Neil Diamond lived on 35 cents a day before writing hits
Selling roughly one song a week, a young Brooklyn songwriter could spend just 35 cents a day on food. Then, working alone in a room above the Birdland club, Neil Diamond wrote Solitary Man and Cherry, Cherry. Within a few years the Monkees had a chart-topping smash with his I'm a Believer.
Diamond was born on January 24, 1941, in Brooklyn to a Jewish family whose grandparents had all emigrated, from Poland on one side and from Kyiv on the other. His father, a dry-goods merchant, was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with the army from 1945 to 1949, taking the family along. Back in Brooklyn, Diamond sang in the freshman chorus at Erasmus Hall High alongside Barbra Streisand, and chess prodigy Bobby Fischer was in the same class.
His career began in the Brill Building. A first songwriting hit came in November 1965, when Jay and the Americans took Sunday and Me into the Top 20. The Monkees then released several of his songs before his own versions appeared, and I'm a Believer went gold within two days and held the top spot for seven weeks. Solitary Man, his first chart record under his own name, remains a favourite because it captured his despair in those lean years.
Wanting to make more personal music, he fell out with Bang Records, and lawsuits dragged on until February 1977, when he won and bought his early master tapes. Signing with Uni in March 1968 and moving to Los Angeles, he mellowed his sound. He has given two stories for Sweet Caroline: in 2007 he credited a magazine photo of Caroline Kennedy, but in 2014 said it was really about his wife Marcia, whose name refused to rhyme. It took him an hour in a Memphis hotel.
Live shows sealed his reputation. The August 24, 1972, concert at the Greek Theatre became Hot August Night, which spent 29 weeks at No. 1 in Australia. That autumn he played 20 nights at the Winter Garden, the first rock-era star to headline Broadway. He has sold over 56.5 million records in the US and joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's ranks in 2011.
Source: Neil Diamond
