I grew up on Neil Diamond and have, literally, all of his albums (the good, the not so good, and the, well, not bad, but really not so good). I finally got to see him live last year (thank you, wife!) and even at his age, he was incredible. Voice sounded great and he essentially did a Zakalwe’s favorites concert (he missed a few, but included some of the more obscure ones that are personal favorites). Hearing him sing “I Am, I Said” was…beyond words.
Neil, you are a legend and you will be missed on stage. Take a bow and know you left music a better place for your presence.
I had always enjoyed ND’s music but was never a huge fan. In 1987 I let a girl take me to a concert (yaknow, like you do) and lemmetellya it was over 2 hrs of nonstop entertainment; hitting all the right notes, he knew how to work the crowd! - had a Sweet Caroline sing along of course …
To this day, I still consider it one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen - and I’ve seen The Clash, The Ramones, Pink Floyd, U2, and most of the others who are considered great in concert.
Wow. I’ve loved his songs since I was a little girl, and also have fond if hazy memories of a barful of random drunks who didn’t know one damn word of “Sweet Caroline” until the jukebox got to the BAH BAH BAAAHHHHHH part and everyone sort of dropped mid-conversation to join in on just that part. Whole bar sort of laughed together, at each other.
You sound like my wife. She got the tickets for my birthday because I was a huge fan and went with me. After the concert, she said how great the concert was (and she too, has been to a ton of concerts over the years).
I think he’s one of the underrated songwriters of all time. Not as deep or prolific as Dylan but certainly a better performer and he has a great voice. I regret never seeing him perform in person. Sad to hear of his illness.
I’m a moderate Neil Diamond fan. I listened to the original Hot August Night album a lot, and am familiar with a lot of his other songs. Just recently, I got into a kick and listened to a bunch of his stuff on Spotify and youtube. I even played quite a few songs for my 23 year old son, who only really knew Sweet Caroline. He was impressed that Diamond wrote Daydream Believer and Red Red Wine, which were hits for the Monkees and UB40.
He really did wright some terrific songs, even if some of the lyrics are pretty strange. Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show is a terrific story song, very compelling and convincing.
Sad to hear he has Parkinsons. Really crappy for him.
Caroline Kennedy is about my age (actually, she’s a year younger), and when I heard he wrote that song about her, my first thought was: I think I was 13 when that song came out-- That’s downright creepy!!
