DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. Neil Sedaka, the singer and songwriter whose recording and performing career stretched from the 1950s to the current decade, died last week. He was 86 years old. Neil Sedaka was born in Brighton Beach in 1939 and displayed his musical talent early on. His mother bought him his first piano at age 7, and at age 9, he got a child prodigy scholarship at Juilliard and was hand-selected by classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein to perform on live radio. But Neil Sedaka was drawn elsewhere.
Another young kid interested in pop music, Neil Diamond, lived across the street from. His girlfriend in high school, Carol Klein, turned out to be a pretty good songwriter, too, once she broke up with Neil Sedaka and renamed herself Carol King. By then, young Neil had teamed with another budding songwriter, Howard Greenfield, who wrote lyrics to Neil's music. Their first break and first hit came in 1958 when Connie Francis was looking for a song to appeal to teenagers. Neil Sedaka was only 19 at the time, and she loved the song's innocence. "Stupid Cupid" became a top-20 hit for her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STUPID CUPID")
CONNIE FRANCIS: (Singing) I can't do my homework, and I can't think straight. I meet her every morning 'bout half past 8. I'm acting like a lovesick fool. You've even got me carrying his books to school. Hey, hey, set me free. Stupid Cupid, stop picking on me.
BIANCULLI: Connie Francis later had an even bigger hit with another of their songs, "Where The Boys Are." Neil scored his own hit, a top-10 on Billboard, the next year with "Oh! Carol." And even though the lyrics were written by Greenfield, the message for Neil Sedaka was personal. He was singing about his ex-girlfriend Carol King.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH! CAROL")
NEIL SEDAKA: (Singing) Oh, Carol, I am but a fool. Darling, I love you, though you treat me cruel. You hurt me and you make me cry. But if you leave me, I will surely die.
BIANCULLI: Neil Sedaka scored another top-10 hit with "Calendar Girl" in 1960. "Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do" in 1962 was his first No. 1 hit. But after the British invasion arrived and music tastes changed, Neil Sedaka vanished from the charts for more than a decade. Then in 1975, he enjoyed a major renaissance. Elton John signed him to his record label, and Sedaka had two No. 1 hits that year. One was a soft ballad, "Laughter In The Rain."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAUGHTER IN THE RAIN")
SEDAKA: (Singing) Ooh, I hear laughter in the rain, walking hand in hand with the one I love. Ooh, how I love the rainy days and the happy way I feel inside.
BIANCULLI: And the other was "Bad Blood," a duet with Elton himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAD BLOOD")
SEDAKA: (Singing) Bad.
ELTON JOHN: (Singing) Bad.
SEDAKA: (Singing) Blood.
JOHN: (Singing) Blood.
NEIL SEDAKA AND ELTON JOHN: (Singing) The woman was born to lie. Makes promises she can't keep with the wink of an eye.
BIANCULLI: That same year, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, who had written their first hit songs together back in the '50s, collaborated again on a song that became a No. 1 hit for the Captain & Tennille, "Love Will Keep Us Together."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER")
CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE: (Singing) Love, love will keep us together. Think of me, babe, whenever some sweet-talking girl comes along singing his song. Don't mess around. You just got to be strong. Just stop.
BIANCULLI: If you listen closely to the end of that song, the Captain & Tennille snuck in a quick tribute, singing, Sedaka's back, followed by applause.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER")
CAPTAIN AND TENNILLE: (Singing) Sedaka's back.
BIANCULLI: The current century delivered no new hits, but Neil Sedaka remained active. In 2009, he released a children's album, featuring playful revised lyrics to his most famous songs. The collection was called "Waking Up Is Hard To Do" and included the novelty numbers "Where The Toys Are" and "Lunch Will Keep Us Together." His original songs and his own story were featured in a jukebox musical called "Laughter In The Rain" in 2010. Neil Sedaka performed until recently at a Studio City restaurant, popping up monthly for intimate Sunday performances. Today, we'll remember Neil Sedaka by listening to an interview Terry Gross conducted with him in 2007.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
TERRY GROSS: Now, when you were in your teens or just out of them, you had a knack for writing songs that would appeal to teenagers, maybe particularly to teenage girls, because the songs often had the message they wanted to hear, like they're growing up and becoming very desirable. Did you think about that consciously? Did you think of yourself as writing songs for teens?
SEDAKA: Well, we were the teenagers of New York coming from the Brill Building school of songwriting. And, yes, we were writing for the teenage market, the early lyrics or collaboration with Howard Greenfield, who was a marvelous lyricist and who could concise - it was almost the art of writing a three-minute song. And we could tell the whole story in three minutes. "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen," from the beginning to the end, is a little novelette.
GROSS: Did you always start with a lyrical hook as well as a musical one?
SEDAKA: I always wrote the melody first, and I would prepare two or three melodies for Howie and play him that day. And whatever mood he might be in, he would choose one of those. And then it was a give-and-take. If the lyrics didn't fit, I would change a melody or a motif, and then he might change some things to accommodate me. It was a very close collaboration.
GROSS: Now, were you in the Brill Building or the building near the Brill Building that's...
SEDAKA: 1619.
GROSS: So it wasn't the Brill Building. It was the one next to it.
SEDAKA: Yes, but we referred to it as the new Brill Building...
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDAKA: ...The young writers, as opposed to the Irving Caesars in 1650, the old writers across the street.
GROSS: (Laughter) So this is like the rock 'n' roll Tin Pan Alley building as opposed to the Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley building.
SEDAKA: Exactly.
GROSS: So this is an office building where a lot of, like, young songwriters were working under contract, churning out songs. Who else was writing there when you were there?
SEDAKA: I'm always asked. People are fascinated with the Brill Building. I brought Carol King, who I was dating in high school. Howie Greenfield and I were the first writers to be signed to Aldon Music at the Brill Building. And then I brought Carol King and Gerry Goffin. The others were Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. Neil Diamond came for a time, Paul Simon. It was a very illustrious group. And it was excellent training. We came into an office, a cubicle. It was a tiny office - from 10 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, five days a week, and we wrote songs for a living. And it was - you know, one day, you could come up with nothing, but the next day, you were able to piece it together.
GROSS: Were you all competitive with each other or friendly?
SEDAKA: Well, you know, competition is good, and creativity - you bounce off other creative people. I think people are inspired by other musicians. So it was a good atmosphere. And at the end of the day, all of us would go into Al Nivens' office and play the songs, and they would say which artists are coming up for sessions, whether it be The Righteous Brothers or The Chiffons or so many groups. And the best song won out.
GROSS: Most of the songwriters there were writing for other singers. And you wrote songs that other singers recorded, but you wrote a lot of songs that you recorded yourself. Were you originally hired to write for other people?
SEDAKA: I came in as a writer - the first six months, and my - two of my songs were recorded. Connie Francis did "Stupid Cupid," and before that, Atlantic Records - Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler - took my songs and recorded them with Clyde McPhatter and LaVern Baker. But about six months to a year into the contract, I was 19, and I had a great desire to record my own songs. And I was brought into RCA Victor. Steve Schulz, who was the top A&R man, he had just brought Elvis Presley from Sun Records to RCA. And I auditioned for him with a song called "The Diary," and he signed me to a five-year contract. And, Terry, I was very fortunate. Between 1958 and 1963, to the shock of my family, after studying at the Juilliard, I sold 40 million records in the five years. So I did...
GROSS: So your parents were happy about that in spite of their classical aspirations for you.
SEDAKA: My mother, in fact, was not happy at the beginning, but, you know, I bought her her mink stole, so she was very, very happy after that.
BIANCULLI: Neil Sedaka speaking to Terry Gross in 2007. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
This is FRESH AIR. We're listening to Terry's 2007 interview with songwriter and singer Neil Sedaka. He died last week at the age of 86. Terry asked him about the syllables he sang in his songs, which became his trademark.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: How did it become a trademark? And how did you figure out what syllables to use, whether it should be wella-wella or dooby-dooby?
SEDAKA: Well, it started early in the career. And it was kind of someone singing along. Perhaps they were just getting into the song and they didn't get into the lyric yet. So they were going, (singing) down, dooby-do, down, down - before they began the actual song. And it was - how did I choose the syllables? The most important thing in songwriting was the marriage of words and music. And the syllables had to fit the particular melody. And I was very keen on that marriage of lyrics or syllables set to music. Yeah.
GROSS: What was the first song you did that on?
SEDAKA: I think it was "Oh! Carol." I did double voice. But "Breaking Up" is an interesting song because I think I'm the only artist who has recorded his song twice. I did it first as a rock 'n' roll song in 1962. And then I rerecorded "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" 15 years later as a slow gin mill song. And by the way, both of them were huge successes.
GROSS: What made you decide to do a slower and more adult version of the song in 1975?
SEDAKA: Lenny Welch, a great singer who had a hit called "Since I Fell For You," was a friend and asked if I had any follow-up to "Since I Fell For You." And I was fooling around at the piano one day and discovered that "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" worked as a slow song. And I presented it to him. He loved it and recorded it as a ballad, and it was an R&B hit. And then I would do it as an encore in my concerts. And the audience reaction was so good that I decided to rerecord it as a ballad.
GROSS: And you made some changes on it. It's not just that the tempo is slower. The chords are really different.
SEDAKA: Well, of course. It's more sophisticated. And when you have a ballad hit, it's a career move. It's a much better career vehicle. And when you're doing it as a jazz piece, you automatically change some of the chords to make them sound like a standard, like you're listening to a Dinah Washington record.
GROSS: OK, so let's hear Neil Sedaka's two versions of his song "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do." The first from 1962, the second from 1975. Both versions are featured on his new CD, "The Definitive Collection" of Neil Sedaka.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO")
SEDAKA: (Singing) To do, do, down, dooby-do, down, down. Comma-comma, down, dooby-do, down, down. Comma-comma, down, dooby-do, down, down. Breaking up is hard to do. Don't take your love away from me. Don't you leave my heart in misery. If you go, then I'll be blue, 'cause breaking up is hard to do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO")
SEDAKA: (Singing) Remember when you held me tight and you kissed me all through the night? Think of all that we've been through and breaking up is hard to do. They say that...
GROSS: Now, of course, you know, on "American Idol" a few years ago, Ruben did a slow version of "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do." And Clay, of course, recorded "Solitaire." And you were a judge, a guest judge. What kind of advice did they ask you - did they give you before being a - did they tell you to be nice or to take the gloves off and be tough?
SEDAKA: Well, you know, I wanted to be tough. But my son said, Dad, you know, there are 30 million people watching. Be careful of what you say. And, you know, I think that it's a very difficult - these kids are on in front of millions and millions of people. It's a very difficult thing. But I must tell you how I got on. Everyone was saying, oh, Neil, you must be a celebrity judge. I said, oh, there are so many people trying to get on. And my publishers called and said, perhaps if you called personally to the show, you'll have a better chance.
And I picked up the telephone, spoke to a Susan Slamer on the staff. I said, hi, this is Neil Sedaka. I watch the show. I'd love to be on as a celebrity judge. And she said, are you kidding? Who is this? I said, no, it's Neil Sedaka. She said, sit there - we're having a meeting. She called me back in an hour and said, you'll be on in two weeks.
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDAKA: And the five finalists will be singing all Neil Sedaka songs. I was over the moon.
GROSS: What impact did it have on your career?
SEDAKA: The catalog went through the roof. All of the old records started to sell. Amazon.com was ringing off the walls. And "Solitaire" by Clay was one of the biggest - I think the second biggest seller of that year.
GROSS: We were talking about how you grew up playing classical music and how your mother early on would've preferred that you play classical music. In those early days, were you torn in two directions, pop versus classical?
SEDAKA: No, I was a very serious piano student. I started playing at age 8. At 9, I entered the prep school of the Juilliard when it was on 125th Street and Claremont Avenue. I studied with the great Edgar Roberts. And when I was 13, I discovered that I could write songs. I wasn't very popular in school. I wasn't a jock and wasn't one of the popular kids playing Chopin and Bach. So I was fascinated by the reaction I got. I was invited to all of the teenage parties. And that was a very big deal in those days, if you can play your own songs or hits of the day. So it was a two-fold - actually, a two-fold study of songwriting and going to Juilliard every Saturday.
And then I went to the college, Julliard College, studied with Adele Marcus. And when I was 19, I had to make a decision which direction to go. And, you know, the money is - being from a very poor family - my father was a taxi driver in Brooklyn for 30 years and worked very hard. And I think every teenager wanted to be a rock 'n' roll star. You know, that would be very exciting to any kid of that age. So I did pursue it. But I never dropped the classical music because I still basically love it, and those are my roots.
GROSS: In an autobiography that you wrote a few years ago, you write about a song, "Mr. Moon," that you wrote when you were in high school and that you performed in high school. But the principal didn't like the song. You describe it as having been a little risque (laughter) for school. I was dying to hear how it went.
SEDAKA: Well, I was a freshman at Lincoln High School, and as I said, not one of the popular kids. And I had started writing rock 'n' roll. It was the beginning of rock 'n' roll. And I wrote a song called "Mr. Moon" and sang it at one of the ballyhoo shows in the auditorium. And there was to be two performances. The first performance, the kids started to jump and dance and bump and grind.
And it was a sensation, except when Abraham Lass, the principal, called me into his office and said, you know, Neil, we can't have that kind of behavior. We'd like you to do something else, another kind of song for the second performance. And there was a petition signed by the students that they wanted Neil to do "Mr. Moon" again. And we won. And I did it again. It was not a dirty song in any way, but it was kind of a bump and grind, (vocalizing). You know, that old rock 'n' roll tempo, which was very new at the time.
GROSS: Could you do a few bars of it?
SEDAKA: Oh, my goodness. I was 16. (Singing) Mr. Moon, guide your love back to me, (vocalizing). Sounds very fragile now.
(LAUGHTER)
SEDAKA: Very timid.
BIANCULLI: Neil Sedaka speaking to Terry Gross in 2007. After a break, we'll continue their conversation. Also, Ken Tucker reviews the new album by the Paranoid Style. And Justin Chang reviews "Hoppers," the new Pixar movie. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE IMMIGRANT")
SEDAKA: (Singing) Harbors opened their arms to the young, searching foreigner, come to live in the light of the beacon of liberty. Planes and open skies, billboards would advertise. Was it anything like that when you arrived? Dreamboats carry the future to the heart of America. People were waiting in line for a place by the river. It was a time when strangers were welcome here.
BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. We're remembering Neil Sedaka, the singer and songwriter who died last week at age 86. He cowrote his first hit song when he was 19. And even before that, in high school, he was busy composing pop songs. When Terry spoke with him in 2007, she asked him about his high school years, which he wrote about in his memoir.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)
GROSS: Yeah, you know, you write in that memoir - you write, by first grade, I was known as the school sissy. I practiced walking and gesturing in a masculine fashion in front of the mirror. So it made me think you were probably picked on a lot.
SEDAKA: Yes, that was one of the reasons that I wanted to be recognized, I wanted to please people. I think, in many instances, artists who begin as - you know, are neglected and are made fun of, I think that they pursue these careers to be noticed, to be accepted and to be revered. So I showed those football players.
GROSS: Yeah. Well, did it make you self-conscious when you started performing about whether you should look more macho as a performer?
SEDAKA: I studied in front of a mirror. I had a sister, Ronnie, who I adored. And she was my hero. She was 18 months older, beautiful, popular. And, you know, I had to stand in front of a mirror, I'll be totally honest with you, and learn how to move in a more macho way, how to carry my books, how to - it was a metamorphosis.
GROSS: You know, I think in that era, every teenager was standing in front of a mirror. And some people were learning to dance in front of a mirror. Some people were pretending they were singing into a microphone in front of a mirror. And other people were just trying to figure out how to fix their hair or look better. But don't you think, like, every boy and girl was standing in front of a mirror then?
SEDAKA: Yes. But I must correct you. I didn't use the word sissy. I used the word feminine, because I was raised by six women. We were, believe it or not, 11 people in a two-bedroom apartment in Brighton Beach. My mother, my sister, my five aunts and my grandmother. So these are the people who I emulated. So it was a marvelous upbringing because I was spoiled by all these women.
GROSS: Now, a few years ago, you recorded an album of Yiddish songs called "Brighton Beach Memories." You grew up in Brighton Beach.
SEDAKA: Yes.
GROSS: Were these songs that you grew up hearing?
SEDAKA: Yes. My mother played the Barry Sisters records. These were the great old standards, "Vi Ahin Zol Ich Geyn," "Shein Vi Di L'Vone," "My Yiddishe Mamme." I heard them at bar mitzvahs and weddings, and family picnics. And I decided at this stage of my career that I wanted to do things not - for my own heart, for my own spirit, not particularly looking for commerciality. And I got some wonderful reaction.
I did an all-Yiddish concert at Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago for the Folksbiene Jewish theater in New York. And it wound up to be a very exciting album. I performed with a few klezmer groups in California and Chicago, the Klezmatics. And it was my roots. And I'm very proud of where I came from. I think, you know, you have to remember where you came from. And this was very special.
GROSS: I want to play a track from the album. Let me ask you to choose one of your favorites.
SEDAKA: I'd love to hear "Yiddishe Mamme." I do it half in English and half in Yiddish. And it reminds me of my mother, who passed away last year, Eleanor Sedaka, who lived to 89. And she lived a great life. But it's - I think it was originally done by Sophie Tucker years ago. And it's a very moving, very emotional song.
GROSS: Well, let's hear Neil Sedaka's recording of "My Yiddishe Mamme" from his album "Brighton Beach Memories."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY YIDDISHE MAMME.")
SEDAKA: (Singing in Yiddish).
GROSS: That's Neil Sedaka from his album "Brighton Beach Memories" that came out a few years ago. Now, earlier, we heard two different versions of your song "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do." One from the early '60s. One from the mid-'70s. When did your string of hits in the '60s end? People always say that for the American pop songwriters and singers, their careers were really interrupted or ended by the British invasion. Is that too simplistic or do you think that's an accurate description?
SEDAKA: That's an accurate description, Terry. There was also a natural progression of five years of hits. The Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, Fats Domino, Brenda Lee, we all didn't have more than five years. But as you said, the British invasion, the great Beatles and Rolling Stones came. I wanted to write that style, and I did write that style. But my public wouldn't accept it, and the record company wouldn't accept it.
So for 11 years, I took a backseat, took stock of myself, raised a family, had my two children and wrote for a publishing firm, and had some great artists record my songs - Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Peggy Lee, Shirley Bassey. But, you know, once you get a taste of being in front of the public, you never get over that. And it was 11 years later in - around 1974, '75, actually, that I lived in England. I moved my wife and children to England because in England, they respected the original rock 'n' rollers in America. And it was there that I met Elton John, who was starting a record company, Rocket Records, in America.
And he was a big fan of my early records. And he knew that I was recording with a group called the 10ccs in Stockport, England. Marvelous group at the time. And I made two albums with them and both of them were successes in the U.K. And Elton said, you know, I think I could launch you again in America. And I said, well, that would be remarkable. Elton had me record an album called "Sedaka's Back," which was a remarkable comeback for me. And I always thank Elton for that.
GROSS: Was "Laughter In The Rain" on that?
SEDAKA: Yes, and "Love Will Keep Us"...
GROSS: Yeah, that was a really big hit for you.
SEDAKA: Well, after 11 years, to have a No. 1 record was a remarkable comeback. And "Love Will Keep Us Together" was on and "The Immigrant" and "That's When The Music Takes Me." I was very proud of the collection.
GROSS: So how much are you still writing songs now?
SEDAKA: I write once or twice a year. I wrote some new songs that I'm working on for a children's album. I actually rewrote - since I have three new grandchildren, my son and his wife got after me and said, you know, you're Papa Neil now. You have to write some children's songs. So I came up with the idea of changing the lyrics to some of my original hits. So I did "Waking Up Is Hard To Do."
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDAKA: I did "Where The Toys Are."
GROSS: (Laughter).
SEDAKA: Don't trip over your toys, put them away neatly. And so, perhaps I'll be Papa Neil on television. Who knows?
GROSS: (Laughter) I'm trying to think of a really torchy version of "Where The Toys Are."
(LAUGHTER)
GROSS: Well, it's really been a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much.
SEDAKA: Same here, Terry. And it's a wonderful program. Congratulations, continued success.
BIANCULLI: Neil Sedaka speaking to Terry Gross in 2007. The cocomposer of "Where The Boys Are," "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" and "Love Will Keep Us Together" died last week at age 86.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LUNCH WILL KEEP US TOGETHER")
SEDAKA: (Singing) Lunch, lunch will keep us together. There's no meal that's better. Just give me a fork and a spoon. It's almost noon. Make me some food 'cause I want to eat soon. Just stop, 'cause I'm really hungry. Stop. I can hear my tummy. Look in the fridge and let lunch keep us together. Hotdogs, mac and cheese, French fries in ketchup I'll drown. When the others say they're stuffed, who's still chowing it down? I will, I will, I will, I will.
BIANCULLI: Coming up, Ken Tucker reviews "Known Associates," the latest album by The Paranoid Style. This is FRESH AIR. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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