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Roots & Influences - World of Neil Diamond
Comment:
NYU dropout Diamond didn’t hit the books; he hit the 45s, and he graduated with honors . . . [i]lots[/i] of them. Everybody remembers the Everly Brothers for their honey-dipped harmonies, but listen carefully — like Neil did — to “When Will I Be Loved”: it’s the guitar, not the vocal, driving the track forward, just like Diamond’s six-string surge did years later in “Kentucky Woman.” Roy Orbison constructs the mini-opera of “Crying” like a sonic architect, every theatrical vocal quaver sinking its hooks into your soul, a skill Diamond uses to devastating effect in songs like “I Am . . . I Said.” The gum-snapping girl-group doo-wop of “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget” seems light-years removed from Orbison-style drama, but Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry — aka the Raindrops — not only got Neil his contract with Bang Records, but they also produced his first hits (including “Cherry, Cherry” and “Solitary Man”). From Elvis to Dylan, Diamond studied at the feet of pop’s greatest song crafters, using what he learned to become one himself.