Neil Sedaka: What a legacy he left behind

One was of Patrick Stewart, you know, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of “Star Trek” and Xavier of “X-Men,” reciting one Shakespeare sonnet a day. I can now say I have read all of them. Another one was Ryan Cayabyab’s in a sort of mini “Musikahan,” where he would sing and play the piano and tell stories about the songs. The third one was similar to Mr. C’s, and it featured Neil Sedaka solo.

Born in New York on March 13, 1939, Sedaka was this popular singer and songwriter from the late ‘50s and onto the ‘60s eras, during which he made one hit after another. He had a bit of a downfall during the British Invasion, fueled by the Beatles. But he later bounced back and his career continued up to his 80s, during which he kept working and had his songs covered by many new artists.

Proof of this is how he used social media to interact with his fans during that difficult time. So every day, there was Sedaka on the screen, fingers on a piano, wearing a sunshiny smile and ready to sing two or three of his songs. His love for performing was so palpable and infectious that he had the viewer glued to him during those few minutes.

Sedaka usually talked about his day and about the weather where he was, New York or Los Angeles. He showed off his pet parrot. He entertained requests from viewers. He told stories about himself. Did you know that he was only 13 years old when he started writing songs? Sedaka was training to be a classical pianist at the Juilliard School of Music when he met 16-year-old lyricist Howard Greenfield, and they went into songwriting. The partnership lasted more than 30 years.

Sedaka recounted how his songs came to be written. Like his first big hit, The Diary. Did you know that it was Connie Francis who inspired him to compose the song because she had a diary that she kept secret?

He gave Connie the big-selling Stupid Cupid. A few years later, she would use her clout as a big star to demand that Sedaka and Greenfield write the theme for a movie she would star in. The result was Where the Boys Are, which became her signature song.

Did you know that before Taylor Swift, Sedaka was the first artist to rerecord a song and to make it a hit both times? That was the bouncy teen ditty Breaking Up is Hard to Do in 1962.

Remember “Dooby dooby doo, down, down?” When his recording contract kept him from getting back his masters from his former label RCA, he rerecorded the song in 1975. No more “Dooby dooby doo, down, down.” Sedaka had turned it into a jazzy ballad that became an even bigger hit.

Oh, and Sedaka sang his songs, the hits and the not hits. And what songs they were. I enjoyed stripped-down versions of my favorites like the sweet Rosemary Blue, the heartbreaking The Hungry Years, which was done by Frank Sinatra and the beautifully sad Solitaire, a masterpiece that was a hit for Andy Williams and The Carpenters and others down to becoming Clay Aiken’s winning piece in “American Idol” in 2003.

And there were many others. Remember Sedaka composed hundreds of songs. Oh Carol, Calendar Girl, Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, One Way Ticket to the Blues, Stairway to Heaven, You Mean Everything to Me, Alone at Last, Amarillo, Laughter in the Rain, Bad Blood and more.

Neil Sedaka passed away last Feb. 27 at the age of 86. So sad for the loss, but what a legacy he left behind.

— Baby A. Gil