Neil Diamond, songwriter.
I don't know if this makes me a fan, but you have to love Neil Diamond. There he was, finally employed as a songwriter in The Brill Building, now legendary. The songs, the songwriters, and the performers who worked there. Neil didn't think he could sing, but after a while he could afford to record, so he put out a "country" album. If you can, imagine Neil Diamond in a plain shirt and jeans, leaning up against a rail fence with a wagon wheel, all props. I think he wore a black hat. I don't think he toured for that, and it didn't sell.
It must have gotten overseas, because over thirty years later an Irish band did a cover of "Red, Red Wine", adding a rap and having a huge hit. The drummer of the band I was in at the time liked that song, getting him into raggae/ska a little, so we performed it while it was on the charts. Everyone danced, probably not thinking Neil Diamond.
It's funny how songs can have a musical mystery. When my very beloved father died, the last of our founding members and elders of our Church in Welland, considering my situation in my home town, it was difficult to be out in public. Too many demeaning and derogatory remarks everywhere I went. Late that night, knowing I wasn't going to sleep easy, I drove to Niagara Falls. More and more these last few years I can be totally alone at The Table Rock viewing point, the American economy and border security slowing things that much. I was the only human there. I listened to The Falls, heard other voices, and felt a gentle mist, that grey and passing veil of sorrows, and I started singing "I, look up to the sky, feeling your love, wondering why, and I, can't sleep in my bed, hearing the words, those people said" to an old teen tune from the sixties, The BeeGees. I was crying and singing and making up my own words, and just as suddenly as I was overcome, it passed. I was just standing there, all alone, in what became rain. I thought to myself, I didn't even go falsetto. I sang it again and felt even better.
Neil Diamond had that effect on people. He helped them define themselves through songs like "I am, I said" and created genuine patriotic fever. Sure, he was too showy in an Elvis way, but his new album lets everyone know he can still sit down with his songs and join a band and be more real than ever. If I can say and do that, so I will. Now that I think you, Judy Tooley from Kentucky, I remember Deep Purple from England did "Kentucky Woman" and another Neil tune, with their original lead singer. Ritchie Blackmore, lead guitar. What a great, almost cello-like guitar solo, if you're into that loud Strat and Marshall sound.
I wonder to this day, if it wasn't Jonathan Livingston Seagull that passed my way, my echoing call to him opening my voice to Gaelic I didn't know how to say, and "We all love you Dad, don't worry, it's all going to be okay". My father, even in passing, knew how to make me feel more than just a man.
To memories of Barry and Robin Gibb.
