Neil Leslie Diamond was born on January 24,1941 and is an American singer-songwriter.
80 Facts About Neil Diamond
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Neil Diamond has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time.
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Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, including "Sweet Caroline".
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Neil Diamond has acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.
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Neil Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.
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Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Jewish family.
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Neil Diamond's parents were Rose and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond, a dry-goods merchant.
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Neil Diamond grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army.
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When he was 16 and still in high school, Neil Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert.
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Neil Diamond added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while helping him release his youthful "frustrations".
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Neil Diamond spent the summer after graduation working as a waiter in the Catskills resort area.
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Neil Diamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen.
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Neil Diamond was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team.
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Neil Diamond began cutting classes and taking the train up to Tin Pan Alley, where he tried to get some of his songs heard by local music publishers.
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Neil Diamond was not rehired after his 16 weeks with Sunbeam, and he began writing and singing his own songs for demos.
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Cashbox and Billboard magazines gave all four sides positive reviews, and Neil Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962.
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Neil Diamond wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City.
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Neil Diamond was able to sell only about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive.
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Neil Diamond found himself only earning enough to spend 35 cents a day on food.
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Neil Diamond describes the song as "an outgrowth of my despair".
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Neil Diamond wrote and recorded the songs for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own.
22.
The unintended consequence was that Neil Diamond began to gain fame as a songwriter.
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In 1966, Neil Diamond signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic.
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Neil Diamond began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as "Brooklyn Roads" from 1968.
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Berns wanted to release "Kentucky Woman" as a single, but Neil Diamond was no longer satisfied writing simple pop songs, so he proposed "Shilo", which was not about the Civil War but rather an imaginary childhood friend.
26.
Neil Diamond was dissatisfied with his royalties and tried to sign with another record label after discovering a loophole in his contract that did not bind him exclusively to either WEB IV or Tallyrand, but the result was a series of lawsuits that coincided with a slump in his record sales and professional success.
27.
In March 1968, Neil Diamond signed a deal with Uni Records; the label was named after Universal Pictures, the owner of which, MCA Inc.
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In 2007, Neil Diamond said he had written "Sweet Caroline" for Caroline Kennedy after seeing her on the cover of Life in an equestrian riding outfit, but in 2014 he said in an interview on the Today show that it was written for his then wife, Marcia.
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In 1971, Neil Diamond played seven sold-out concerts at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.
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Neil Diamond was backed by a 35-piece string orchestra and six backing singers.
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Neil Diamond added a quadraphonic sound system for his performance to create full surround sound.
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Neil Diamond's one-man show seemed, on the face of it, to be a brash idea.
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Neil Diamond needn't worry about comparisons with the likes of Garland and Kaye.
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Neil Diamond used those four years to work on the score for Hall Bartlett's film version of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and to record two albums, Serenade and Beautiful Noise.
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In 1973, Neil Diamond switched labels again, returning to Columbia Records for a million-dollar-advance-per-album contract.
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Richard Bach, author of the best-selling source story, disowned the film, and he and Neil Diamond sued Bartlett, though for differing reasons; in Bach's case, it was because he felt the film omitted too much from the original novella, whereas in Neil Diamond's case, it was because he felt the film had butchered his score.
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Neil Diamond won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture.
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Thereafter, Neil Diamond often included a Jonathan Livingston Seagull suite in his live performances, as he did in his 1976 Love at the Greek concert and for his show in Las Vegas that same year.
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Neil Diamond returned to live shows in 1976 with an Australian tour, "The 'Thank You Australia' Concert", which was broadcast to 36 television outlets nationwide.
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Neil Diamond again appeared at the Greek Theater in a 1976 concert, Love at the Greek.
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Neil Diamond began wearing colorful beaded shirts in concert, originally so that everyone in the audience could see him without binoculars.
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In 1974, Neil Diamond released the album Serenade, from which "Longfellow Serenade" and "I've Been This Way Before" were issued as singles.
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The latter had been intended for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull score, but Neil Diamond had completed it too late for inclusion.
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On Thanksgiving 1976, Neil Diamond made an appearance at The Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, performing "Dry Your Eyes", which he wrote jointly with Robertson, and which had appeared on Beautiful Noise.
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Neil Diamond joined the rest of the performers onstage at the end in a rendition of Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released".
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Neil Diamond was paid $650,000 by the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, to open its new $10 million Theater For the Performing Arts on July 2,1976.
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Neil Diamond opened the show with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him before he became successful.
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Neil Diamond performed at Woburn Abbey on July 2,1977, to an audience of 55,000 British fans.
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In 1977, Neil Diamond released I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight, including "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", for which he composed the music and on the writing of whose lyrics he collaborated with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman.
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In 1979, Neil Diamond collapsed on stage in San Francisco and was taken to the hospital, where he endured a 12-hour operation to remove what turned out to be a tumor on his spine.
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Neil Diamond said he had been losing feeling in his right leg "for a number of years but ignored it".
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Neil Diamond underwent a long rehabilitation process just before starting principal photography on his film The Jazz Singer.
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Neil Diamond was so convinced he was going to die that he wrote farewell letters to his friends.
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The film's failure was due in part to Neil Diamond never having acted professionally before.
55.
Neil Diamond released his 17th studio album in 1986, Headed for the Future, which reached number 20 on the Billboard 200.
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In January 1987, Neil Diamond sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl.
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Neil Diamond's "America" became the theme song for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign.
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Neil Diamond covered many classic songs from the movies and from famous Brill Building-era songwriters.
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Neil Diamond released two Christmas albums, the first of which peaked at No 8 on Billboard's Album chart.
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Neil Diamond recorded two albums of mostly new material during this period.
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In 1993, Neil Diamond opened the Mark of the Quad Cities with two shows on May 27 and 28 to a crowd of 27,000-plus.
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In 2007, Neil Diamond was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.
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On March 19,2008, it was announced on the television show American Idol that Neil Diamond would be a guest mentor to the remaining Idol contestants, who would sing Neil Diamond songs for the broadcasts of April 29 and 30,2008.
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On June 29,2008, Neil Diamond played to an estimated 108,000 fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England on the Concert of a Lifetime Tour; technical problems marred the concert.
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Neil Diamond was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year on February 6,2009, two nights before the 51st Annual Grammy Awards.
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Long loved in Boston, Neil Diamond was invited to sing at the July 4,2009, Independence Day celebration.
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On November 2,2010, Neil Diamond released the album Dreams, a collection of 14 interpretations of his favorite songs by artists from the rock era.
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In September 2014, Neil Diamond performed a surprise concert at his alma mater, Erasmus High School in Brooklyn.
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In October 2016, Neil Diamond released Acoustic Christmas, a folk-inspired Christmas album of original songs as well as acoustic versions of holiday classics.
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On March 7,2020, despite his retirement due to Parkinson's disease, Neil Diamond gave a rare performance at the Keep Memory Alive Power of Love Gala at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, where he was being honored.
71.
On June 18,2022, Neil Diamond sang "Sweet Caroline" during the 8th-inning stretch of a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
72.
In January 2018, Neil Diamond announced that he would stop touring after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
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In 1967, Neil Diamond was featured on the fourth episode of the detective drama Mannix as the 'featured' artist in a small underground club called 'The Bad Scene' and was interrupted during his singing by one of many fights that took place weekly on the show.
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In 2000, Neil Diamond appeared onstage with a Diamond tribute band, Super Diamond, surprising them before their show at House of Blues in Los Angeles.
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Neil Diamond even wrote and composed a new song, "I Believe in Happy Endings", for the film.
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Neil Diamond sat in with the tribute band Super Diamond at the film's premiere party.
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On December 5,1969, Neil Diamond married production assistant Marcia Murphey.
78.
In 1996, Neil Diamond began a relationship with Australian Rae Farley after the two met in Brisbane, Australia.
79.
On September 7,2011, in a message on Twitter, the 70-year-old Diamond announced his engagement to the 41-year-old Katie McNeil.
80.
Neil Diamond said that his 2014 album Melody Road was fueled by their relationship, explaining:.