{"id":15084,"date":"2025-07-23T04:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T04:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15084\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T04:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T04:19:11","slug":"music-legend-84-reveals-why-he-looked-so-mad-on-famous-album-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/15084\/","title":{"rendered":"Music Legend, 84, Reveals Why He Looked So Mad on Famous Album Cover"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music Legend, 84, Reveals Why He Looked So Mad on Famous Album Cover<\/a> originally appeared on Parade<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s set the scene: you\u2019re a famous Hollywood photographer getting paid to take a shot of Neil Diamond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t know it yet, but the photo you\u2019re taking will be used for a platinum-selling retrospective of the music icon\u2019s entire career. It\u2019s an album that Diamond, 84, himself will curate. It\u2019ll contain chart-topping hits like \u201cYou Don\u2019t Bring Me Flowers,\u201d \u201cSong Sung Blue,\u201d and \u201cYesterday Songs\u201d; songs that were hits for other bands like \u201cI\u2019m a Believer\u201d and \u201cGirl, You\u2019ll be a Woman Soon\u201d; and, of course, \u201cSweet Caroline.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all that said, would you still quack at the man to get him to smile? Because that\u2019s apparently what the photographer did.<\/p>\n

On July 21, the official Neil Diamond TikTok uploaded a clip from an early 2000s appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, explaining \u201cthe story behind The Essential Neil Diamond album cover!\u201d The album cover in question does show Neil looking a bit perturbed, and Diamond revealed the reason behind the look to Jay Leno.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [album art] was taken by one of the most famous photographers in Hollywood history,\u201d explained Diamond. \u201cHe came over to my house. He gets set up\u2026and he says, \u2018Okay, you ready?\u2019 I say, \u2018yeah, I\u2019m ready.\u2019 And he goes, \u2018QUACK, QUACK! QUACK, QUACK!\u2019 You know, to get me to laugh? It\u2019s like one of these baby photographers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really took me off guard,\u201d explained Diamond. \u201cSo, the expression on my face is \u2018what? I\u2019m paying so much money for this guy, he could have shot my kids for that.\u2019\u201d And to drive the point home, Diamond quacked one more time.<\/p>\n

\"Neil<\/p>\n

Neil Diamond performs onstage with an acoustic guitar in circa 1971.Photo by Michael Ochs Archives&sol;Getty Images<\/p>\n

While Diamond didn\u2019t name the photographer, Discogs<\/a> lists George Hurrell as the man who took the front album\u2019s cover. Hurrell, who died in 1992 at the age of 87, took photos of some of Hollywood\u2019s classic stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Katherine Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, and Humphrey Bogart.<\/p>\n

Released in 2001, The Essential Neil Diamond compilation peaked at No. 90 on the\u00a0Billboard\u00a0200 album chart. In 2016, the RIAA awarded it double platinum status.<\/p>\n

Related: Music Legend, 84, Delights Fans with Surprise Performance Despite Parkinson\u2019s Diagnosis<\/a><\/p>\n

Music Legend, 84, Reveals Why He Looked So Mad on Famous Album Cover<\/a> first appeared on Parade on Jul 22, 2025<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Parade<\/a> on Jul 22, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Music Legend, 84, Reveals Why He Looked So Mad on Famous Album Cover originally appeared on Parade. Let\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[16722,64,63,447,134,16723,16721],"class_list":{"0":"post-15084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-album-cover","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-george-hurrell","14":"tag-neil-diamond"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}