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Singer and song writer Neil Sedaka appears on the NBC “Today” television show in New York Thursday Oct. 25, 2007. (AP Photo\/Richard Drew, File) <\/p>\nLOS ANGELES, CA \u2014 Neil Sedaka, the hit-making singer-songwriter whose boyish soprano and bright melodies made him a top act in the early years of rock \u2018n’ roll and led to a second run of success in the 1970s, has died.<\/p>\n
Sedaka, whose hits included \u201cBreaking Up Is Hard to Do\u201d and \u201cLaughter in the Rain,\u201d died Friday in Los Angeles at age 86.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur family is devastated by the sudden passing of our beloved husband, father and grandfather, Neil Sedaka,\u201d his family said in a statement. \u201cA true rock and roll legend, an inspiration to millions, but most importantly, at least to those of us who were lucky enough to know him, an incredible human being who will be deeply missed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Find out what’s happening in Los Angelesfor free with the latest updates from Patch.<\/p>\n
No other details of his death were immediately available.<\/p>\n
A key member of the Brill Building songwriting factory, Sedaka teamed with lyricist and boyhood neighbor Howard Greenfield on songs that reflected the teen innocence of the post-Elvis, pre-Beatles era of the late 1950 and early 1960s, including \u201cHappy Birthday Sweet Sixteen,\u201d \u201cCalendar Girl\u201d and \u201cOh! Carol,\u201d a lament for his high school sweetheart, Carole King.<\/p>\n
Find out what’s happening in Los Angelesfor free with the latest updates from Patch.<\/p>\n
After a long dry spell, he reemerged with such smashes as \u201cLaughter in the Rain\u201d and \u201cBad Blood.\u201d The Captain & Tennille’s cover of his \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together\u201d was a chart-topper in 1975.<\/p>\n
Short and dark-haired, with a big smile and high-pitched voice, he was a Juilliard-trained, Brooklyn-born son of a Jewish taxi driver who began performing as a teen and kept at it for decades.<\/p>\n
Sedaka still played dozens of concerts a year well into his 80s. He retained the enthusiasm and broad vocal range of his youth and never tired of the standards he had sung hundreds of times.<\/p>\n
Singer and song writer Neil Sedaka appears on the NBC “Today” television show in New York Thursday Oct. 25, 2007. (AP Photo\/Richard Drew, File) <\/p>\n
\u201cPast 70, Pavarotti told me the vocal cords are not what they used to be. I\u2019m very fortunate that my voice has held,\u201d he told The Associated Press in 2012. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be a legend, but it\u2019s better to be a working legend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sedaka\u2019s songs sold millions worldwide and have been covered by a range of performers, from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to The 5th Dimension and Nickelback. Sedaka helped propel the career of Connie Francis with \u201cStupid Cupid\u201d and \u201cWhere the Boys Are,\u201d the latter for the soundtrack of the movie with the same name. The Captain & Tennille received a best-album Grammy thanks largely to \u201cLove Will Keep Us Together\u201d and included a nod to Sedaka at the end of the song, when Toni Tennille exclaimed \u201cSedaka\u2019s back!\u201d<\/p>\n
Growing up in Brooklyn, loving performing<\/p>\n
Sedaka grew up in Brooklyn\u2019s Brighton Beach neighborhood, pampered by his grandparents, aunts and mother in a two-bedroom apartment he shared with 11 relatives. He has a street there named in his honor, Neil Sedaka Way.<\/p>\n
But his music compensated for his unpopularity as a kid, he once recalled. His talent was recognized by a second-grade teacher who urged his homemaker mother, Eleanor, to buy him a piano. She went to work in a department store to pay for a secondhand upright and managed his career for years, as did his wife, Leba.<\/p>\n
Sedaka loved songwriting and never quit, but he craved performing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a performer, always a performer. It\u2019s that adrenaline rush. It\u2019s like a natural high when you\u2019re in front of an audience, and if you get that standing ovation, it\u2019s infectious,\u201d he told the AP.<\/p>\n
At 16, Sedaka was chosen by Arthur Rubenstein in a contest as the city\u2019s best high school piano student and performed on a classical radio station as a prize. It was the same year he discovered rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, when he performed a song, \u201cMr. Moon,\u201d he had written with Greenfield, his classmate at Abraham Lincoln High School.<\/p>\n
\u201cI sang it in the auditorium for a ballyhoo show and I remember there was a bit of a riot. The kids were jumping and screaming,\u201d Sedaka said. \u201cAfter that I was able to go into the sweet shop with the tough kids with the leather jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n
After high school, and then Julliard, Sedaka and Greenfield were signed to Don Kirshner\u2019s Aldon Music, where they scored their first hit with Francis, \u201cStupid Cupid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sedaka churns out hits, until the Beatles<\/p>\n
In 1958, at age 19, Sedaka signed with RCA Victor Records and his first single, \u201cThe Diary,\u201d enjoyed modest success. He began touring and promoting his songs through regular TV appearances on Dick Clark\u2019s \u201cAmerican Bandstand\u201d and \u201cShindig!\u201d<\/p>\n
At the Brill Building, Sedaka and Greenfield were joined by other up-and-coming writers and lyricists including King, Neil Diamond and Paul Simon.<\/p>\n
From 1959 to 1962, Sedaka had 10 records in the Top 10, including \u201cCalendar Girl,\u201d \u201cOh! Carol,\u201d \u201cHappy Birthday Sweet Sixteen\u201d and \u201cNext Door to an Angel.\u201d But in the mid-1960s, the Brill Building sound, influenced by the doo-wop groups of the New York City streets, was pushed off the charts by the Beatles -led British Invasion and the psychedelic and protest music that followed. Sedaka would endure 13 years \u201cin the wilderness,\u201d as he described it to the AP.<\/p>\n
Sedaka’s unlikely comeback, with help from Elton John <\/p>\n
Sedaka was among the lucky, however, enjoying a renaissance that began in the mid-\u201970s thanks to the patronage of Elton John, whom he met at a party after Sedaka moved his wife and two kids to England to take advantage of his lingering popularity there. John signed him to his fledgling, U.S.-based Rocket Records label, providing him a chance at more hits with the album \u201cSedaka\u2019s Back.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Rocket, Sedaka and a new writing partner, Philip Cody, topped charts with \u201cBad Blood\u201d and the joyous \u201cLaughter in the Rain.\u201d He also achieved a rare feat with \u201cBreaking Up Is Hard to Do.\u201d His original up-tempo version went No. 1 in 1962. He rerecorded it as a slow ballad in 1975 and that, too, went No. 1.<\/p>\n
He recorded five albums from 1972 to 1976. They included hits \u201cStanding on the Inside,\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s Where the Music Takes Me\u201d and \u201cOur Last Song Together,\u201d about his breakup with Greenfield, with whom he began writing songs when Sedaka was only 13 and Greenfield 16.<\/p>\n
He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame eluded him despite a fan petition drive.<\/p>\n
Sedaka married wife Leba in 1962. They had two children. Daughter Dara recorded a duet with dad in 1980, \u201cShould\u2019ve Never Let You Go.\u201d It was a hit, but she never joined him in the music business. Son Marc is a film and television writer.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
By LEANNE ITALIE Associated Press<\/p>\n
AP Entertainment Writers Mark Kennedy in New York and Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES, CA \u2014 Neil Sedaka, the hit-making singer-songwriter whose boyish soprano and bright melodies made him a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-494635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}