Radioinfo is taking you back to the songs that turn 50 this year.
In Australia, 1974 saw the debut of Countdown, and Queen and the Skyhooks allegedly booed at the Sunbury Music Festival. January 1975 saw the first broadcast of triple j. Suddenly there were places to discover new music everywhere and, with ABBA a great example, we were finding it before the US and UK.
Neil Sedaka has been writing songs and releasing hits since the late 50s, like the above. Towards the end of the 60s they dried up, his American label dropped him and the song writing collaboration with Howard Greenfield, which the two had formed when Sedaka was just 13, start to sour too.
Through it all Australia embraced him, largely because of the championing of the late, great radio presenter Bob Rogers. Sedaka would perform cabaret shows, his Star-Crossed Lovers was a top 10 and another song which I’ve always liked, Wheeling West Virginia, was recorded in Sydney and only appears to have charted in this country too.
Sedaka thanked Bob Rogers for everything he did for him in a 2CH interview in 2010 during “The Hungry Years”, as he called them, and his 1975 album, in tribute. But, by the time of the release of that album, Sedaka’s fortunes had dramatically improved.
He recorded three albums with different labels before The Hungry Years and from each was a song that would pop up again in 1975.
Solitaire was written by Sedaka and new collaborator Philip Cody early 1972. While the pair never became friends as such, they clicked immediately professionally. Cody was recently divorced and much of the message of Solitaire deeply personal as a result. Sedaka’s version is striking, and memorable, above is a live recording from 1981 in Canada. It has been covered by many. Late in 1974 Richard Carpenter heard it and encouraged his sister Karen to record it.
Richard has said that Karen didn’t want to and never liked her version. I have heard the Carpenters’ Solitaire hundreds of times and still think it is astonishing and unforgettable. It is below and was the third single released of their 1975 album Horizon.
In 1973, for an album called The Tra-La Days are Over, Sedaka, with Howard Greenfield this time, wrote and recorded a song called Love Will Keep Us Together. That was selected by the married couple The Captain and Tennille as their 1975 debut single and album title. It was a US No 1 and went to No 3 here in Australia.
I’ve included it below and want you to listen closely to the end. Toni Tennille is very clearly singing “Sedaka is back.”
She was right.
Before I get to the next Sedaka album, in between all of the above a fellow called Stig Anderson, who was managing a Swedish band then called Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid, reached out to Neil Sedaka for some help changing some lyrics into English for a song that he wanted them to enter into Eurovision.
Sedaka wasn’t speaking with Greenfield at this point, and contacted Cody, who said it wasn’t really his style of thing at all, but he’d give it a go. In early 1973 that now translated into English song, Ring Ring, finished third in the competition. Due to how early we picked up on ABBA, as that band became, Ring Ring charted minorly in 1973, 1974, 1975 and finally went to No 2 in Australia in 1976. It you own the single or ABBA albums, now you know why Sedaka gets a credit on the song:
Sedaka had left the US for the UK and happened to meet Elton John at a party in late 1973. Elton was a Sedaka fan and couldn’t believe that he didn’t have a wholly committed record label behind him. Elton signed him to his Rocket Record Company and the first thing they did together was release a compilation album of sorts featuring songs like Solitaire and Love Will Keep Us Together that were only available in the UK and Australia at this point. They added couple of new singles too including Laughter in the Rain. It went to No 1 in the US, Sedaka’s first there since 1962’s Breaking Up is Hard to Do:
Then, later in 75, Sedaka released The Hungry Years with Rocket, and the lead single Bad Blood, featuring Elton doing uncredited backing vocals which almost act as a duet. It too went to No 1 in the US. A song that was either sung or written by Sedaka held that position there in ’75 for 10 weeks.
Not a bad come back at all.
Neil turns 86 in a couple of weeks. He married wife Leba in 1962. He retired from performing in 2018 but, during the pandemic, this beautiful man released many video of him and family singing around the piano to pick people up. He still does.
Wishing Neil Sedaka a Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen (plus 70!) for March 13 and a thank you to him too for looking after all of us when we were hungry for company and song too.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and music trivia buff for Radioinfo. Email: [email protected]