Neil Diamond-1966-1979

http://thepiratebay.se/user/flitigalisa Neil Diamond, född 24 januari 1941 i Brooklyn, New York, USA, amerikansk sångare, gitarrist och kompositör. Diamond gick i gymnasieskolan tillsammans med Barbra Streisand och sjöng tillsammans med henne i skolans kör. När han fyllde 16 fick han en gitarr som present och lärde sig snart att spela. Efter skoltiden arbetade Diamond i en fastighet vid Broadway som gick under namnet The Brill Building, och som 1962 innehöll inte mindre än 165 olika företag, som arbetade inom olika delar av musikbranschen. Där kunde en sångare – en grupp – i samma fastighet finna en förläggare, en tryckare, någon som producerade en demo-platta och ordna en uppgörelse med personer som hade kontakter inom radiovärlden. Där hade Diamond sin första framgång med låten I’m a Believer inspelad av The Monkees. När han själv gjorde sitt första försök att bli accepterad och utgiven på platta kallade han sig Eice Cherry, vilket inte fick något gehör, varför han i fortsättningen använde sig av sitt riktiga namn. 1977 gav han ut ett album med namnet I’m Glad You’re Here With Me Tonight som innehöll spåret You Don’t Give Me Flowers. Den spelade också Barbra Streisand in på ett av sina album, varvid en discjockey ordnade en virtuell duett mellan dem. Den blev en sådan succé att de båda gjorde en verklig duettskiva, som blev en riktig storhit 1978. Planer fanns att göra en film av låten med Diamond och Streisand i huvudrollerna, men den föll på grund av ett annat filmprojekt där Neil Diamond 1980 agerade i en uppföljare till Al Jolsons Jazzsångaren från 1927. I filmen medverkade även sir Laurence Olivier och Desi Arnaz. Filmen blev ingen stor succé, men skivan med filmmusiken blev en av Neil Diamonds höjdpunkter i karriären. Songwriters Hall of Fame tilldelade Neil Diamond 2000 The Sammy Kahn Lifetime Achievement Award Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is one of America's most enduring and successful singer-songwriters. As a successful pop music performer, Diamond scored a number of hits worldwide in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. According to David Wild, common themes in Diamond's songs are "a deep sense of isolation and an equal desire for connection. A yearning for home – and at the same time, the allure of greater freedom. The good, the bad and the ugly about a crazy little thing called love." As of 2001 Diamond has 115 million records sold worldwide, including 48 million records in the U.S. In terms of Billboard chart success, he is the third most successful Adult Contemporary artist ever, ranking behind only Barbra Streisand and Elton John. Though his record sales declined somewhat after the 1980s, Diamond continues to tour successfully, and maintains a very loyal following. Diamond's songs have been recorded by a vast array of performers from many different musical genres. Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and in 2000 received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award.

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In a career that began in the 1960s, Neil Diamond became a major recording artist, an internationally successful touring act, and a songwriter whose compositions produced hits for himself and others. His earliest recognition, in fact, came as a songwriter associated with the Brill Building era of Tin Pan Alley in the early '60s. But he soon branched out into recording and performing, and by the early '70s was topping the charts with the self-written singles "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Song Sung Blue." This enabled him to be one of the more noticeable figures in the singer/songwriter movement of the period, as he made a transition to more of an album artist and those albums began to earn gold and platinum certifications. He also developed into a dynamic concert performer, as demonstrated on his 1972 album Hot August Night. At the same time, however, his music became generally softer, which broadened his appeal while earning him opprobrium, when he was considered at all, by the rock critics who dominated pop music journalism. But his millions of fans didn't care about that, and they flocked to his shows and bought his albums in big numbers until well into the 1980s. After that, while his concert tours continued to post high grosses, his record sales became more modest. Still, as of 2001, he claimed worldwide record sales of 115 million copies, and as of 2002 he was ranked third, behind only Elton John and Barbra Streisand, on the list of the most successful adult contemporary artists in the history of the Billboard chart. Meanwhile, having been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and given its lifetime achievement award, he could cite an amazingly broad range of pop, rock, R&B, folk, country, jazz, reggae, punk, heavy metal, alternative, easy listening, and new age performers who had recorded his songs, among them Altered Images, Gene Ammons, Chet Atkins, Michael Ball, Shirley Bassey, Les Baxter, Harry Belafonte, Acker Bilk, the Box Tops, the Brothers Four, Glen Campbell, Vikki Carr, Johnny Cash, Petula Clark, Ray Conniff, Floyd Cramer, Michael Crawford, Bobby Darin, the Spencer Davis Group, Joey Dee & the Starliters, Deep Purple, the Drifters, David Essex, Percy Faith, José Feliciano, Ferrante & Teicher, the Four Tops, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Goldsboro, Marcia Griffiths, the Heptones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Julio Iglesias, Chris Isaak, Millie Jackson, Wanda Jackson, Jay & the Americans, Waylon Jennings, Tom Jones, Bert Kaempfert, André Kostelanetz, Patti LaBelle, David Lanz, James Last, Peggy Lee, Liberace, Enoch Light, Mark Lindsay, Lulu, Arthur Lyman, Mantovani, Johnny Mathis, Ronnie Milsap, the Monkees, the Music Machine, Wayne Newton, Jane Olivor, Roy Orbison, Johnny Paycheck, Elvis Presley, Boots Randolph, Cliff Richard, Billy Joe Royal, Frank Sinatra, Smash Mouth, the Specials, Barbra Streisand, Third World, B.J. Thomas, Tin Huey, Tina Turner, UB40, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, Urge Overkill, Billy Vaughn, the Ventures, Bobby Vinton, Junior Walker & the All-Stars, Scott Walker, Roger Whittaker, Andy Williams, Bobby Womack, and Robert Wyatt.
Neil Leslie Diamond was born January 24, 1941, in Brooklyn, NY, the first of two sons born to Akeeba Diamond (known as Kieve), who operated and owned a series of dry goods stores in the New York City borough, and Rose (Rapoport) Diamond. Except for two years in the mid-'40s that the family spent in Wyoming while Akeeba Diamond served in the military, Diamond grew up in Brooklyn, albeit in changing locations as his father moved from store to store; he later claimed to have attended nine different schools and to have suffered socially as a result. He showed an early interest in music and took up singing and playing the guitar after seeing Pete Seeger perform at a camp he was attending as a teenager. In June 1958, he graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School, and that fall he enrolled at New York University, where he had won a fencing scholarship, as a premed student. But he seems to have spent much of his time writing songs and trying to place them at music publishing

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produced, as all his subsequent Bang discs would be, by Barry and Greenwich. "Solitary Man" gave him his first chart entry as a recording artist, peaking at number 55 on the Hot 100 in July. (In 1970, T.G. Sheppard revived it for a number 14 country hit. Among numerous other covers over the years, the song has been placed on chart albums by the Sidewinders, Chris Isaak, and Johnny Cash, appearing as the title song on Cash's 2000 release American III: Solitary Man.)
Diamond quickly followed "Solitary Man" with his second Bang single, "Cherry, Cherry," released in July 1966, which gave him his first substantial hit, peaking at number six in October. (The many covers of the song include one quickly cut by the hard rock group the Music Machine for its chart LP [Turn On] The Music Machine.) The single's B-side, "I'll Come Running," was covered by Cliff Richard, who scored a Top 40 hit with it in 1967. When song publisher Don Kirshner heard "Cherry, Cherry," he called Diamond into his office and asked if the songwriter had a similarly upbeat tune that could be used by the Monkees, a group put together for an upcoming TV series. Diamond played him "I'm a Believer," a song intended for his debut album. Kirshner liked it, and Diamond, Barry, and Greenwich recorded a backing track that Kirshner took to California and had the Monkees sing over. By the time "I'm a Believer" was released as the Monkees' second single in the fall of 1966, the group was a teenybopper phenomenon, and the disc had advance orders of over one million copies. It shot to number one, where it stayed seven weeks, becoming the biggest single of 1967. (Among many covers, "I'm a Believer" appeared on chart albums by the Four Tops and the Ventures in 1967. Tommy Overstreet revived it for a number nine country hit in 1974, the same year Robert Wyatt took it into the U.K. Top 40. EMF and Reeves and Mortimer hit the British Top Ten with it in 1995. In 2001, it was revived by Smash Mouth in the movie Shrek and reached number 25 in the U.S.)
Diamond's debut LP, The Feel of Neil Diamond, released in August 1966, was a rush job, featuring "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man" along with his covers of hits like "La Bamba" and "Monday, Monday." It barely charted. Also featured, however, was "I Got the Feelin' (Oh No No)," an original composition that would be his next single in October. It reached number 16 in December, but the 45 was also significant for its Diamond-penned B-side, "The Boat That I Row." British singer Lulu quickly covered the song, and her version became a Top Ten U.K. hit in the spring of 1967. Diamond's fourth Bang single, "You Got to Me," was released in December 1966 and peaked at number 18 in March 1967. In February, his song "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)" was featured on the Monkees' chart-topping second album, More of the Monkees. The following month, "A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You," the Diamond-penned follow-up to "I'm a Believer," entered the singles chart for the Monkees; it peaked at number two in April. Also in March, Bang released its fifth Diamond single, "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon," which became his second Top Ten hit in May. (Among the many covers of this dark ballad, the most famous was the one by Urge Overkill, which the band recorded for its Stull EP, after which it was used in the film Pulp Fiction and released as a single, reaching number 59 in 1994.) In April, Ronnie Dove entered the charts with "My Babe," written and produced for him by Diamond; it peaked at number 50 in May. Bang's sixth Diamond single, "Thank the Lord for the Night Time," appeared in June, peaking at number 13 in August. That month saw the release of Diamond's second LP, Just for You, which peaked at number 80. Diamond's sixth Bang single, "Kentucky Woman," followed in September, and it reached number 22 in November, giving him his sixth consecutive Top 40 hit. ("Kentucky Woman" has proven to be one of Diamond's more versatile songs. Hard rockers Deep Purple peaked at number 38 w

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Even after completing Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Diamond continued to stay off the road. He was next heard from in the fall of 1974, when he released his first regular album for Columbia, Serenade, prefaced by the single "Longfellow Serenade," which was his biggest hit since "Song Sung Blue," peaking at number five on the Hot 100 and number one on the AC chart in November. Serenade hit number three in December, another instant gold album that has since gone platinum. Follow-up single "I've Been This Way Before" barely made the Top 40 on the pop chart, but topped the AC chart, a good example of the increasing dichotomy between the success of Diamond's 45s on the two charts. (A third single, "The Last Picasso," went Top Ten AC but missed the Hot 100 entirely.)
Another year went by before Diamond finally returned to live work, doing a few shakedown shows in California and Utah in late January and early February 1976 before launching a tour of Australia and New Zealand, followed by more dates in the U.S. in the spring. Meanwhile, working with Malibu, CA, neighbor Robbie Robertson of the Band as his producer, he had finished a new album, Beautiful Noise, its songs reflecting back on his early-'60s days in Tin Pan Alley. Leadoff single "If You Know What I Mean," issued in June, reached number 11 on the Hot 100 and number one on the AC chart. The album, which followed a couple of weeks later, hit number four, as usual going gold on release, with one of the newly introduced platinum certifications following in September. Follow-up singles "Don't Think I Feel" and "Beautiful Noise" went Top Ten AC. On July 1, 1976, for a hefty fee, Diamond made his Las Vegas debut at the Aladdin Hotel, though he would avoid the entertainment mecca afterward until well into the '90s. In September, he returned to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, this time with both cameras and recording equipment in tow. On November 25, 1976, he appeared as one of the special guests at the Band's farewell concert at Winterland in San Francisco, performing the Beautiful Noise track "Dry Your Eyes," which he had co-written with Robertson. The show was filmed and recorded for the 1978 movie and triple-LP set The Last Waltz.
Both of Diamond's albums of 1977 were associated with television specials. First came Love at the Greek, like Hot August Night a two-LP concert set drawn from shows at the Greek Theatre. It appeared in February 1977, two weeks ahead of The Neil Diamond Special, broadcast February 21. The LP reached number eight in April, selling a million copies by July, with another million registered since. Diamond undertook a lengthy tour of Europe in the spring and summer. While he was now writing almost exclusively for himself, one of his cast-offs, a song called "Sunflower," was recorded by Glen Campbell, who took it into the country Top Ten and the pop Top 40 in August. In November, Diamond was back with a new studio album, I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, again tied into a TV special. The simultaneously released single "Desirée" went Top 20 pop and number one AC, while the album reached number six in February 1978, racking up the usual sales number of a million copies with another million to come. Interestingly, Columbia released the title song as a second single that missed the charts entirely, while ignoring both "Let Me Take You in My Arms Again," which James Darren recorded for a country chart entry, and a sad breakup ballad called "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" that Diamond had written for a television pilot about reversed sex roles (hence the novelty of having a man complain about romantic neglect in terms usually used by a woman). Labelmate Barbra Streisand, however, knew a big ballad when she heard one, especially one co-written by her personal lyricists, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and she quickly covered the song, which appeared on her Songbird album in May 1978. A disc jockey, realizing that both Diamond's and Streisand's versions were in the same key, spliced them together and began playing

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The album peaked at number eight in December, his first Top Ten LP in ten years. Within a year, it was platinum, with another million registered by 2001.
In January 1993, Diamond again re-signed to Columbia for an additional six albums. The first of these, released in September, was Up on the Roof: Songs from the Brill Building, his treatments of early-'60s evergreens like the title song and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." It hit number 28 and went gold. Meanwhile, the singer continued to tour extensively, his grosses for the year exceeded only by U2. That success was reflected by yet another concert recording, Live in America, a double CD issued in June 1994 that peaked at number 93 and eventually went gold. The fall brought The Christmas Album, Vol. 2, only two years after its successful predecessor; it peaked at number 51 and quickly went gold. (Also in the fall of 1994, Diamond participated in the Frank Sinatra album Duets II, singing "The House I Live In" with the venerable star.)
During 1995, Diamond finally got to work on an album of newly written material, but there was a twist. The man whose songs had sometimes been turned into country hits went to Nashville and held songwriting sessions with country writers, also recording with country stars. The result was Tennessee Moon, released in February 1996, along with a TV special, Under a Tennessee Moon, broadcast on ABC. The album peaked at number three in the country charts and number 14 in the pop charts and went gold. Next, Columbia released In My Lifetime, a three-CD box set retrospective, in October 1996, including Bang, Uni, and Columbia hits, along with demos and other rarities and unreleased material. The album charted, a relative rarity for box sets, and went gold. Diamond continued to make events out of his album releases. In October 1998, he issued The Movie Album: As Time Goes By, a two-disc collection of covers of movie songs like "Moon River" and "Unchained Melody." It reached number 31 and went gold, earning a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. As usual, Diamond embarked on a world tour to support it. And as usual, his fans came out. Even during a decade when he retreated from the frontline of recording artists, the singer's live following, if anything, increased. He was named the top solo concert artist of the 1990s by Amusement Business magazine.
Diamond's appeal to audiences was reflected humorously in the film Saving Silverman, featuring a self-spoofing appearance by the singer, which opened in February 2001. More seriously, he finally wrote and recorded a new studio album, Three Chord Opera, released in July 2001. In fact, he did all the writing entirely by himself, the first time he hadn't collaborated with anyone since Serenade in 1974, which gave Columbia a promotional tag to bill the album as another "event" release. Considered as his first regular studio album since Lovescape in 1991, the disc was Diamond's highest-charting release of this sort since Heartlight in 1982, peaking at number 15 and quickly going gold. In December 2001, Columbia's Legacy division released The Essential Neil Diamond, a new two-CD retrospective, and by 2005 it was a platinum seller. The fall of 2003 brought a massive five-CD/one-DVD set, Stages: Performances 1970-2002, which sold well enough to spend a couple of weeks in the chart as Diamond undertook yet another lengthy tour. In 2004, he began working with renowned producer Rick Rubin, a longtime fan who had produced Johnny Cash's 1990s comeback albums, including American III: Solitary Man. Before releasing the result of their collaboration, the 2005 album 12 Songs, he embarked on another world tour. 12 Songs was issued on November 8, 2005, to a chorus of positive reviews. It entered the chart at number four, Diamond's highest chart placing in 25 years, but its longer-term success was short-circuited because of Columbia's decision to include anti-copying software on the CDs. The software was thought to damage personal computers, and many of the di

kijkekijkenietkope (2012-04-23)

That's a lot of text but i don't care about his life i care about the music, did you put this stuff together yourself or what?