Neil Diamond got his start as a Brill Building songwriter, writing "I'm A Believer" for the Monkees, among many other hits. His own career launched in 1966 with instant classics "Solitary Man" and "Cherry Cherry." By the early 1970s he was one of the most popular live acts on the road, a role he's maintained for the last four decades. Congratulations. What's your first reaction to the news? I think it's great. I'm happy that that they recognized me and my work. Any club that has Chuck Berry and Little Richard and The Everly Brothers is a club that I want to be a part of. You're going to be in Australia on March 14th, the night of t...

NEIL Diamond, 70 next January, is talking about a life on the road. There were the 1960s, when he toured America with The Who. The 70s, when he was an arena-filling phenomenon across the US. The 80s, when British royalty came calling. "I had done a concert for the Prince's Trust in Birmingham," he recalls. "And Prince Charles and Lady Diana flew up in a helicopter to be at the festivities. And I met Diana there ? she was pregnant with Harry at that time. Then I came to play in London a number of times after that and she'd come to the show. So we kinda knew each other a little bit." Then, in 1985, the royal couple were on an official ...

Given his role as one of pop's most respected songwriters, Neil Diamond might be expected to fill a covers album with underappreciated obscurities by tunesmiths less highly regarded than he. Well, perhaps next time. On "Dreams," Diamond hunts bigger game, offering up stripped-down renditions of such pop-canonical evergreens as Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine," the Beatles' "Yesterday" and the Eagles' "Desperado." He even tackles Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," which has been covered so many times in recent years that its opening arpeggios are beginning to sound as familiar as those in "Stairway to Heaven." Diamond's vocals are still strong ...

Mrs. Rose Diamond, a small, sprightly, smiley 92-year-old, asks if I'd like some corn on the cob. Her son, sitting next to her, wonders if I'm enjoying my hotdogs. Outside, the bottom of the garden is being pounded by the Malibu surf. This is an average Sunday afternoon at Neil Diamond's weekend retreat in one of California's loveliest neighbourhoods. Once you're past the imposing steel gate, the open-plan house isn't especially big or extravagant, but the frontage is spectacular. His beloved mother visits every Sunday, having moved from the East Coast to be near her son (his father died in 1985). Even if I hadn't grown up on his...

Reviewed by Ben Walsh Monday, 8 November 2010 "Girl if it lasts for an hour, that's all right/ We got all night/ To set the world right," hollers Neil Diamond, grinning. Uplifting sauciness doesn't get any finer than "Cracklin' Rosie" and the singer's Electric Proms rendition is almost as exquisite as his live performance on Hot August Night; a double album from 1972 which features on its cover a sweaty, wild-haired and denim-clad Diamond, his hand hanging perilously close to his crotch. Here, the 69-year-old New Yorker is sweat free, neatly trimmed and dressed in black. He keeps his hands above board – indeed they're reachi...

By Charlotte Heathcote Have your say(0) HE HAS millions of fans around the world, but iconic singer-songwriter Neil Diamond tells Charlotte Heathcote his success has mean sacrificing relationships in order to write great songs. You don't get to be the third biggest recording artist in history without making some sacrifices along the way. In the case of Neil Diamond, that sacrifice has been his personal life. His greatest love has been his career, his dedication to writing classic hit songs like Sweet Caroline, I Am...I Said and You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, then tirelessly touring them. The hard work has certainly paid off...

Critics know him as one of the most reflective and sombre artists in the business, a singer-songwriter with no lightness and very little sense of irony. But he's been packing out stadiums since the early 1970s, and his first tour to South Africa in April 2011 will be amongst the biggest the country has yet seen. What's Neil Diamond’s story? By KEVIN BLOOM. The full weight of Neil Diamond's seriousness was never more on display than it was in the 1980 remake of the Al Jolson classic, The Jazz Singer. The film, which originally had Jolson in black-face, and which in its 1927 incarnation heralded the ascendance of “talkies” and the d...

Iconic older singers do good business with covers and standards these days. There are a few different approaches. Rod Stewart is up to five volumes of his American Songbook series, which does standards (and sells many CDs) the straightforward way. If you're lucky enough to have heard Paul Anka's versions of "Jump" and "Eye of the Tiger," you'll be familiar with the mildly campy approach. And then there’s the surprising project that reinvigorated Johnny Cash's career — working with Rick Rubin on grave, minimal covers of songs like Nine Inch Nails' ''Hurt.'' That's the tactic that's come to be seen as the artistic approach, the credible one....

Neil Diamond is living the dream. "To write the music that I feel, and to be as honest as I possibly can be in that music, and to hopefully have people share the experience of that music -- that has always been my dream," explains the singer-songwriter, his instantly recognizable baritone rumbling down the line from his New York City home. "My dream is already being fulfilled and I'm going to take full advantage of it as long as I'm around." But for his latest album, the self-professed "Jewish Elvis" is taking advantage of a few other songwriters' output. The aptly titled Dreams is a collection of '60s and '70s covers, from classics ...

NEW YORK, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- SIRIUS XM Radio (Nasdaq:SIRI - News) announced today that it will launch "Neil Diamond Radio," a seven-day long, commercial-free music channel featuring music, interviews and specials celebrating the release of Neil Diamond's new album, Dreams. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20101014/NY82093LOGO) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20101014/NY82093LOGO) The limited-run channel will launch on Thursday, October 28 at 12:00 pm ET and will run until Wednesday, November 3 at 12:00 pm ET on SIRIUS channel 3 and XM channel 23. "Neil Diamond Radio" will feature music spanning the ic...

One Hall of Fame vote for Diamond By KEN HOFFMAN Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle Oct. 25, 2010, 4:58PM Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponEmail Close [X]Neil Diamond has been nominated — finally - for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Here is the only reason that he may not get in. As my friend the former heavyweight boxer Lou Savarese likes to say, "true story." One day a few years ago, I was sitting at my desk, and, against my better judgment, asked the rock critic at the time what he was working on. Every time I talked to him, I wound up shaking my head, and waving his smoke out of my face. He said he wa...

THE LEGENDARY ICON PERFORMS HIS ALL-TIME FAVORITE SONGS TO CREATE THE ALBUM OF A LIFETIME OUT NOVEMBER 2 ON COLUMBIA RECORDS Download image NEW YORK, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Five decades into his career, Neil Diamond has finally made the album of his dreams. On Tuesday, November 2, Columbia Records will release Dreams, a new 14-song collection of the legendary singer/songwriter's interpretations of his favorite songs of other composers from the rock era. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100920/NY67444 ) (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100920/NY67444 ) "You never know how long you've got and a lot ...

In the words of Sweet Caroline, the good times will never seem so good as they will for Neil Diamond fans in March. The man behind a swag of hits including Sweet Caroline, Cracklin' Rosie, Solitary Man and Cherry Cherry, will perform on March 4 at Wellington's Westpac Stadium. Diamond, whose new album Dreams is released next week, last played to 33,000 at the stadium in March 2005. Tickets then cost between $60 and $100. The cost of tickets to next year's concert, which go on sale on November 9, is still to be announced. "The audiences down there are spectacular and any performer wants to get in front of an audience like th...

SUPERSTAR Neil Diamond has smashed the myth of extravagant backstage demands. Diamond, 69, touring Australia in March, has the same humble request as always - a clean dressing room and takeaway Chinese food transferred to a china plate. "That's if I'm lucky," Diamond says, chuckling. "Usually, it's a cold ham sandwich with cheese." Diamond says his backstage rider has stayed the same throughout the years. It includes water, soft drinks, tea, coffee and paper cups. After the show, he eats takeaway noodles or lo-mein. "We will need your assistance transferring this to a china plate," his rider says. It is a far cry from the ...

Neil Diamond To Tour Australia And New Zealand In 2011 By Paul Cashmere 23 hours ago (Sun, 24 Oct 2010 10:02:18 +1100) Music legend Neil Diamond will return to Australia and New Zealand for his first tour in 6 years in February, 2011. Paul Dainty and Live Nation will bring Diamond to Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, the Hunter Valley, Melbourne and Adelaide. This time Diamond will be touring off the back of his covers album 'Dreams' to be released by Sony on October 29. 'Dreams' features Diamond covering his favourite songs from The Beatles, Eagles, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Leonard Cohen and more but expect a healthy d...

Stevie Nicks Compares Taylor Swift to Neil Diamond Posted: April 30th, 2010 at 4:46 pm | By: Alison Bonaguro Every year, Time magazine lists the 100 people who most affect our world. You can probably guess who is on that list, but what I like about their approach is that they asked Stevie Nicks for her take on Taylor Swift after this year's Grammy Awards. "When I first got the call from Taylor Swift about performing with her at this year's Grammy Awards, I really didn't want to do it," Nicks said. "She's 20 years old, 5 ft. 11 in. and slender; I'm 40 years older and, to be frank, neither of the other two things!" She goes on to rave ...

Reports: Neil Diamond to Sing 'Sweet Caroline' Live at Fenway Park by Adam Hirshfield on Apr 4, 2010 9:13:00 PM Could the nightly rendition of "Sweet Caroline" during the seventh-inning stretch be just a little bit sweeter on opening night at Fenway Park? Before Sunday night's season opener at the Fens, CSNNE.com's Sean McAdam posted the following message on Twitter: "Just rode the elevator with Neil Diamond -- just a guess, but I'm thinking 'Sweet Caroline' will have a different element in the 8th inning." Could the singer/songwriter be making a live appearance at Fenway? "Take your bathroom break before the 8th inning, if ...

By Robin Leach Superstar singer Celine Dion finally confirmed over the weekend what we have reported here for several weeks -- months, really -- that she's returning to Caesars Palace. And now we also have news of another superstar likely joining The Colosseum lineup! Reliable sources also told me over the weekend that there are solid rumors growing that one of America's most successful singer-songwriters -- Neil Diamond! -- is joining Cher and Celine to complete the Roman Empire's resort-casino hat trick. The rumored move for the giant conglomerate AEG to sign Neil ties in with tomorrow's release of his new, massive two-CD set H...