Neil Diamond: Solitary Man

# Ah, I love the way that you do me

# Cherry, baby You really get to me. #

Neil Diamond has sold nearly 130 million albums

and touched audiences all over the world

for five decades now.

We don't start out as great performers,

that's something that comes with experience.

He's the shy boy from Brooklyn

who transformed himself into a superstar.

The frog who turned into a king on stage.

It took him from being this very popular singer-songwriter

to being the Jewish Elvis.

A magnetic performer,

with a special understanding with the ladies.

Everybody knows he's a really good at what he does

and pulls everybody into it in a very special way.

He has that rich, deep, dark, chocolatey voice

that is very sensual.

Diamond's a songwriter, a singer,

and performer who went on to star in a Hollywood movie

-and has blossomed again in the noughties.

-He gives you everything he's got.

I love that about him.

# ..Touching you

# Sweet Caroline

# Good times... #

He's a superstar, yet he's always solo,

out on his own.

I'd been writing, which is a very solitary kind of thing.

Suddenly I had to...

become an extrovert.

I had to become a performer.

If you are going to perform on stage in front of people,

you have to know first and foremost,

who you are,

and I had no idea who I was.

But whoever that was,

that's what I had to be.

This is the story of Neil Diamond -

Solitary Man.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York.

I have home movies of my mom coming out of the hospital.

It was the end of January so it must have been very cold

and they got into a taxi, which was...

"Oh, my God, take a taxi!"

It was very unusual to take a taxi anywhere in those days.

They took me right back to my dad's little shop.

We had a room in the back and that's where we lived

and that's where I started my life.

Neil Leslie Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1941,

the first child of Rose and Kieve Diamond,

who were second-generation Jewish immigrants.

Brooklyn was a patchwork of communities struggling to make good

in the cheap neighbourhoods just over the bridge from Manhattan.

America was the land of opportunity,

where they were determined to realise their dreams.

My dad had a little haberdashery shop

which is ladies' garments,

stockings, girdles.

And men's and boys' basic clothing.

I knew this wasn't what I wanted to do.

My mind was somewhere else,

and it was always on the radio.

The radio was always on, there was always some kind of music playing.

My parents loved music -

they were ballroom dancers, they adored it.

Any chance they got, they would dance.

They had a little phonograph, they'd put on a record

and they would dance in the living room in Brooklyn.

I remember once or twice, they even crashed weddings...

people they didn't know, just to be able to dance to the band.

I knew Neil's parents

and I think he is a little bit of both.

He has that outgoing personality

and he also has the introvert personality.

He's a complex person.

I think we are a reflection of both our parents.

The Brooklyn Jewish community

was a nursery for the young pop talent

that would soundtrack America in the late '50s and '60s.

Carole King, Barbra Streisand, and music mogul Clive Davies,

were all raised in the city suburbs of Brooklyn,

and were desperate to escape

the conventional lives their parents had built for them and make their own way.

I started writing songs at about 17.

I do remember the first song.

I was working in a hotel as a bus boy in the summer

and I met a girl that I was very taken with.

I had just learned

my first chord progression.

And because I was a little shy and a little embarrassed,

I wrote a song called Hear Them Bells,

which was about a guy asking a girl to marry him.

I wasn't hoping for marriage,

I was hoping for a date.

# Hear them bells

# The story of our love

# Hear them Bells... #

It was a terrible little song

but it seemed to do some kind of little special thing.

# ..I'd be content, dear

# If only you would say... #

It's a fun song, it's obviously a beginner's song.

She evidently liked it,

we started to see each other...

we got married,

we had two children.

And it was a very striking warning to me

to be careful about what I write in these songs

and to who I give them.

# ..Hear them bells... #

I remember his father, very proud, saying,

"My son is also a singer-songwriter."

He had his picture on the wall

just behind the cash register.

I did music at school,

I sang in the chorus when I was in high school.

I remember we went around to hospitals...

and went from bed to bed

and sang to the patients.

I think some of the patients even survived that.

It was fun and it just grew.

Despite Diamond's early flair for pop music, he headed to NYU

to train as a doctor and make his parents proud.

He was on a fencing scholarship.

For reasons of esteem, and my family,

I thought that maybe I could someday be a doctor,

but I was way over my head.

Song-writing was definitely a distraction,

as was fencing,

but song-writing was a passion.

And so, I would go to New York University and I would take a class

and then I would get on the subway train

and I started to bring songs to publishing companies

in an area of New York called Tin Pan Alley.

Soon he became a staff songwriter

for a publishing company in the legendary Brill Building on Broadway, for 50 a week,

quitting university before graduating.

'My parents just assumed that I was still going to school

'when I wasn't going to school.'

-How are you doing?

-Good. Nice to meet you.

-All right.

Pleasure. Thank you.

Whoa. The Brill Building.

'The Brill Building was THE main focus

'of the music business in New York.'

Wow!

'Pretty much all of it happened here.

'The greatest writers and the worst writers,

'the greatest artists and the most terrible artists

'came here to make their names.'

The young writing teams in the Brill Building at the dawn of the '60s,

were updating the Broadway tradition,

crafting innocent pop songs for the new young-American teens.

# Going to the chapel and we're... #

It's quiet and peaceful now but it was...

a long way from quiet and peaceful when I was here.

There was a lot of action, a lot of excitement.

It's nice to be back.

The Brill Building was a dream factory chasing pop hits,

with writers like Carole King, Burt Bacharach and Neil Sedaka

all in hot competition.

# I love, I love, I love My little calendar girl

# Every day

# Every day

# Every day

# Every day

# Of the year... #

We got in in the morning, 10 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon.

Everyone had their little cubicle

with a desk and a piano.

And if you got a hit,

you got a room with a window -

that was a big deal.

The walls were very thin.

After a while,

Carole and Gerry's songs sounded like Neil and Howie's,

like Barry Mann and Cynthia,

Jeff and Ellie.

The transoms were always open.

You could drop in your record

if the place was closed.

You'd drop your record in there

with your phone number -

"Please listen to this."

'I had a rough time getting people to record my songs.

'First of all, they were a beginner's songs,

'they were pretty basic.'

But there is a big difference between what's technically a song,

and what is a song that can uplift somebody and the heart.

That connection did not come

until I was forced to make that connection.

I had been struggling for a couple of years

and my wife became pregnant with child.

And that baby does not want to know

that you are making 50 a week

and she can't eat.

He would have been concerned about money at that period of time,

but that drive to succeed

was really always there.

# One day my dad said Find someone new... #

Then husband-and-wife team, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry,

were hot songwriters and producers,

responsible for girl group smashes like the Shangri-Las' Leader of the Pack.

They saw something in Diamond

and felt he could be a star as well as a songwriter.

What Ellie and I found interesting

was him singing his songs

and playing the guitar.

That's still the basis of every record he's ever made.

I knew I liked them,

I knew they were special,

I was very excited about them.

And I knew this was an opportunity

that I had to take advantage of

and I had to make happen.

Yet meanwhile, beyond the Brill Building, in Greenwich Village,

the American folk revival was taking off,

spearheaded by passionate first-person songs

written by another young Jewish-American, Bob Dylan.

The times they were a-changing...

At the time we found Neil,

singer-songwriter was a pretty new thing.

All the artists that I had produced prior

I wrote with or for.

It was through that period

that I finally came into my own,

and came to understand

that writing was to be passionate.

And I wrote for myself,

about myself.

And things started to connect...

and, thank God, it happened.

# Don't know that I will

# But until I can find me

# A girl who'll stay

# And won't play games behind me

# I'll be what I am

# A solitary man... #

My best friend at the time owned Bang Records.

Burt got it...

so Neil ended up on Bang Records.

It was my first Neil Diamond song.

Written for Neil Diamond, by Neil Diamond,

about Neil Diamond.

'And it was one of the best songs I had written

'up until that point.'

# ..Solitary man

# Solitary man... #

'I did interviews and they asked, "Are you a solitary man?"'

and I had not the slightest idea

what they were talking about.

I had no idea that it related to me,

but, of course, it did.

Solitary Man just made the charts,

but Diamond was still searching for the proper smash

that would truly make him a player.

# Baby loves me

# Yes, yes she does... #

We were sitting around Bang Records' little tiny office

and I played them a rhythm thing on guitar.

Jeff immediately was attracted to it and said,

"You should write around that rhythm figure,"

and I did.

And we came up with a record called Cherry Cherry,

which was really my first big national hit.

# Cherry baby

# All right... #

I do recall that I think it was originally called Money Money.

And we suggested that...

..monetary is not as commercial as love.

# Can't stand still

# While the music is playing... #

'It was very, very exciting.

'I went from knocking around on the streets of New York,

'trying to get in to get my music heard,

'to being an artist on the charts

'with a Top Five record.'

I had my foot,

both feet, my arms, my head,

my body, in the door,

and nobody was going to get me out.

'I was...flying

'and the world was mine.'

All I had to do was...

keep doing it.

They were big hits.

In Billboard Magazine at the end of the second year he was the number one male artist in the world.

So we were doing something right.

The Beatles and the British invasion had transformed the American charts overnight.

If Diamond was to stay on top he had to compete and establish himself as a performer.

# Paperback writer Paperback writer... #

He only wore black - anything to hide himself!

If he had a green screen he would have been it.

He just wanted to hide away.

The guitar came up high.

You hardly saw his face.

Then I met with him... He was shy, but he was smart.

He was very street-smart. He knew.

With records, you had to wait six months or a year to be paid for any record sales.

But doing shows was instant payment.

I could pay bills, I could feed my daughter, I could pay my rent,

I could do all of the things that working people do.

And so I took every job that was offered to me, no matter where it was - I took it.

My name is Fred Weintraub and I'm the owner of the Bitter End Cafe in Greenwich Village.

We put him on in the club, they said to me, "This is a folk club!

"What are you putting that on for?"

Some kind of anger, and I liked that.

# Melinda was mine Till the time that I found her

# Holding Jim and loving him... #

He was a fish out of water.

We started to tell him to talk a little between numbers, but it was awful.

Thank you very much, I would dig to do a song now.

It's not so much a song as it is a very personal reminiscence.

We said, stop talking between numbers.

It was a process. But Neil,

he took instruction and he was very smart and really cared.

And he started to get better.

# Young child with dreams

# Dream every dream on your own... #

I'd been writing, which is a very solitary kind of thing,

and suddenly I had to become an extrovert.

I had to become a performer.

If you are going to perform on stage in front of people you have to know, first and foremost, who you are.

Who is that person that is standing in the spotlight and singing and talking?

Who are you?

Once you get an inkling of that,

then you can express that person that you believe you are.

# And if you let her go

# You'll always know you blew it

# Go to it and do it

# Yeah, do it, yeah... #

It can be terribly endearing.

I have seen Neil at times when he was warm and sensitive, and that part of him is really great.

But to show it to the public was never his great strength.

It took a couple of years of performing to find out who I was.

And I tried to be everybody!

I tried to be Elvis, I tried to be

whoever was happening out there and was doing that.

# You've got control

# You got to be You've got to be mine... #

Fortunately, I am not a very good mimic.

And I realised I couldn't copy any of these people, because I was terrible at it.

I had to be who I was.

And I had no idea who I was, but whoever that was, that's what I had to be!

# Here we come Walkin' down the street... #

As Diamond struggled to become a performer, American TV's

own response to The Beatles was a manufactured boy band, The Monkees.

Don Kirschner, their producer, was looking for material, and Diamond had just the thing.

He loved Cherry, Cherry, and he asked,

"What else has Neil Diamond got that maybe The Monkees can record?"

We were about to come out with an album,

and so Jeff, very wisely, played the album

and Don picked out two or three songs.

# I thought love was only true in fairytales... #

That one was a little light for him.

I don't know if he was looking forward to recording it at that time.

But I thought it was a hit song in general.

We, as the four Monkees of the show,

we had little or no control over what was going to be recorded,

how it was going to be recorded, what would be released and when.

Absolutely no control at all.

I was coming to Los Angeles to meet with them.

At that meeting was when Mike Nesbitt said, "That ain't no hit!"

We'll see!

It wasn't his kind of music.

It did not even register with him at all.

It was something he couldn't get his head around.

# I thought love was only true in fairytales... #

Quite simply, it is because he wanted his songs to be recorded and sung.

And for whatever reason, the powers that were at the time did not feel

that was going to be commercial to the... Which was our fan-base...

Essentially 10 and 12-year-old little girls. They wanted pop songs.

# Then I saw her face Now I'm a believer... #

The thing I remember about I'm A Believer was that I left the studio humming the song.

# I'm in love

# I'm a believer

# I couldn't leave her if I tried... #

# I thought love was more or less a given thing... #

I am looking for money now!

# Seemed the more I gave... # Have you got anything, a little change?

I loved the Monkees' version.

Not so much for artistic reasons,

but because, in a period of three weeks, it went to number one.

Come on sing with me. # Then I saw her face

# Now I'm a believer... #

You have a number one record, there is nothing like that.

It is not like a Top Five, or a Top 10.

It's your number one!

I was flying.

While I'm A Believer went to number one and sold millions,

Diamond's own solo release - I've Got The Feelin', Oh, No, No, No - was going nowhere fast.

# I'm hearin' goodbye

# Don't have to say it It's there in your eyes

# Oh, why, oh, why

# Oh, no, no, no... #

It barely made the Top 20, and it was almost enough to put me out of the business.

Because you had to have a continual string of hits.

If you missed one,

the magic touch was gone.

You were mortal. And it kept my reputation for infallibility going through that period.

And it saved me as an artist.

Diamond didn't want to rely on The Monkees for his success and was

desperate to craft his own identity as a songwriter and performer.

He now knew enough to want to control his own music,

but Burt Burns and Bang Records had different ideas.

Really, they wanted me to keep writing and rewriting Cherry, Cherry...

because they had had such a success with it.

And I wasn't able to, I didn't know how to begin to rewrite Cherry, Cherry.

I needed to write something else. I was...

a songwriter, and it was my job to imagine some other wonderful song.

# Young child with dreams

# Dream every dream on your own... #

Burns and Diamond began to argue about single releases.

Diamond wanted the more introspective Shilo,

Burns wanted the uplifting Kentucky Woman.

Diamond was arguing for his soul and identity as an artist.

# God knows she loves me

# Kentucky woman... #

We began to have what is called creative differences, and they literally were creative differences.

I don't remember creative differences, really.

I think it was...

an opportunity to move to a bigger label.

The record deal was interesting...

It was very scary.

Neil had been working with Burt Burns, and Neil came to me and said to me,

"I want to break away from this manager, break away from Bang."

We went uptown to Bang Records.

Burt says, "Listen,

"my business is owned by some people, you're not leaving."

And he started to scream and yell and get scary and threatening - both of us.

As we were talking to him, we saw three men sitting on the couch,

who I didn't know.

But they all were fedora types, like this,

and we get in the car, and the two of us were a little shaky.

Then I picked up that day Life Magazine,

and there's a picture of one of the guys who were sitting there, as the head Mafia guy in New York.

And Neil and I looked at that...

Neil started carrying a gun at that time.

We went head-to-head at Bang, and I realised that I was

not going to get my chance to develop as an artist,

and so I left them.

I don't know what Neil tells you about that time,

but I know he was very frightened.

I ran, but nothing was going to stop me

from achieving what I wanted to achieve.

The unbelievable part that happened

was within a few days, Burt Burns died.

With Burns' sudden death from heart failure, Diamond took personal control of his music and career.

Also parting ways with the production team of Barry in Greenwich.

Never worked with him again.

Never worked with Neil after he left Bang Records.

Neil was Neil.

Control!

I knew how to handle it and that's the best I can say.

Diamond decided to head to California, which was

fast becoming the new centre for folk-rock and singer-songwriters.

His marriage to his teen sweetheart Jaye was also heading for divorce. They were separating.

And he made the difficult decision to pursue his career

in California, away from her and their two children.

He began a relationship with his soon-to-be second wife,

television production associate Marcia Murphy.

A relationship that would last 25 years and produce two sons.

California offered a better place in my mind to continue my life.

They did have palm trees, they did have lemon trees, fruit trees,

the sun always shone in California.

Diamond was looking for a fresh start, and a new phase in his career, with himself in control.

In 1968, he struck a deal with Uni Records, based in Hollywood.

Never had a doubt.

I believed in Neil Diamond, I really did.

We made an incredible deal for him, because Neil had never had an album hit.

At that time, he had had maybe three singles that were hits.

We did a 15-album deal for five years - three albums a year -

which was unheard of, but that's what he wanted.

I wanted more, I wanted to grow as an artist, and I had the chance

here in California, so it was a very exciting time for me.

The one thing I learned from Berry Gordy is,

sign commercial artists, not esoteric artists.

The word is "commercial".

And Neil was a commercial artist.

The other great thing I have learned about artists is, sign artists that appeal to women!

And he appealed to women.

It's not hard to figure out!

Uni Records gave Diamond the freedom to record the less popular,

more introspective songs that Neil was now writing.

Like Brooklyn Roads.

It started a process of redefining him, in the style of Solitary Man, to a new audience.

# Brooklyn roads

# I can still recall

# It smells of cooking in the hallways

# Rubbers drying in the doorways

# Report cards I was always afraid to show... #

His first album, called Velvet Gloves and Spit,

with Brooklyn Roads in it, did not do well. Everybody thought,

"He has really screwed up here.

"It's not going to make it." I was getting letters,

from someone in the Monkees, I won't mention his name, but writing,

"You made the biggest mistake of your record career!"

In signing Neil Diamond.

Once again Neil Diamond rose to the challenge under pressure

and came up with a song that would become his signature tune.

I was in Memphis, preparing myself for recording the next day.

And I sat down out of necessity and began to write a simple song,

and it was to become the biggest record and song of my career.

# Where it began

# I can't begin to know

# But then I know it's growing strong... #

It has lasted for 40 years.

It took me less than one hour to write, and it became Sweet Caroline,

and it was a life-changing little moment for me.

# Hands...touching hands

# Reaching out

# Touching me, touching you...

# Sweet Caroline

# Good times never seemed so good... #

SINATRA VERSION OF SWEET CAROLINE PLAYS # Hands...

# Touching hands...

# Reaching out...

# Touching you...

# Touching me... #

Sing it!

'Lots of people have recorded Sweet Caroline.

'My favourite version was done by Frank Sinatra.'

Talk to my wife, she won't believe you!

-Hi! What's her name?

-Paulette.

Hi, Paulette.

How you doing?

I am just listening to Frank Sinatra singing here. Nice to talk to you.

'When Sweet Caroline hit, it took him all the way up to the stratosphere,

'and then Cracklin' Rosie of course,

and he just never stopped.

Diamond was on a roll. The career-defining hits were coming thick and fast.

Cracklin' Rosie topped the US charts and he started touring Britain.

# Get on board

# We're gonna ride till there ain't no more to go

# Taking it slow

# And Lord, don't you know?

# We'll have me a time with a poor man's lady... #

The hits wowed the audience and Diamond began to enjoy the moment.

There is the romantic side

that women in particular love.

But even though he is a good-looking guy

and he always has been, I don't think he was selling sex.

I think he was selling sensitivity,

male sensitivity in some raw form that is not allowed any more.

# Where I am

# What I am

# What I believe in... #

He has just got it.

When he stands up there, and when he sings, people melt, and women melt especially.

# Holly holy dream

# Holly holy you... #

As hit followed hit, in his personal life he was coming to terms with separation from his children.

After a year, his divorce from Jaye was finalised and he was able to marry Marcia.

As far as his career was concerned he was walking on water.

But beneath the surface, he was feeling insecure and he distrusted his new-found success.

This inner turmoil led him to write what he still considers the song of which he is most proud.

I Am...I Said was written really in a moment of crisis.

I did a screen test when I first went with Uni Records, it was part of my agreement with them.

And I thought I did very poorly.

The audition was for the part of Lenny Bruce in a biographical film of the comedian.

When a guy is horny, man, he will shtup anything.

LAUGHTER Anything.

A fish, mud, a barrel, a banana, a rotten avocado.

It made me question what I was doing, and was I any good?

It made me question my whole life.

And during a lunch break of that screen test...

..I so got into myself that I sat down in my little camper

with a guitar and I started to write,

and it was the beginnings of I Am...I said.

And it all seemed to focus in on that song.

It took four months to write.

Every day.

For morning until night.

# I am, I cried... #

It was an extremely difficult rhyming pattern.

But it was one of the most satisfying songs that I have ever written because I was able to,

just bare my soul and I was better able to understand better who I was,

in the writing process of that song.

# Did you ever read about a frog who dreamed of being a king?

# And then became one

# Well except for the names and a few other changes

# Talk about me

# It's always the same one

# But I've got an emptiness deep inside now

# I've tried but it won't let me go

# And I'm not a man who likes to swear

# But I never can put aside the sound of being alone

# I am, I said

# To no-one there

# And no-one there on that beautiful chair... #

My feeling was that song-writing and performing did not come easy for Neil.

He would spend a lot of time working on songs.

He was quite nervous and shy about performing in public

but as the songs became hits

there was more clamour for him to come out on the road.

It was tough for him.

He was not totally comfortable in that situation.

Despite his continuing self-doubt, Diamond chose to stage a series

of concerts at the outdoor Greek theatre in LA in 1971.

Playing the Greek Theatre was a step in the right direction for me.

It is an extraordinarily beautiful theatre. It's kind of classy.

It had a theatricality to it that I liked a lot.

And we played six or seven shows there.

The reaction was absolutely wonderful.

The audiences were wonderful.

The reviews were wonderful.

There was something special happening at the Greek theatre. You could tell.

The success of these shows led him to repeat them in 1972

and captured a special atmosphere on a live album.

Right before Hot August Night, the first night performance,

there was some talk about Neil being sick and maybe having to cancel,

but I don't know. I looked down and said, "I think he's nervous, I think it's nerves."

It was too far gone to postpone, and he went out there and he knocked 'em dead.

It is one of the greatest albums ever made.

A lot of planning went into Hot August Night.

It builds with those strings and it finally reaches a crescendo and then the band comes in.

And they had these metal curtains that opened up

and there was a cloud of smoke, and Neil through the cloud of smoke.

The audience just exploded.

Thank you, people in the audience, tree people out there, God bless you, I'm singing for you, too.

It was the first time I saw him confident on stage.

That was chemistry. That was a moment when you say, that's it, right there.

I think Hot August Night was probably the big turning point.

That magnetism that people think of with Neil Diamond I think was born on that night.

Diamond had finally crystallised everything he'd learned as a performer and entertainer

and found his inner connection with the audience.

He made them feel loved, especially the women.

Hot August Night was a massively important record in his career.

It took him from being this very popular singer-songwriter

to being the Jewish Elvis.

I saw Neil as another Frank Sinatra.

Sinatra was a great entertainer.

Nobody would imagine that until you saw him on stage.

Hot August Night made him a superstar.

His contract with Uni was up and he signed with Columbia Records, with whom he's remained ever since.

Almost immediately Diamond announced a sabbatical from touring.

He'd been working continuously for over six years,

and needed time out for himself, for his new family and for his daughters in New York.

It was going out with a bang.

I felt that I could take some time away, and even if it was a year or two, or more,

I would always have the chance to come back and play the Greek Theatre, at least one more time,

and I always had that in the back of my mind, so I was very secure in stepping away from the stage,

and leaving the Hot August Night album to do my talking for me.

I would imagine there were a few heart attacks in the boardroom at Columbia Records.

It frustrated a lot of people.

He was now a big star. They wanted him to appear in all these places.

I never was seen in public.

I did no television.

No performances.

But I didn't miss it at all.

I went through therapy.

Which I considered to be a luxury for myself, another way of understanding myself,

and becoming a better person.

I got to spend time with my kids.

I made friends.

So many good things happened.

But even as Diamond began a process of self-discovery, he still continued to write.

As he brooded, like he can brood, I think, about all sorts of film projects over the years,

and yet he picks a couple of the craziest things you could ever pick.

First I'll become a seagull and do Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Which, again, an insane idea.

I know that Neil was very drawn to the self-help idea and the spiritual idea,

and he did a lot of reading around the time of that.

The film did not do very well commercially, but people liked the music and the songs.

A couple of years later, I met a fellow who I liked very much

and we were on the same wavelength, his name was Robbie Robertson.

Diamond had become a show man, but wasn't exactly rock'n'roll,

while Robertson was the chief writer and guitarist for the group, The Band.

They often played with Dylan and their albums had made them the doyennes of the rock press.

This was Broadway meets Woodstock.

Robbie and I became friends and I asked if he would be interested in producing my next record.

When there was talk of me possibly working with him,

a lot of people said, "Well, what's up with that?

"That's not right, that's not going to work."

It was this snarky, like, "What would Robbie Robertson have to do with Neil Diamond?"

We started talking about, should we do something together, could we do something together?

I knew that he was in the mood to do something really good and really special,

but so much of it depended on his song writing.

After bringing up the subject, I went off to see my kids in New York

and came back with a song inspired by the Puerto Rican Day parade

right in front of our window in the hotel.

My daughter Marjorie, she was drawing in her colouring book and she perked her head up and she said,

"Daddy, what a beautiful noise!"

And I'd never heard that expression before and I immediately knew that it was a song.

And I told her it was going to be a song, and that we would write it, and we did.

This is the key of D and the singers are...

The lead singer is Daddy Diamond,

and the two backgrounds singers, the groupies, are Marjorie and Ellie Diamond.

And moral support is Rosie and Pepe.

-And Neil Diamond!

-OK, here we go.

# What a beautiful noise

# Coming up from the street

# It's the sound of the cars

# Makin' a beautiful beat

# What a beautiful noise

# It's the sound that I love

# And it fits me real good

# Like a hand in a glove

# In a glove

# In a glove

# What a beautiful noise

# Coming into my room

# And it's begging for me

# Just to give it a tune. #

Beautiful Noise rekindled Diamond's desire to go out there and perform.

The magic he'd created at the Greek Theatre hadn't left him.

As it neared completion, I realised that I wanted to get back and perform again,

and to be what I had been for those first six years, and to experience that again.

And so we started again.

We booked Australia and played there for the first time,

only because I knew that Hot August Night had been so successful in Australia.

# Whoa

# Just me and you, babe

# You and me, you and me, you and me, babe... #

Diamond's performances no longer suffered from any shadow of self-consciousness.

They were carefully orchestrated events,

full of peaks of emotion that reached out to caress his adoring audience.

Neil is a very honest performer, there's nothing phoney about him out there.

What you see, you get with Neil.

It's just real, and it's honest.

He gives it all he's got. He sings from his heart.

He gives you everything he's got.

I love that about him.

# You are the sun, I am the moon

# You are the words, I am the tune. #

It isn't like he just goes and does his thing, and maybe you'll like it, maybe you don't.

He's really generous.

He puts the songs across and pulls everybody into it in a very special way.

# Hallelujah

# Hallelujah

# Halle, hallelujah... #

He's established this very intimate, very direct emotional connection with his fans.

There are no fans that are more dedicated than his fans.

# And I've sung my song before

# And I'm sure to sing... #

He has that rich, deep, dark, chocolatey voice, that is very sensual.

And I think he knows it.

And I think he works it!

# For I've been released... #

It's a good feeling, especially when they are leaning in your direction and pulling for you.

I would not like to face a hostile audience!

Now Diamond could sell out the biggest arenas in the world,

but he wanted to reach an even broader audience.

Hollywood beckoned.

Film producer Jerry Leider

was about to remake Al Jolson's 1920s hit, The Jazz Singer.

It was the rewritten as the story of a singer born of pious Jewish immigrants

who breaks away from his family to make a career in America.

Diamond starred alongside Laurence Olivier and composed the soundtrack.

Something about it sounded right.

First of all, it was about a singer.

Well, I haven't done and movie before, but I know something about singing.

# Gave me your heart

# You gave me your soul

# Then you left me alone here

# With nothing to hold... #

I began writing songs to the story,

and the ride began.

And it was a ride I'll never forget

because it was the scariest thing I've ever done,

because don't forget the entire success or failure of the project rested on my shoulders.

There was a lot of apprehension about building a film around a guy who has never acted.

Everybody was scared to death about it.

They asked me a hundred times, "Do you think he can act?"

I said, "I don't know! How would I know? He hasn't done it!"

Why are you doing this? Your only son, Bob!

There were 69 days of shooting.

I worked every one of those days but one.

Because I was the star of the show.

I didn't ever want to do it again.

It was too hard.

Still, the most memorable songs for me from that film were... Certainly America.

It tells somewhat the story of my grandparents, coming to a country

to find freedom of expression and thought, and protection by the law,

and my family blossomed under that system.

# Free

# Only want to be free!

# We huddle close

# Hang on to a dream... #

The film was a disappointment at the box office, but Diamond's soundtrack was a smash.

# They're coming to America... #

The '80s had arrived with a vengeance,

and even older artists like Diamond had to decide how to face the new media.

The video age had arrived.

MTV music television, we are here all day and all night.

I resisted it.

I didn't want to make videos.

I felt that the song was either wonderful or not,

and let the chips fall where they may.

So I made very few videos.

And I had very few hits!

Diamond was writing less and less, and putting much of his energy into his huge tours.

# I'm gonna lean on you

We're heading for the future and the future... #

You know, touring takes up a lot of time.

Especially if you're a guy that calls all the shots.

He doesn't just walk on stage.

He knows where the lights are, where the cameras are, and that takes a lot of rehearsal and a lot of time.

He's very professional about it, and he knows what's good for Neil Diamond up there.

The shows got glitzier.

The shirts got louder.

There were more covers albums and fewer and fewer new songs.

Diamond seemed to have less and less to say, and the hits were drying up.

On one of my relatively early days at Rolling Stone, I was sitting in the office and Jann Wenner,

the legendary publisher-founder, walked down the hall and said,

"Who likes Neil Diamond? Anyone like Neil Diamond?"

And I was the only guy, frankly, who raised his hand.

# You don't bring me flowers any more... #

As far as critics are concerned, and judging the value of your work,

there's not a lot that you have to say about it.

They will reach their own conclusions, as will your audience.

So I've found that the best I can do

is to do the best work that I possibly can do, and just put it out there,

and hope that it reaches somebody, that it touches somebody in some way.

However, Diamond managed to turn his career around when he found a new producer.

Rick Rubin made his name working with rap bands like Run DMC, and was now working with Johnny Cash.

# Everyone I know

# Goes away in the end... #

He suggested to Diamond they collaborate,

offering him the chance to reconnect with his music and his muse.

I realised it was an opportunity for me to be heard again, as a serious artist and writer.

I had a bed put in the studio,

and I came to the studio every day, 5.30am,

and began the process of writing.

And then we went in and recorded 25 or 30 songs.

So the experience of working with Rick was very positive and very satisfying.

Diamond recorded two albums of original songs with Rubin - 12 Songs, and then Home Before Dark.

They took Diamond back to number one on both sides of the Atlantic.

Diamond was looking deep into himself again.

The Solitary Man was reborn.

# Pretty amazing grace is what you showed me

# Pretty amazing grace is who you are

# I was an empty vessel

# You filled me up inside

# And with amazing grace restored my pride... #

I think he's gotten back to the essence of who he is,

which is a guy with a guitar trying to tell you his story,

and doing it with this great voice and with a great writer's eye.

# Love in the midst of chaos

# Calm in the heat of war

# Showed with amazing grace

# What love was for. #

Yet another new audience awaited Diamond.

In 2008, he was invited to perform on a farm in Somerset.

CHEERING

Well, of course I'd heard of Glastonbury.

But it didn't seem to be the kind of venue that I would really want to play.

But I'd never played any festival like that before, so I said, let's try it.

We did try it, and it turned out to be

one of the most memorable performing experiences I've ever had.

Let's do it, guys!

In fact, I had the best seat in the house.

I was up there, facing hundreds of thousands of people.

And hundreds of thousands of smiling faces.

And I just lit up.

# Hands

# Touching hands

# Reaching out

# Touching me

# Touching you

# Sweet Caroline

# Good times never seemed so good... #

It's one of those experiences that you don't ever forget.

# To believe they never would

# But now I'm... #

What the future holds, I don't know, but I'm excited about it.

And hopefully, it will include more music.

More music that's satisfying to the listener, and to me.

And that will be remembered after I'm gone.

# I thought love was only true in fairytales

# Meant for someone else but not for me

# Love was out to get me

# That's the way it seemed

# Disappointment haunted all of my dreams... #