Neil Sedaka, who has been with the love of his life for almost 61 years, doesn’t have much experience to draw from when he says, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.”
The charming “down doobie do down down” singer recently celebrated his 84th birthday, is overflowing with love for his grandchildren, and gushes that he was “born married to his wife.”
Who wouldn’t adore Neil Sedaka? The outstanding vocalist has given us much throughout the years, delighting us with his voice and presence.
Neil Sedaka, a natural talent who has written and sung some of the most memorable songs in music history, once admitted that he was shy to sing in front of people when he was younger.
Sedaka admitted, “I knew I had a fantastic voice, but I was ashamed because it was so high. But the rabbi was in tears as I sang at my bar mitzvah.”
The classically trained pianist, who was only 13 years old and attended the Julliard Preparatory for Children on a Saturday scholarship program, teamed up with Howard Greenfield, then 16 years old, and the two of them wrote songs for Sedaka’s school band, the Linc-Tones, which would later change its name to the Tokens.
The pair went on to pen top-charting singles like Sedaka’s “Breaking up is Hard to Do,” Captain & Tenille’s “Love will keep us Together,” and Connie Francis’ “Stupid Cupid” while working out of New York’s famed Brill Building.
“There was no window, but we had a piano and a bench in our cell. After you had a popular song, you could only get a room with a window, Sedaka claimed, adding that the two were making $50 weekly. Every day from 9 am to 5 pm, we would write and perform our work for representatives from record labels. Although challenging, it was excellent training.
His famous song “Oh! Carol” (1959), inspired by his high school lover Carole King, was the first in the building to reach the Top 10. He was also the first to record his tunes.
Up to the middle of the 1970s, Greenfield and Sedaka worked together. Greenfield, an out gay man, passed away in 1986 from AIDS-related problems.
In the meantime, Sedaka quit The Tokens at 19, just as the group reached its zenith of prominence in 1961 with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “Tonight I Fell in Love.”
His first three solo albums didn’t do well on the charts, but one song got him an appearance on American Bandstand with Dick Clark, and soon after that, he got a recording deal.
The song “The Diary,” which Sedaka wrote because he genuinely wanted “to look into that little book,” was his first big hit and reached at number 14 on the Billboard Top 100 in 1958. Connie Francis’ diary inspired it. Sedaka’s popularity peaked when he recorded “Calendar Girl,” his sixth hit in just two years, in 1960.
He wed Leba Strassberg in 1962 after they had met while playing at the now-defunct Esther Manor resort in the Catskill Mountains of New York.