269 Goodbye Neil Sedaka- The Queen of 1964

Chart  entered : 22  March  1975

Chart  peak : 35

A  fortnight  after  Duane  another  fifties  survivor   made  his  final  mark  on  the  charts. It  had  looked  like  Neil  was  another  victim  of  the  Beatles  blitzkreig; his  last  hit  in  the  UK  in  the  sixties  was  in  1963  and  he  disappeared  from  the  US  charts  a  couple  of  years  later. Neil's  smarmy  self-regard  makes  him  difficult  to  love  but  it  also  makes  him  very  resilient  and  he  refused  to  accept  his  career  was  over. He  was  still  in  demand  as  a  writer  and  wrote  hits  for  5th  Dimension  and  Patti  Drew  in  the  sixties. He  identified  Australia  as  the  most  fertile  ground  for  a  comeback  and  started  having  new  hits  there  as  early  as  1969. In  1972  he  fetched  up  in  Manchester  and  teamed  up  with  the  guys  who  were  to  become  10cc , recording  two  albums  at  Strawberry  which, along  with  the  US  recorded  "Laughter  In  The  Rain"  yielded  a  steady  stream  of  UK  hits, none  of  them  particularly large,  but  enough  to  make  his  presence  felt  once  more. I  liked  them  and  was  sorry  when  they  stopped  coming. Late  in  1973  he  bumped  into  Elton  John ; when  Elton  realised  he  didn't  have  an  American  label  he  signed  him  to  Rocket  and  put  together  a  highlights  LP  from  his  last  three  European  LPs  under  the  title  "Sedaka's  Back"  and  he  was. Just  six  weeks  before  this  one  hit  the  UK  charts  he  was  number  one  in  the  States  with  "Laughter  In  the  Rain".

I  hadn't  heard  "The  Queen  of  1964"   for  nearly  40  years. It  was  the  second  single  from  his  "Overnight  Success "  album  ( although  it was  substituted  for  the  song "Tit  For  Tat" when  the  album  was  issued  in  the  States  under  the  title "The  Hungry  Years".  Written  by  Neil  and  long  term  lyricist  partner  Howard  Greenfield  it's  a  rather  mean-spirited  third  person  narrative  about  a  showbiz  groupie  called  Stage  Door  Jenny  who's  got  a  bit  long  in  the  tooth. The  tone  shifts  from  comedy  in  the  second  verse  concerning  a  fictitious  liaison  with  Mick  Jagger  to  her   lonely  death  in  the  third. The  theatrical  oohs  and  aahs  in  each  verse  only  make  it  seem  more  heartless. It  is  a  good  tune  though  with  Neil  setting  it  to  a  calypso  melody  with  flutes  and  maracas  keeping  it  bright  and  bubbly  and  his  sweet  pure  voice  letting  you  hear  every  word.

Neil's  departure  at  this  point  makes  it  an  awkward  writing  task  as  he  was  releasing  different  singles  in  the   UK  and  the  US . While  this  was  in  the  charts  here, in  America  he  was  having  a  bigger  hit  with  another  song  from  the  "Laughter  In  The  Rain"  album,  "The  Immigrant"  an  exquisite  song  inspired  by  John  Lennon's  problems  getting  a  visa. No  one  does  a  florid  piano  ballad  better. It  was  released  here  in  May. It  got  some  airplay  and  the  lyrics  appeared  in  Words; The  Record  Songbook   but  failed  to  chart. In  June  he  had  a  US  hit  with  "That's  When  The  Music  Takes  Me"  which  had  made  number  18  here  in  1973. Three  months  later  he  got  to  the  top  of  the  US  chart  again  with  "Bad  Blood"  which  had  flopped  here  in  the  autumn  of  1974 . Listening  to  its  rather  stilted  attempt  at  funk  ( with  prominent  backing  vocals  from  Elton )   I  think  we  called  it  right.   As  a  writer  he  also  had  the  US   biggest hit  of  the  year  with  The   Captain  and  Tenillie's   version  of  "Love  Will  Keep  Us  Together",  a  record  I  particularly loathe  despite  it  only  being  a  minor  hit  here.  At  the  end  of  the  year  the  releases  got  into  sync  with  the  re-recorded  version  of  "Breaking  Up  Is  Hard  To  Do"  released  at  the  same  time  in  both  markets. I  prefer  the  original  to  the  slow  jazz  of  the  re-make  which  got  to  number  8  in  the  US.

Neil's  next  single  in  April  1976  was  "Love  in  the  Shadows"  ( US : 16 )  an  awkward  disco  tune  with  Neil  struggling  to  fit  Phil  Cody's  words into  the  melody  ( such  as  it  is )   and  an  out  of  place  guitar  solo. It  came  from  his  new  LP  "Steppin  Out" . The  single  choices  then  diverged  with  the  UK  getting  the  soppy  country  pop  of    "No  1  With  A  Heartache"   and  the  US  getting  the  uptempo  adultery-endorsing  title  track  ( US  : 36 )  which  again  has  Elton  on  backing  vocals  and  betrays  more  than  a  hint  of  his  musical  influence,  He  then  squeezed  out  another  single  in  the  US   with  "You  Gotta  Make  Your  Own  Sunshine"  which  sounds  suspiciously  like  a  re-write  of  "Love  Will  Keep  Us  Together"   and  peaked  at  52.

By  this  time  Neil  and  Elton's  friendship  had  cooled  and  Neil  was  not  happy  with  the  terms  for  renegotiating  his  contract. He  moved  to  Elektra.  His  first  album  for  them  was  "A  Song" , produced  by  George  Martin , trailed  by  his  own  version  of  "Amarillo"  the  song  he'd  written  for  Tony  Christie  back  in  1971. It  made  number  44  in  the  US  in  June  1977. The  follow-up  , the  bossa  nova  holiday  anthem  "Alone  At  Night"  failed  to  chart  at  all  and  it  was  clear  his  fortunes  were  on  the  wane  again. None  of  the  singles  from  his  1978  disco  LP "All  You  Need  Is  The  Music",  the  title  track  and  "Sad  Sad  Story"  in  the  US  and  the  ballad  "Love  Keeps  Getting  Stronger  Every  Day"  in  the  UK , made  the  charts.

In  `1979  the  single  "Letting  Go" ( classic  Sedaka )  came  and  went  without  attracting  any attention  but  its  parent  album  "In  The  Pocket"  released  in  1980  included  one  more  trick  up his  sleeve. A  track  from  the  previous  LP " Should've  Never  Let  You  Go  " was  re-worked  as a duet  with  his  lookalike   daughter  Dara. The  relative  novelty  of  the  inter-generational  duet  on the  classy  Streisand-esque  ballad  made  it  a  big  hit  ( number  19 ) but  it  was  a  false  dawn  and neither  would  trouble  the  chart  again.

His  last  album  for  Elektra  was  1981's  "Neil  Sedaka : Now" although  despite  the  title  many  of  the  tracks  were  recordings  of  songs  he'd  given  to  other  artists  . The  first  single  was  "My  World  Keeps  Slipping  Away"  which  was  originally  recorded  by  Connie  Francis. The  follow-up  was  "Losing  You".

After  taking  a  break  to  mourn  the  death  of  his  father  Neil  re-emerged  on  the  Curb  label  in  1983. His  first  LP  "Come  And  See  About  Me"  was  all  covers. The  singles  were  Ashford  and  Simpson's  "Your  Precious  Love",  another  duet  with  Dara  and   a   wine  bar  funk  take  on  "Rhythm  of  the  Rain". With  his  lyricist  Howard  Greenfield  laid  low  by  AIDS  , Dara  became  his  main  writing  partner  on  his  next  LP  "The  Good  Times" in  1986. There  was  only  one  single  "Love  Made  Me  Feel  This  Way"  which  attempts  to  update  his  sound  a  bit  with  synth-y  touches   and  treated  electronic  voices  but  it  sounds  really  clumsy.

Curb  dropped  him  and  he  had  a  low  profile  for  the  rest  of  the  eighties. In  1991  he  put  some  new  songs  on  a  new  compilation  "Timeless-The  Very  Best  of  Neil  Sedaka "  and  got  an  ill-judged  invitation  to  do  "The  Miracle  Song"  in  a  wild  card  slot  on  Top  of  the  Pops . What  the  bemused  audience  made  of  this  middle-aged  guy that  most  had  never  heard  of    singing  a  soporific  ballad  at  his  piano  I  couldn't  say. By  this  time  an  appearance  on  the  programme  was  no  longer  any  guarantee  of  a  hit  and  so  it  proved  although  a  subsequent  televised  concert  made  the  album  a  sizeable  hit.

Since  then  Neil  has  been  a  durable  concert  performer  still  going  at  75  but  his  recording  have  been  mainly  re-workings  of  older  material  for  an  endless  stream  of  compilations, partly  because  RCA  have  been  awkward  about  licensing  the  originals.