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Artist: Neil Sedaka: mp3 download

   Genre(s):

Other
Vocal
Easy Listening
Pop

Discography:

Very Best of Neil Sedaka

Year: 2006

Tracks: 18

Greatest Hits 93

Year: 1993

Tracks: 16

All Time Greatest Hits

Year: 1990

Tracks: 14

Live in Australia

Year: 1976

Tracks: 11

The Very Best Of Neil Sedaka

Year: 1964

Tracks: 18

STRANIERE

Year: 1964

Tracks: 35

The Best Of

Year:

Tracks: 32

50 And 60

Year:

Tracks: 31

11 Romantic Songs

Year:

Tracks: 11

Singer, songster, and piano player Neil Sedaka enjoyed two clear-cut periods of commercial success in dickens more or less different styles of pop out music: bit 1, as a adolescent pop head teacher in the late '50s and early '60s, and so as a isaac Bashevis Singer of more mature pop/rock in the 1970s. In both phases, Sedaka, a classically trained piano player, composed the music for his hits, which he panax quinquefolius in a boylike tenor voice. And end-to-end, even when his playing career was at a low ebb, he served as a songster for former artists, resulting in a train of hits class in and year out, whether recorded by him or individual else. For himself, he wrote eight U.S. Top Ten crop up hits, including the chart-toppers "Breakage Up Is Hard to Do," "Laughter in the Rain," and "Bad Blood." The nearly successful plow of one of his compositions was Captain & Tennille's recording of "Honey Will Keep Us Together," some other issue one. And over the years his songs were recorded by a full range of pop, tilt, state, R&B, and jazz performers including ABBA, Frankie Avalon, LaVern Baker, Shirley Bassey, Teresa Brewer, Carol Burnett, Glen Campbell, the Carpenters, Nick Carter, David Cassidy, Cher, Petula Clark, Richard Clayderman, Patsy Cline, Rosemary Clooney, Sheryl Crow, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, John Davidson, Neil Diamond, Gloria Estefan, the fifth Dimension, the Four Seasons, Connie Francis, Crystal Gayle, Lesley Gore, the Happenings, Engelbert Humperdinck, Wanda Jackson, Jan & Dean, Tom Jones, Carole King, Earl Klugh, Peggy Lee, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Tony Martin, Johnny Mathis, Susannah McCorkle, Clyde McPhatter, Mandy Moore, Nana Mouskouri, Maria Muldaur, the Monkees, Jim Nabors, Wayne Newton, Jane Olivor, Donny Osmond, Patti Page, the Partridge Family, Bernadette Peters, Wilson Pickett, Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, the Searchers, Sha Na Na, Kay Starr, John Travolta, Dinah Washington, Andy Williams, and Glenn Yarbrough, among many others.

Sedaka was born in Brooklyn on March 13, 1939. His church Father, Mac Sedaka, a cab number one wood, was the boy of Turkish immigrants; his mother, Eleanor (Appel) Sedaka, was of Polish-Russian pedigree. He low demonstrated musical aptitude in his second-grade chorale class, and when his teacher sent a note home suggesting he take piano lessons, his mother got a parttime job in a department fund for six months to pay for a second hand upright. He took to the instrument immediately. In 1947, he auditioned successfully for a piano scholarship to the esteemed Juilliard School of Music's Preparatory Division for Children, which he began to give ear on Saturdays. He as well kept up an interestingness in democratic music, and when he was 13, a neighbor heard him playing and introduced him to her 16-year-old boy, Howard Greenfield, an aspirant poet and lyrist; the two began written material songs together.

In high school, Sedaka formed a vocal grouping, the Tokens. After tattle at local functions, they got an audition with a music publisher in Manhattan at 1619 Broadway, the famous Brill Building. This, in move around, lED to an audition with the oral sex of a pocket-size judge, Melba Records, which released a individual containing deuce Sedaka/Greenfield compositions, "I Love My Baby" and "While I Dream," in 1956. It achieved some airplay locally, only did non become a interior hit, and Sedaka left the radical, which later reorganised and went on to professional winner in the sixties. Around the like fourth dimension, some other strain scripted by Sedaka earned a more spectacular recording. He had collaborated with his brother-in-law, Eddie Grossman, on "Never Again," which Grossman arranged to get published and which was recorded by Dinah Washington for Mercury Records.

Meanwhile, the budding composer continued to attend Lincoln High School in Brooklyn and to quest for his classical studies. In 1956, he was one of a small chemical group of New York City high school students chosen in a contention judged by Artur Rubinstein to play on the local classical wireless station, WQXR. Upon his graduation from high schoolhouse, Sedaka was recognized by the college variance of Juilliard. At the like fourth dimension, all the same, he and Greenfield continued writing songs and taking them to publishing companies at the Brill Building and another Manhattan office construction scarcely up the street at 1650 Broadway. There they encountered a newfangled firm, Aldon Music, run by Al Nevins and Don Kirshner, world Health Organization gestural them to a songwriting contract and too gestural Sedaka to a management sign as a playing creative person. In 1957, without his prior knowledge, 2 presentment recordings he had made of his songs "Laura Lee" and "Snowtime" were released as a individual by Decca Records, giving him his number one solo disc. Again, the record was not a hit. But the team of Sedaka and Greenfield finally did hit the charts when they placed "Stupid Cupid" with the newfangled singing star Connie Francis in 1958. Francis had broken through with a revitalisation of the 1920s ballad "Who's Sorry Now," while "Dazed Cupid" was up-tempo rock candy & wheel. It sickly at numeral 14 on Billboard's Hot century in September, and Francis followed it with another Sedaka/Greenfield piece, "Fallin'," which peaked at figure 30 in November. (In a herald of things to come, the songs were even more successful in the U.K., where "Stupid Cupid" strike numeral unitary and "Fallin'" made the Top 20.)

Another of Sedaka's demos, "Ring-a-Rockin'," turned up on disc in 1958 and regular earned an ventilation on the American Bandstand television serial, only did non become a hit. Nevertheless, interest in Sedaka as both a songster and a performing artist clearly was growing. In the fall of 1958, he took a will of absence from Juilliard, and he auditioned at RCA Victor Records. He was signed, and RCA chop-chop issued his number one formal solo unmarried, the Sedaka/Greenfield song "The Diary," which sickly at numeral 14 in February 1959. But its follow-up, the up-tempo "I Go Ape," lost the Top 40 (contempt arrival the Top Ten in Great Britain), and his third RCA individual, "Gross My Heart Out for You," was a bust.

In his 1982 autobiography, Laughter in the Rain: My Own Story, Sedaka writes that, after the dissatisfactory performance of his sec RCA individual and the failure of his third, "I knew I had to take a hit. I would fuck off no more chances." To follow up with that strike, he consulted the international charts in Billboard, then went out and bought the three nigh successful records he sawing machine listed and listened to them repeatedly, "analyzing what they had in rough-cut. I observed," he writes, "they had many exchangeable elements: harmonic musical rhythm, arrangement of the chord changes, selection of harmonic progressions, like instrumentation, vocals phrases, drum fills, content, even the timbre of the pencil lead solo voice. I decided to write a g that incorporated all these elements in i record record book." The outcome of this debate effort was his fourth RCA single, "Oh! Carol" (consecrated to ballad maker Carole King, an early girlfriend of his), which sour his playing career around, becoming his first-class honours degree American Top Ten strike as an artist in December. (In 1962, the Four Seasons covered it on their graph album Sherry & 11 Others.)

In the meantime, RCA had released his debut album, Neil Sedaka, and it earned a nominating speech for the 1959 Grammy Award for Best Performance by a "Top 40" Artist, losing to Nat King Cole's "Midnight Flyer." And as a ballad maker, he had other hits during the year: LaVern Baker reached the Top Five of the R&B chart with "I Waited Too Long"; Connie Francis took "Frankie" into the pop Top Ten; Clyde McPhatter reached the R&B Top 20 with "Since You've Been Gone"; and Roy Hamilton had a pop graph debut with "Time Marches On."

After the success of his fifth RCA single, "Stairway to Heaven," which peaked in the Top Ten in May 1960, the 21-year-old Sedaka in the end began making personal appearances to support his records. Soon, he was touring extensively, including shows in South America, the Far East, and Europe. (He also began recording in Italian, German, Japanese, and Spanish, increasing his external popularity.) Meanwhile, the hits kept sexual climax. His side by side unmarried was a double-sided winner, with "You Mean Everything to Me" making the Top 20 and "Melt down Samson Run" the Top 30, and his third 45 of 1960, "Calendar Girl," gave him his third Top Ten hit with a phone number four top in February 1961. He seemed to make less sentence to write songs for other artists, only Jimmy Clanton peaked in the Top 30 in June 1960 with "Some other Sleepless Night." Clanton had some other Sedaka/Greenfield song, "What Am I Gonna Do," out by the goal of the year, and it charted in January 1961.

The busy yard seemed to require a toll on Sedaka by 1961. "Slight Devil" gave him his sixth straight Top 40 hit in May, just his future undivided, "Sweet Little You," was his number 1 with a song that he had non composed himself (it was written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber), and it skint his string of hits. "Well-chosen Birthday, Sweet Sixteen," some other Sedaka/Greenfield paper, was out in front the end of the year and returned him to the Top Ten with a peak at phone number six in January 1962, however. (Neil Diamond covered it on his 1993 graph album Up on the Roof: Songs from the Brill Building.) Also in 1961, Sedaka released his minute album of new studio recordings, Circulate, on which he panax quinquefolius kill standards. And his pen was far from idle otherwise. He and Greenfield had scripted the call account for the film Where the Boys Are, Connie Francis' playacting debut, which resulted in a Top Five, gold-selling strike in her recording of the title song in former 1961.

"B. B. King of Clowns," Sedaka's kickoff single of 1962, missed the Top 40, simply he scored his biggest hit still with "Break Up Is Hard to Do," which went to numeral one in August. It was nominated for the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Recording, simply lost kO'd to Bent Fabric's "Alley Cat." The song went on to turn maybe Sedaka's virtually worthful right of first publication, beingness revived for a pop singles chart entering by the Happenings in 1968, an R&B Top 30 and pop Top 40 strike by Lenny Welch in 1970, and a Top 30 pop hit (and U.K. Top Five) by the Partridge Family in 1972, spell likewise appearance on graph LPs by the Four Seasons, Little Eva, and Sha Na Na, all in front Sedaka himself revived it for a hit once again in the mid-'70s.

Sedaka's third individual of 1962, "Next Door to an Angel," reached the Top Five. RCA marked the windup of his fourth year as a hitmaker by cathartic Neil Sedaka Sings His Greatest Hits, which became his kickoff LP to reach the charts. Meanwhile, the Sedaka/Greenfield team placed "Genus Venus in Blue Jeans" with Jimmy Clanton for a Top Ten strike (it likewise made the U.K. Top Ten in a rendition by Mark Wynter), and "Observe a Walkin'" on Bobby Darin's graph album Twist with Bobby Darin.

By 1963, Sedaka reportedly had sold 25 zillion records cosmopolitan. But at this point his life history began to go into decline. He released quaternary singles in 1963, and all of them charted, with threesome in the Top 40 and one, "Alice in Wonderland," even fashioning the Top 20, simply that was a dissatisfactory operation after his previous successes. 1964, the class the Beatles arrived in America and launched the British Invasion, was worse, with Sedaka's three single releases resulting in only one abbreviated appearance in the Hot 100 for "Gay," and 1965 wasn't much better, as another trey Sedaka singles produced only two graph entries for "The World Through a Tear" and "The Answer to My Prayer" (both written by Chris Allen, Peter Allen, and Richard Everitt). In 1966, Sedaka released iI last singles on RCA, simply they failed to chart, and by early 1967 he was without a record label. He was not, however, without a newspaper publisher. Aldon had been sold to Screen Gems and offered him plentifulness of opportunities to property his compositions. Screen Gems' main antecedence at the prison term was the Monkees, the group created for a telecasting series patterned on the Beatles motion-picture show A Hard Day's Night, and the Sedaka/Greenfield song "When Love Comes Knockin' (At Your Door)" appeared on their second album, More of the Monkees, a numeral one impinge on in former 1967. That fountain the Cyrkle reached the charts with Sedaka/Greenfield's "We Had a Good Thing Goin'." "Workin' on a Groovy Thing," scripted by Sedaka with Roger Atkins, was a Top 40 R&B strike and pop chart accounting entry for Patti Drew in the summer of 1968, and a year later earned Top 20 rankings in the pop and R&B charts in a cover by the 5th Dimension. Also in 1968, Sedaka had a cut on Frankie Valli's chart album Dateless called "Make the Music Play." In 1969, Sedaka/Greenfield's "The Girl I Left Behind Me" appeared on the Monkees LP Instantaneous Replay. Also, for the first base time in trinity years, Sedaka had his own button, on Screen Gems' SGC pronounce, the single "Star-Crossed Lovers," which became a reach in Australia, only non in the U.S. Nevertheless, he had a second SGC handout in 1970, "Rainy Jane," a birdcall covered by former Monkees singer Davy Jones for a chart launching in 1971. Also in 1970, the fifth Dimension recorded Sedaka/Greenfield's "Puppet Man" for a PLC670% 30 pop impinge on, and a twelvemonth later Tom Jones likewise had a Top 30 reach with it. Peggy Lee cut Sedaka/Greenfield's "One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round" for her 1970 chart album Make It with You, and the squad too wrote songs for an alive children's TV series near the diverting hoops company the Harlem Globetrotters called The Globetrotters.

Possibly the most significant recording to Sedaka's career in 1971 was one he himself was not involved with, Carole King's discovery album Tapestry, which topped the charts. The LP demonstrated the fresh attract of soft rock candy singer/songwriters and made ex-serviceman writers from the Brill Building era hip once more. Don Kirshner negotiated a fabrication and distribution carry on with RCA for his new Kirshner Records pronounce, and he sign-language Sedaka to a condense, resulting in the button of Sedaka's first base album of new original material in 12 years, Emergence, in September 1971. He likewise began performing in showcase clubs like New York's Bitter End. The album didn't chart, just it was a new beginning. Meanwhile, Sedaka continued to place songs with other performers. Tony Christie scored a Top 20 reach in the U.K. with "Is This the Way to Amarillo" (aka "Amarillo") in the fall of 1971; TV star topology Carol Burnett gave cracking prominence to a Sedaka air on her early 1972 graph record album by calling it Carol Burnett Featuring "If I Could Write a Song"; and Cher had a chart launching in September 1972 with "Don't Hide Your Love."

At this point, Sedaka made two crucial changes in his effort to raise his vocation. First, he distinct, after 20 days, to break up his songwriting partnership with Howard Greenfield in favor of a fresh partner wHO could publish in a expressive style more consistent with what he called in his autobiography the "more elusive, more poetic" lyrics of the '70s singer/songwriters, sooner than Greenfield's "identical slick and polished" words. (He did preserve to work with Greenfield once in a while thenceforth.) At his publisher's, he met Phil Cody, and they began to write. Second, determination that he was getting a better reception in Great Britain than in the U.S., he moved to London to reduce on mounting a rejoinder thither. His increasing profile was confirmed by the Top 20 British achiever of a maxi-single containing three of his old songs, "Oh! Carol," "Break Up Is Hard to Do," and "Minuscule Devil," in the fall down of 1972. Also that fall down, Kirshner Records released his next album, Solitaire, which he had recorded in England with a backup ring that would emerge later as 10cc. The record album did not chart, but it produced deuce chart singles in the U.K., "Beautiful You" and "That's When the Music Takes Me," the latter reaching the Top 20. Glen Campbell recorded "That's When the Music Takes Me" for his concert album Live at the Royal Festival Hall, which charted in 1977, and former singers found material on Solitaire. Donny Gerrard scored an R&B chart entry in 1975 with "(Child) Don't Let It Mess Your Mind," and Yvonne Elliman put the same song on her 1978 chart record album Nighttime Flight. But it was the deed of conveyance song from Solitaire that became some other of Sedaka's most successful copyrights. Andy Williams' cover became a Top Five hit in Britain in the wintertime of 1973-1974; the Carpenters' reading was a Top 20 hit in the U.S. in 1975; and the song appeared on chart albums by Johnny Mathis, Elvis Presley, and Jane Olivor on its way to beingness a much-performed measure. Sheryl Crow sang it on the Carpenters tribute album If I Were a Carpenter in 1994, and in 2004 Clay Aiken, a second best from the American Idol TV gift exhibit, took his recording to number little Joe.

Having reestablished himself in the U.K., Sedaka signed to the European label Polydor, which assigned him to its MGM subsidiary, and recorded a modern record album, The Tra-La Days Are Over, which was released in the U.K. in the summertime of 1973. In the U.S., MGM tried the waters with a couple of singles, only when they did non come after, the LP was non released in America. In Britain, it was a different story. "Standing on the Inside" and "Our Last Song Together" (the latter, fittingly, the last strain Sedaka had written with Greenfield before their split) both made the Top 40, and the LP made the Top 20. Sedaka followed in 1974 with Laughter in the Rain, released on the main Polydor label, which also made the Top 20 and threw off iI Top 40 hits, "A Little Lovin'" and the deed of conveyance song. Again, the record album was not released in the U.S. Around this time, Sedaka and Cody's expertise was called upon by Swedish songwriters Benny Andersson and BjÃ¶rn Ulvaeus when they wrote English lyrics for "Annulus Ring," one of ABBA's early songs.

Spell in England, Sedaka met Elton John, at the time the upper side pop recording star in the existence, wHO was about to launch his have label, Rocket Records. John in agreement to sign Sedaka for the U.S., and for his first-class honours degree release they assembled a compilation record album raddled from Solitaire, The Tra-La Days Are Over, and Laughter in the Rain. The record album was called Sedaka's Back, and it lived up to its identify. It was preceded by the waiver of "Laugh in the Rain" as a single, and the song topped the charts in February 1975, Sedaka's first-class honours degree number one single in well-nigh 13 age. (To suit a reach, the Sedaka reading had to outstrip one by Lea Roberts that made the R&B charts; the song was also recorded on chart albums by Johnny Mathis and Earl Klugh.) The album made the Top 30 and went amber, and it spawned two more Top 40 hits, "The Immigrant" and "That's When the Music Takes Me." After "Our Last Song Together" appeared on the album, Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods covered it for a singles chart ledger entry. In plus, Captain & Tennille covered "Love Will Keep Us Together" (another of Sedaka's final collaborations with Greenfield) from the album and released their interpretation as a individual that score number one in June 1975. (Among the many early recordings of the birdsong, Wilson Pickett reanimated it for a pop chart ledger entry in 1976 and James Taylor Quartet featuring Alison Limerick had an R&B graph entrance in 1995.) Captain & Tennille too tapped Sedaka's Back for "Lamentable Eyes," which they recorded for their 1977 Arrive in from the Rain LP (that album besides contained the Sedaka song "Let Mama Know"). "Lamentable Eyes" earned another comprehend by Maria Muldaur on her 1976 graph album Sweet-scented Harmony, after having been a number 11 hit on the Easy Listening graph for Andy Williams in the fall of 1975. "The Other 995% of Me," another path from Sedaka's Back, gave Williams a British graph entry in 1976 and was featured on U.S. graph albums by Shirley Bassey and Crystal Gayle. But Donny Osmond had beaten them all by putt it on his graph album Alone Together back in 1973, barely later on its initial appearance on The Tra-La Days Are Over.

Sedaka toured the U.S. as an opening act for the Carpenters; by the end of the year, he was a Las Vegas headliner. Meanwhile, he had continued to record for the U.K. market, issue a concert LP, Live at the Royal Festival Hall, in the fall of 1974 and, in the give of 1975, a new studio album, Overnight Success, featuring the Top 40 hit "The Queen of 1964." Again, this LP was not issued in the U.S., simply in the belated summer, with Sedaka reestablished, American saucer jockeys began playing a cut from it, "Bad Blood," which featured a outstanding backup outspoken by Elton John. This forced a immediate U.S. departure for the song, and Overnight Success, with a match of path substitutions, appeared in America in September 1975 under the deed The Hungry Years. "Bad Blood" soared to number one and went gold, and the album made the Top 20 and went amber, while too throwing off a new slow-tempo version of "Breakage Up Is Hard to Do" that peaked in the Top Ten in early 1976, leading to the odd happening that the 14-year-old air earned a nomination for the 1976 Grammy Award for Song of the Year, which it lost to Bruce Johnston's "I Write the Songs." "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" was disposed a new charter on life. Jimmy Bee and Ernie Fields & His Orchestra covered it for an R&B graph entrance in 1976, and the same year the Carpenters set it on their chart LP A Kind of Hush. In 1983, the American Comedy Network had a pop chart submission with a charade, "Breaking Up Is Hard on You," and Gloria Estefan panax quinquefolius it on her double-platinum 1994 album Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me. Also, Captain & Tennille situated some other Sedaka-penned strike on The Hungry Years, recording "Solitary Night (Angel Face)" for a gold-selling Top Five strike in former 1976, and Wayne Newton scored a chart accounting entry with the album's title of respect strain, which also earned covers in 1976 on chart albums by Johnny Mathis, Engelbert Humperdinck, Shirley Bassey, and Rita Coolidge.

Sedaka eventually managed to order out the same album in the U.S. and overseas at the same time in the fountain of 1976 with Steppin' Out, merely it was non as grown a hit as its predecessors, fifty-fifty though it reached the Top 30 and contained troika chart hits, "Dear in the Shadows," "You Gotta Make Your Own Sunshine," and the title strain. None of the album's songs became hits for other performers, simply John Travolta recorded a new Sedaka composing, "I Don't Know What I Like About You Baby," for his self-titled 1976 chart record album. Steppin' Out over Sedaka's undertake with Rocket Records, and he touched to Elektra for 1977's A Song, produced by George Martin of Beatles fame, some other pocket-size success that contained his chart revival meeting of his song "Amarillo" as well as "You Never Done It Like That," which Captain & Tennille covered for a Top Ten strike. The duad too recorded "Dear Is Spreading Over the World," a new Sedaka vocal, on their Aspiration album in 1978, patch Jane Olivor pose "The Big Parade," some other strain Sedaka himself had non recorded, on her 1977 Chasing Rainbows LP.

Sedaka's second Elektra record album, All You Need Is the Music (1978), missed the charts, suggesting that his sec commercial resurgence as a record trafficker had subsided. But he returned in the springtime of 1980 with In the Pocket. It was preceded by the single "Should've Never Let You Go," which he american ginseng as a pair with his daughter Dara Sedaka. The single made the Top 40 and earned a incubate by Bernadette Peters on her self-titled chart record album released at the same time. In the Pocket only made the get down reaches of the charts, however, and 1981's Neil Sedaka: Now, Sedaka's fourth and last-place Elektra record album, did non chart at all. He switched to MCA/Curb, which had him record oldies in the company of other old-timer stars, resulting in an Adult Contemporary chart hit with Dara Sedaka on the old Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell strike "Your Precious Love" in 1983-1984, an Adult Contemporary chart accounting entry with a revival of the Cascades' 1963 strike "Beat of the Rain," and the LP Do See About Me.

Clearly, Sedaka's years as a major recording act were o'er by the mid-'80s, but he had amassed a sufficient stockpile of hits that he could perform successfully for decades in theaters and hotel casinos in the U.S. and internationally. That's what he did, meanwhile issuing periodic new recordings and re-recordings of his old songs. The last of Howard Greenfield from AIDS in 1986 prompted the release of the double-album My Friend, containing the duo's best-known work. In 1991, Polydor's Timeless: The Very Best of Neil Sedaka became a Top Ten strike in the U.K. VarÃ¨se Sarabande's 1995 assemblage Tuneweaver found Sedaka revisiting many of his old hits, and the same year saw the spillage of Classically Sedaka on Vision, an record album on which he altered classical themes into songs with new lyrics that he wrote himself. Tales of Love and Other Passions, featuring a idle words troika, appeared in 1997. In 1999, a TV-advertised assemblage, The Very Best of Neil Sedaka, charted in the U.K. Brighton Beach Memories: Neil Sedaka Sings Yiddish was released on Sameach in 2003, and the same twelvemonth Sedaka self-released an album of young songs to which he had written both music and lyrics, The Show Goes On.