, venue of the "Proms in the Park" for the BBC. The UK continues to be probably Sedaka's most welcoming nation, and has been since first moving his family there (temporarily) four decades ago. The irony of the place whose music scuttled his "first" career, namely The Beatles and the British Invasion, and yet has constantly welcomed him with open arms for more than 40 years, is not lost on him, he has stated in many interviews. Indeed, it was his work with the musicians who would, in a few years, become the hit-making group 10cc that brought him back to the U.S. as a major star with #1 hits and a number of other major Top 40 singles. The UK always takes up a major portion of Sedaka's touring year in the 21st century.

In early 2011, Sedaka recorded two duets ("Brighton" and "The Immigrant") with singer Jim Van Slyke for his Neil Sedaka tribute album, The Sedaka Sessions. LML Records released this album in August 2011.^[21]

Personal life[link]

Sedaka attended Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, graduating in 1956.^[22] He has been married to his wife, Leba (Strassberg), since 1962. They have two children: a daughter, Dara, a recording artist and vocalist for television and radio commercials (who sang the female part on the Sedaka duet "Should've Never Let You Go"), and a son, Marc, a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles with his wife Samantha and three children.

Discography[link]

All-time No. 1 Hits[link]

• "Oh! Carol - #1 (Italy), 1960
• "Calendar Girl" - #1 (Japan), 1961
• "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (1962 version) - #1 on US Billboard Hot 100, 1962
• "La Terza Luna" - #1 (Italy), 1963
• "Laughter in the Rain" - #1 on US Adult Contemporary, 1974; #1 on US Billboard Hot 100, 1975
• "The Immigrant" - #1 on US Adult Contemporary, 1975
• "Bad Blood" - #1 on US Billboard Hot 100, 1975-76
• "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (1975 version) - #1 on US Adult Contemporary, 1976

Filmography[link]

• 1968 - Playgirl Killer

Autobiography[link]

• Laughter in the Rain: My Own Story. New York: Putnam, 1982. ISBN 0-399-12744-5

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Bloom, Ken. American song. The Complete Musical Theater Companion. 1877–1995, vol. 2, 2nd edition, Schirmer Books, 1996.
• Clarke, Donald. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Viking, 1989.
• Ewen, David. American Songwriters. An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, H. W. Wilson Company, 1987.
• diMartino, Dave. Singer-Songwriters, Pop Music's Performer-Composers, from A to Zevon, Billboard Books, 1984.
• Friedrich, Gary; Brown, Len. Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Tower Publications, 1970.
• Lablanc, Michael. Contemporary Musicians, vol. 4, Gale Research, 1991.
• Larkin, Colin. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Macmillan, 1992.
• Lyman, Darryl. Great Jews in Music, J. D. Publishers, 1986.
• Sadie, Stanley; Hitchcock, H. Wiley (Ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1986.
• Stambler, Irwin. Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul, St. Martin's Press, 1974.
• Sumrall, Harry. Pioneers of Rock and Roll. 100 Artists Who Changed the Face of Rock, Billboard Books, 1994.
• White, Mark. You Must Remember This... Popular Songwriters 1900-1980, Frederick Warner, 1983.

External links[link]

• Neil Sedaka's official site
• Neil Sedaka at the Internet Movie Database
• Neil Sedaka For Fans
• Petition: Send Neil Sedaka to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame
• The Neil Sedaka videos
• Neil Sedaka's Biography by Michael Turner
• The Neil Sedaka Appreciation Society

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2011)

Don Kirshner (April 17, 1934 - January 17, 2011), ^[1]known as "The Man With the Golden Ear", was an American song publisher and rock producer who is best known for managing songwriting talent as well as successful pop groups, such as The Monkees, Kansas and The Archies.^[2]

Early life[link]

Don Kirshner was born to Gilbert Kirshner,^{[citation needed]} a tailor, and Belle Jaffe^{[citation needed]}, in The Bronx, New York. He attended the Bronx High School of Science (classmate of Bobby Darin), and Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey.^[3]

Aldon Music[link]

Kirshner achieved his first major success in the late 1950s and early 1960s as co-owner of the influential New York-based publishing company Aldon Music with partner Al Nevins, which had under contract at various times several of the most important songwriters of the so-called "Brill Building" school, including Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Phil Spector, Howard Greenfield, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Jack Keller.

As a producer-promoter, Kirshner was influential in starting off the careers of singers and songwriters, including Bobby Darin, (with whom he collaborated on a number of advertising jingles and pop ditties, their first was called "Bubblegum Pop"),^[4] Neil Diamond, Carole King, and Sarah Dash of Labelle, as well as discovering the occasional rock act such as Kansas.

Don Kirshner's record labels[link]

Kirshner also had three record labels. The first was Chairman Records, a subsidiary of London Records. Although he was responsible for scores of hits in the 1960s, he was only to have one on the Chairman label, 1963's "Martian Hop" by The Ran-Dells, which reached #16 nationally. Kirshner later had two other record labels, Calendar, which had early hits by The Archies and the Kirshner label, which had later hits by The Archies and Kansas. Calendar/Kirshner recordings were first distributed by RCA Records, then CBS Records. He was also involved in Dimension Records.

The Monkees[link]

In the early 1960s, Kirshner was a successful music publisher as head of his own company, Aldon Music, with Al Nevins, bringing performers such as Bobby Darin together with songwriters and musicians.

Kirshner was hired by the producers of The Monkees to provide hitworthy songs to accompany the television program, within a demanding schedule. Kirshner quickly corralled songwriting talent from his Brill Building stable of writers and musicians to create catchy, engaging tracks which the band could pretend to perform on the show.

This move was not because of any lack of Monkee talent — Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were already experienced musicians, and Davy Jones was an established musical performer; but as a working band they had little experience, and Micky Dolenz was completely new to drums — but to churn out ready-to-go recordings to give each new episode its own song. Each Monkee was retained for vocal duties, but they were not allowed to play on the records.

The formula worked phenomenally well: singles "Last Train to Clarksville" and "I'm a Believer"; the first two Monkees albums were produced and released in time to catch the initial wave of the television program's popularity. Future Taj Mahal and John Lennon guitarist Jesse Ed Davis sat in on guitar. After a year, the Monkees wanted another chance to all play their own instruments on the records. They also wanted additional oversight into which songs would be released as singles. Further, when word belatedly came out that the band had not played on the first season's songs, a controversy arose, and the public expressed a desire to hear the television stars perform their own music.

The matter reached a breaking point over a disagreement regarding the Neil Diamond-penned "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" in early 1967. The song, released by Kirshner as a single without Columbia Pictures' consent,^[5] led to his dismissal. The initial B-side was replaced with a Nesmith song, performed by the Monkees, and they performed on the next year's recordings, featured in the show's second season.

Kirshner's later venture was The Archies, an animated series where there were only the studio musicians to be managed.

[edit] Don Kirshner's Rock Concert

In the fall of 1972, Kirshner was asked by ABC Television to serve as executive producer and "creative consultant" for their new "In Concert" series, which aired every other week in the 11:30 p.m. slot normally showing The Dick Cavett Show. The following September, Kirshner left "In Concert" to produce and host his own syndicated weekly rock-concert program called Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. With its long-form live performances, as compared to rehearsed, often lip-synced performances that were the staple of earlier television shows like Shindig!, it was a new direction for pop music presentation. The last show aired in 1981, the year that MTV was launched.

The program presented many of the most successful rock bands of the era, but what was consistent week-to-week was Kirshner's deliberately flat delivery as the program host. In its final season Rock Concert was mostly hosted by Kirshner's son and daughter, whose delivery was the same as their father's.

Kirshner's wooden presentation style was later lampooned on Saturday Night Live by Paul Shaffer, most notably in Shaffer's introduction of the Blues Brothers during the duo's television debut. Shaffer and Kirshner worked together on the short-lived situation comedy, A Year at the Top, which Kirshner co-produced with Norman Lear, and in which Shaffer starred.^[6]

In the Blue Öyster Cult song "The Marshall Plan", from the album Cultösaurus Erectus, Don Kirshner's voice is sampled to introduce the fictitious Johnny: "This is Don Kirshner. And tonight on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, a new phenomenon in the music world — with six million albums to his credit in just two short years, my good friend, here's Johnny!"

Later career[link]

Kirshner received the 2007 Songwriters Hall of Fame Abe Olman Publishing Award.^[7] He was a creative consultant for Rockrena, a company founded by Jack Wishna, launching in 2011, to promote new music talent online.^[8] He died of heart failure in a Boca Raton, Florida hospital on January 17, 2011, at age 76, survived by his wife of 50 years, Sheila, his son Ricky, daughter Daryn Lewis and five grandchildren.^[9][10][11]

In April 14, 2012 Don Kirshner was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Further reading[link]

• Podolsky, Rich (2012) Don Kirshner - The Man with the Golden Ear: How He Changed the Face of Rock and Roll. Hal Leonard Publishing. ISBN 1-4584-1670-4

References[link]