Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Seats podcast.
My guest today is the one and only nil Sid Doctor.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
In February of sixty five, I saw you with the
Concord Hotel.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh my goodness, gracious.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I would not expect you to remember that specific show,
but can you tell me about you and your relationship
with the catskills in the Worshpell.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
My wife's mother had a hotel a Kachlaine in the
Monticello area. It was called esther Manor, and the big
place to play was the Concord Hotel. And the audience
was the worst, the worst audience. Who could imagine. They
(00:58):
were sitting on their hands, and they wanted to know
when the next meal was being served, and they used
to applaud by doing this. They were too tired to
clap their hands from the food.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I remember at the Concord they used to give you
these little bangers, like you know, chopsticks with a ball
at the end to hit on the table to clap.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
That is right. They were too tired from all the
meals that were served, so they tapped the table with
this little wooden thing.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
So you were a New Yorker. You grew up as
a Jewish New Yorker. Did you spend time in the
Catskills growing up?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I had a band at nineteen. We were called the
Norton Ells. We were three pieces. I played the piano,
Norman played the trube, and David played the bass. And
we played for the Chatshaw Lessons, the Mumbo Lessons. We
played for the show. If Heinsheins and Dead would come in,
(02:02):
they would put a manuscript in front of me and
I would have to do their show by reading right
off the manuscript.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
You know these challenging times. Have you experienced any anti
Semitism in your career.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
In the musical field? Never?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
Never, Well, how about the non musical field?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Uh hahuh. Well they thought perhaps I was Italian or
Polish or Turkish. I am Turkish now, but I never
really got a face to face with it.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Okay, so you're eighty five years old, to what the gue?
Are you still active today?
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I play the piano. I'm on serious radio with the
program I played by Classical. I started as a concert
pianist at the Juilliard and I love to play Chopin
and Beethoven and I watched old movies on TCM, of course,
and then I will go to lunch and dinner every day,
(03:12):
out lunch and dinner out every day, and I will
I will write some songs. I've written two songs after
five years of not writing, and they're pretty good.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Okay, what was the process? Five years go by? Will
you just inspired? How do you do it?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I sat at the piano with a melody first, and
then my help, Kyle Sitter, had never written a song before,
and he's young, so I wanted some young words and
some young phrases, and he was an excellent lyricist. So
(03:53):
I am going to put it on social media and say, hello, folks,
I haven't written in five years, and I hope you
like it. And I like it.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Okay, the melody? Do you play the piano every day?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I do?
Speaker 1 (04:08):
And you just mess around? Or you play classical stuff?
What do you do?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I play classical stuff mainly.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
And you say you had a melody. Where did the
melody come from?
Speaker 2 (04:19):
The melody comes from my head and from my fingers,
and oh I also do the Alexa. I ask Alexa
to give me some old Nil Sadaka records, and I'm
shocked I said, who the hell wrote that? It was me?
I it's almost like another person. It's weird.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So where do you live now?
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I live in Los Angeles here and West Hollywood.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
And where do you go to luncheon? Who do you
in dinner? And who do you go to lunch and
dinner with?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
With friends? With Barry Manilow in Pump Springs and uh,
I go to Craigs, and I go to Jane Tannah's
and I go to Mels for lunch for my poached
eggs in avocado, and I keep pretty busy.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And do people recognize you?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yes? They do. I had the other day in Mells
a whole bunch of English people on a tour of
Los Angeles, and the tour guide said, would you like
to meet Neil Sadaka? And said, oh, yes, we'd look
to And there lined up about twenty of them and
(05:39):
I took a picture with them. It was it was
very exciting for me and for them. Wow. I played
all over the world, so I am known in every
practically every country in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Just to be clear, you originally in New york Er.
How long have you lived in.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
LA I at both places? I still do. I have
in New York Manhattan and here. So I was going
back and forth.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
And is that based on the weather or anything specific?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I was getting older, Yes, the weather, and yes I
have friends here, not in show business, but they're very
good friends.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I mean, you obviously are one hundred percent. You know,
some people are at eighty five or dead. Some people
are losing their marbles. You a bat one hundred on
both of those. You're still kicking to have early marbles.
But what's it like when some of your friends start to.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Pass I have great memories of them. I think of
the wonderful times we spent together, and I hope that
they're at a good place and out of their action paions.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
But how do you cope emotionally with their passing?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Well, I it's inevitable. Everybody passes one day, so you
come to terms with it.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Any advice for those of us who are experiencing that
for the first time.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I think you have to go back. There are two deals,
the young Neil and the old Neal, and you have
to accept the old deal and embrace the old Neal.
For I'm very thankful I can walk, I can talk legibly,
(07:39):
and I can keep active.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Okay, So since you're bicoastal. What's the difference between LA
and New York for you?
Speaker 2 (07:51):
The weather, the pace is much slower and calmer in Lah.
The people are cooler, more relaxed. In New York. It's
a crazy scene, never sleeps. I didn't write that, okay.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
So you talked earlier about writing a new song, your
helper helping you with the lyrics. So all these years
you've never wrote any lyrics.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I wrote hundreds of songs by myself, and I felt
that as good as how a Greenfields was Marvelist, as
good as Still Cody was, there is something when you
write the music and words yourself, and you can it
gets from your gajaum, from the stomach, and it comes
(08:45):
up as a real Neil song from my experiences, from
my travels, from my whatever.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
But most of your hits were co writes, right.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
The big hit were the album tracks, which I strived
to make as good as the hits were put in albums.
At that time, I was a singles artist, so there
were some great songs that were buried in albums. I
called them the forgotten children or the neglected children. I'm
(09:20):
very proud of them.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
You know, some people just making their music. Other people
are students of the game, the charts, the business. Where
do you lie on that continuum.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
I look at publicity, I look at the charts, and
many times I'm inspired by a voice on the radio
love will keep Us Together. In fact, I was inspired
by three people, Al Green, Diana Ross, and the Beach Boys.
Let me explain. I felt that I could write a
(09:53):
song for these people and tailor made for their voice.
And I was able to take the voice of Diana
Ross and make it my own and a song, and
the Beach Boys beat and Al Green's augmented chors. I
put them all together like a designer.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Okay, but many people write music and they feel like
they're channeling God. If you are writing with those influences,
are they just embedded in you or are you literally
sitting at the piano saying, mmm, I got this thought,
I got this influence, I want this harmony. Like you know,
(10:37):
the Beach Boys.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
How do you do it well? I've listened to all
of them very intently, and yes, I have the experience
of channeling as a antenna. For a couple of the
songs I really felt came from something spiritual and passed
through my figures and voice. But that doesn't have and
(11:00):
very often you have to say, I'm chosen for this,
and I have to sit very still, and it writes itself.
As far as Diana ross Al Green the Beach Boys,
I literally take the beat from the Beach Boys, one
of their good records, and I take her voice and
(11:21):
make it into a new song for her. She's a
big star. She sold a lot, so I want to
see what made her tick.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Okay, today you are on serious radio, but are you
listening to new music?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
I listen to rap. I listen to mostly classical. I
started as a concert pianist at the juliad So, but
I listened to Elia Fitzgerald the greatest. I listened to
Frank Sinatra, and I certainly listened to Frank Sinatra singing
my song the Hungry Years. Well, I got a shout out.
(12:04):
And it's a thrill to get a Sinatra record. It's
a great thrill. Elvis record Solitaire, it's a great thrill.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So you grew
up exactly.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Where Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Now it's the little Odessa by
the sea. Now it's the old Russian people from Odessa.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Okay, could you feel that was that palpable growing up there?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
It was a totally Jewish neighborhood. I thought the whole
world was Jewish. And it was very very friendly. You
never locked your doors. There was no terrorists, there was
no burglaries. People would come in for coffee and take
oh I'm dropping in, oh place it down. It was
(12:56):
completely different, very very naive and Caffrey.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
What did your parents do for work?
Speaker 2 (13:04):
My father was a taxi driver, Maxi the taxi. My
mother was a housewife.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Your father drove a taxi usually that's very long hours.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
No, he worked for a company, so it was regular hours.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And there was enough money to pay the bills.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yes, we had an apartment for two bedroom apartment for
two hundred dollars a month, and we were eight people
in the apartments. My grandmother, my grandfather from Turkey, my
three aunts, my sister, my mother, and father. One by one,
my aunts got married and they left me, my sister,
(13:48):
my mother, and father, and my grandparents passed.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Where did everybody sleep.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
We had beds in the living room, one bathroom, mind you,
and we were happy. It was a very happy household.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Okay, So the other people in the neighborhood. Were their
circumstances the.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Same, Yes, they were. And every Jewish family had to
have a piano or a violin. And the Jewish people
liked the culture to raise their children with some culture.
So I had to learn a piano. No, I'll tell
(14:28):
you exactly. I had a neighbor in the building that
had an upright piano. I was eight years old, and
I walked in and I was completely drawn to the
smell of the ivory keys on her piano. And I
noticed with one finger that I could pick out a
(14:51):
tune that I had heard on the radio. And my
mother went to get a job. We had no piano,
and she got a job but a and S department store
as a saleslady, and she worked for six months and
got five hundred dollars and bought me an upright piano
(15:11):
because in the second grade a te shir missus Evelyn Glance,
saw me reacting to music when she conducted the choir,
and she said, Neil, get up and conduct, and I
got up, and she sent me home with a note,
you must get a piano for Neil.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Okay, let's separate some of the issues your parents born
in the Old Country New York City. Okay, So your
grandparents are from the.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Old country Istebul's Turkey.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Okay, and to what degree was the Turkish culture part
of your life growing up?
Speaker 2 (15:56):
They spoke Ladino Spanish, not the eshkna. So I learned
your putt la blabras en Espanol, story boy, contento, the chaos,
and I was able to remember muchs palabis many words today.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, you did some work in Yiddish? Did they speak
Yiddish growing up?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
My mother's side did the ants and knuckles? On the
Ashkenazi side spoke it. So I sang yiddishamama and bels
my state of labels, and then on the Turkish side,
I say ishadada.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Okay. So you're growing up on Brighton Beach, densely populated.
What kind of kid are you? You kind of kid
who's got a million friends or you bookish at home,
sports guy or not?
Speaker 2 (16:52):
What do you like? I was not a sports guy.
I played Patsi with the girls and I couldn't ruin
my hands. My mother kept saying, this is what you shows.
You cannot ruin your hands and go out and play.
(17:13):
But I was good at Chinese baseball, Chinese king ball.
You know you hit the crack of the wall and
the floor. Wait wait wait, not everybody knows. Bring it
back to life.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Tell us the rules.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Well, Chinese handball, you had a nice soft ball against
a wall and you had to play against one person
and if you got the bottom where the sidewalk met
(17:46):
the wall, that was a special special bonus.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Okay, your sister older younger.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Eighteen months older, my hero, you're here because she was
very smart academically. She was the prettiest in school. And
when I followed her, they used to say, are you
Ronnie Sadaka's brother? Oh boy, you have to really fill
(18:15):
her shoes. And then later on they used to say,
are you Neil Sadaka's sister, the singer?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
So what how did her life play out? What did
that look like?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
She was just full of life. I lost her at
fifty seven years old. Wow, pancreas. And she was my hero.
She used to fight my battles in school. They would
call me various names because I would be asked to
(18:52):
play the piano when the an auditorium. When the film broke,
O'Neil will now play some chopin? And I played and
they giggled in the audience.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Okay, when you were successful and you were making money,
did you feel responsibility to take care of your family
and relatives?
Speaker 2 (19:13):
I bought a home for my father and mother in
Fort Laddale, my sister and a cousin.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Okay, so before you don't start with a piano till
second grade? Are you a good student or mediocre student?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Seventy five eighty?
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Okay? So now your mother worked at Abraham and Strauss,
she gets the piano. How do you learn how to play?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I had a private teacher, Murray Newman, in Brighton Beach,
and I studied for one year and then after a
year he called my parents in and said, I can't
teach him anymore. Let him try out for the Julia's School,
the prep school, and I got a scholarship for the
prep school at Julliard one hundred and twenty second Street
(20:04):
and Clammont Avenue before it moved to Lincoln Center.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Okay, but before you go to Juilliard grew up in
a Jewish family like I do you? Did you know?
You start taking piano lessons, but the big issue is practicing.
So did you practice and did you play?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I practiced five hours a day. I loved it. It
may be special. I could then go into this classroom
and play the songs of the day, the Douap songs,
Earth Angel, all of those great songs, and I became popular.
(20:47):
I also wrote a song called mister Moon when I
was sixteen and played it the auditorium, and they all
screamed and shouted. Oh, he's wonderful, he's marvel. And it
may be important when you're important or important.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Okay, how old were you when you went to the
Juilliard School.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I was from nine till seventeen. Then I went to
the college level.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Okay, you're talking about full includes all classes in addition
to no.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
No, the prep school was only on saturdays, where I
studied with great teachers. The college was a full curriculum.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Okay, So let's go back. You're born, when you grow up,
World War two is happening. When you gain consciousness, it's
just over. Could you feel that at all? Could you
feel the war, the end of the war, etc. Or
you were young kids living your life.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I knew when Franklin J. Eleanor Roosevelt died, everyone in
the streets were crying. I saw the news. The newsreels
at the Oceania Theater in the Tuxedo Theater. I saw
and was aware because two uncles of mine were in
the service, so I felt it. Yes, I was afraid
(22:15):
of Hitler. My sister said Hitler's waiting in the bathroom,
and I was about six years old. I said what
what what? And she scared the hell out of me.
And miss Alita was a meetie and the Jacks and
the Japs were sapped.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
And to what degree was their talk of the Holocaust?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I wasn't aware of that at that age. It was
much later that I was aware of it.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Okay, So this is pre transistor radio. So are you
listening to the radio? Are you listening to the hits
of the day?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh? Yes, I am listening to your hit parade on
the rail video. I am listening to Rosemary Clooney, Jeannie
ray k, Star, elephus Gerald. Loved them, loved them.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Okay. So if I talked to you when you were
in high school and I say what was your dream?
What would you have said then?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
When I was in high school, Yeah, what was my dream?
To be a star? I wanted to be special. I
wanted to get away from the young Nerdi Nil Sadaka.
I wanted to create something that was important. I wanted
(23:45):
to be Jesus Christ. There was a sign on the
subway that said Jesus saves and I said, wouldn't that
be marvelous to have people worship me? Is that crazy
or what?
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Not at all? And I thank you for being honest.
To be that successful, you have to feel that way. However,
many people who achieved great success, which you did very
soon they have that success and they think it will
solve all their problems and then they find out it doesn't.
(24:20):
A lot of those people can never write another hit song.
So you wanted to be a star, you wanted to
be famous, you wanted to be respected. That actually happened.
Was that fulfilling?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Absolutely? I used to take a forty five rpm scratch
out the name of the artist, and with my pen
I'd put Nil sajakat to see how it looked. It
was very, very flattering and very wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Okay, you go to one hundred and twenty second Street
prior to going to Juilliard. To what degree did your
family go into Manhattan?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Oh? My father was very cheap, sweet guy. But I
used to say, oh, Dad, could we go in to
Manhattan to the Brass Rail restaurant that was the fancy
one at the day, you remember, And he said, oh, no,
lo tango, Neil, I don't I'm short with money. Nolo tango.
(25:18):
And once in a while I convinced him when we
went to the Brass Rail. It was a great treat
to go to Manhattan. Oh, a radio City musical, the
Christmas Show, the Roquettes. It was great.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So you weren't going to the musicals or anything.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Not that, not at my age at that time.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Okay, so now you're a big guy in a small
world and you go to Juilliard on the weekend. What's
that like? And you see everybody else who's good?
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Uh? I was topped by medi great pianists. I studied
with adel Marcus, Rosina, Levine, Edgar Robert's great people, and
there were students that were better than me in classical. However,
I had one upsmanshift. I could write songs that I
(26:12):
could sing, and that set me apart. And they said
to me, what is an Elvis Presley? I said, what
we hear about Elvis Presley? These people did nothing but
play Beethoven and Mozart. What is an Elvis Presley, I said,
he says a rock and roll singer? What is rock
and roll? They were completely sheltered.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Okay, if you're born in nineteen thirty nine, The first
rock and roll record is debated. Some people would say
it's Rocket eighty eight by Eke Turner. Other people say
Rock around the Clock. What was it like your experience
when rock hit the radio?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
It was a two up song at Andreas Pieter Pauler
on Brighton Beach Avenue and I went in with my
girlfriend Carol Klein, who became Carol King, and we danced
to Earth Angel by the Penguins. That was the first.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Okay, well wait, let's go sideways for a second. How
did you meet Carol kleinb.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
She was in a neighboring school and we hung out
with musical people, musical teenagers, and she had a group
called the Coast Signs. I had a du up group
called the Tokens, who went on to do the line
Sleeps to Night. I left as a soloist. But we
would go to different places and we found a piano
(27:39):
and we would singing together and she would show me
her writing. I would show her my writing and she
was a genius. She was an absolute genius.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Now this was a romance or just friendship.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
A little bit of each, a little bit of both.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay, so you hear earth Angel, tell me more about
discovering rock and roll.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
And then I went to Howie Greenfield. At the time,
we were writing in the style of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin,
Cole Porter. And when I heard earth Angel, I said, Howie,
I would like to write a rock and roll song.
He said, oh that crap. Oh no, you got to
be kidding. Neil and I convinced him to write rock
(28:29):
and roll and our first song was called The Diary
nineteen fifty seven fifty eight, and I walked into a
publish Howie and I walked into a publishing firm at
the Brill Building. As a matter of fact, we were
(28:49):
the first team to go to the Brill Building. I
then brought Carol King and Jerry Goffin and Barryman and
Cynthia While great writers. And it was Al Evans and
John Kershner who started Oldsen Music. And I met crossing
the street my two friends from school, More Trumann, great
(29:12):
writer and his co writer. I'll think of it, and
they said there's a new publishing firm, Oldsen Music across
the street who caters to young writers. And we went
in and I played four or five new songs, including
Stupid Cupid, and they said, where did you steal these songs? Said, no,
(29:34):
we wrote these songs. And they said, oh, we know
Connie Francis. We're just signed a contract. And I was
nineteen under age and I had to bring my mother
in to sign a publishing contract to sign for me.
And they brought me to Connie Francis's home after I signed,
(29:54):
and Connie Francis was the biggest singer in a female
singer at the time. She's sang who Sorry now? And Uh,
I played all of my songs. She said, no, I
don't like it. I don't like it. And then I
whispered to Howie, I'm going to play stupid Cupid. He said,
you can't play that. You promised it to the Shepherd's sisters.
(30:18):
He said, you're right, but I don't get a damn.
I'm playing it for the top female vocals of the country.
I'm going to do it. Stupid Cupid. You're a realing guy.
I like to criop your wing, so you can't fly.
She said, stop, that's my next record, and it was
a hit.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Okay, wait, wait, let's go back to few chapters. How
did you meet Howie Greenfield?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I was thirteen and he was sixteen. We lived in
the same ability in Brighton Beach and his mother had
heard me playing classical music and she suggested that he
knocked at my door and asked me if I wanted
to write songs. October the eleventh, nineteen fifty two, he
(31:13):
came to my door and said, would you like to
write songs? I said, I don't have the foggiest idea
how to do that. I'm sorry, Howie, but I'm going
to be a constant pianist. And he said, try it,
try it. And he had a wire recorder before tape,
and we wrote a terrible song called My Life's Devotion.
(31:37):
It was like a ruptured rumba from an Exabia Cougot
movie I had heard. And after we finish, we were
obsessed with rhymes. My life is madness, it's sadness, it burns,
but desire yearning's just burning. My soul is on fire.
Terrible song and I recorded it after we finished on
(31:58):
his wire and I listened to my voice. I said,
holy shit, this is a good voice. I had never
sung before, never before.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Okay, did you just work with Howie or were you friends?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
We were very good friends, very good friends.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Okay, we hear you know Elton John, He and Bernie
write in two rooms. Bernie gives the lyric and then
Elton does the music. How did you write with Howie?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
He was across the hall, same building. I would come
with a tune to his apartment and with a title
or an idea, and then he would help me with
the lyrics, and finally I gave him the full treatment. Howie,
(32:49):
you're such a great writer. You do the lyrics and
there we are.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Okay, if you met in fifty two, at what point
did you make that deal with ault Don fifty.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Six seven fifty eight?
Speaker 1 (33:05):
So what happened in that five seven year period?
Speaker 2 (33:08):
We were writing for Atlantic Records, Jerry Wexler, armed Ertigan,
I wrote for Laverne Baker, a lot of black artists,
Clyde McPhatter, the Clovers, the Cardinals, and I wrote for
Bobby Darren And it was just, you know, we pedal
(33:34):
songs to Atlantic Records.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Okay, so now you and how we are writing? Yeah,
how long after you meet on October eleventh, do you say,
let's go shop this.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
The first three songs were lousy. The fourth song got better,
the fifth song got even better, and we went and shopped.
We went to a very big publishing firm, I'll think
of them, and they had the oldser writers, you know,
the standard writers, and they passed on all of our songs.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Wait wait, wait, just wait wait wait. You're a little
pischer and you write a song. You're thirteen years old?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Hey, how do you find I was about fifteen then?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Okay, still young, you're fifteen years old? How do you
find the publisher? And you just go knock on the
door and what happens.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Howie was a gopher at a publishing firm, and he
had an inside scoop on the other publishing firms. The
young ones like olds and music, and so did bought Schumann,
who I went to school with. He dhu of olds
in music.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Okay, you talk about all these people, you know, Goffin
and King and whatever was it in the air and
all of you were trying to do it or were
you really the progenitor and you didn't know what you
were doing, but you were leading.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
We were the first team, and once it got competitive,
we would all try for the net Chiffon's record. Carol
and Jerry wrote He's So Fine. No, they wrote One
Fine Day, and I wrote with Howie it Hurts to
be sixteen, and Barrion Cynthia wrote something else, the best
(35:28):
song one out. We would then play it for Alan
Dahn on a big red piano in their office, and
the best song one out I lost to Carol King
One Fine Day, but it Hurts to Be sixteen was
recorded by Andrea Carroll and it was a hit. So
I got a little rubbed there.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
Okay, that era is notorious for bad deals. You signed
the deal with al Don for stupid Stupid. It said,
what kind of deal is it?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
They got one hundred thousand dollars. I got zilch, zilch.
I only got on fifty dollars a week as a
staff writer, and royalties if the song was sold, the
record was sold, I got every record that was sold,
the writing royalty.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Okay. Traditionally there's one hundred cents in the dollar in publishing.
Fifty cents goes to the writer. The other fifty cents
goes to the publisher. Once we hit the rock era,
the acts became their own publisher but in the fifties
the publishers tended to take all fifty percent in terms
of royalties as the writers. Did you and how we
(36:44):
get fifty percent?
Speaker 2 (36:47):
You know? I was not really up to the money.
I was about the creative side. My mother took over
the accounts, took over everything. And my mother had a lover.
She had a lover for many years. She came to
(37:08):
Ronnie and I and said, I have a lover. What
do you think I will leave him if I don't
have your blessing and Ronnie's blessing. I said, does Zad
know and she said, yes, he's accepted it. But I
want your acceptance. I said, Mom, if you're happy, great,
(37:31):
If Dad accepts it, great, I want you to be happy. Mom.
She took over the whole thing. She and the lover.
They stole everything from me. She said, beautiful jewelry and rings,
and it was my money that bought all of her
jewelry with her lover. But I loved my mother. She
was my Jewish mama.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Okay, just did you like the lover?
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Hated him. After four years, career went down the drain.
He was an air conditioning salesman. He knew nothing about
the business. And I got rid of him and he said,
I'm I called. I said, Ben, we had four years together.
Let's call it a day. And he said, I'm coming
to beat you up. He was one of these and
(38:19):
I said, I'll lock the door. He said, I'll call
the police, and after a while he simmered down and
that was the end.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Okay, so you sign a contract. You're working for fifty
dollars a week. We hear these stories about there being
multiple rooms, the teams were in there and they're banging
out forty hours a week. Was that what it was like?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Exactly? Exactly five days a week, nine to five. How
he was there with me, and if we didn't get
an idea that day, we got a piece of the song.
We put it on for the next day and eventually
it was And with success, you get more hits. If
(39:05):
you're successful, you want to keep number one. So I
had six top ten records from fifty eight to sixty
three and number one with breaking Up is Hard to do.
Happy birthday, Sweet sixteen, Little devil, Calendar girl. It was
a nice run from fifty nine to sixty three.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Wait wait, but before we get there, you make the deal.
You sell the song to Connie Francis. Yes, how long
are you writing songs with Howie before you say? Hey,
I should be an artist.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
I had the feeling all the time that I should
be an artist. I went to Atlantic and sold the songs,
but they didn't want my voice. They said, it's true androgynous,
it sounds like a girl, and we don't want to
sign you. Then I got to Olden. They knew RCA
Victor Records. The head of an R was Steve Scholes,
(40:05):
and they set up an audition for me to sing
as a singer songwriter to be signed to RCA. And
at that time I played the diary and Steve Schuls
said we'll take you, and they signed me to a
recording contract.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Singing, okay, let's go back. Years later, Don Kirshner worked
with the Monkeys. People knew that of their inside, but
by the time we hit the seventies, he's a well
known factor. Don Kirshner in the day good guy, bad guy.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Uh, I'll never forget this. He had a rock television
show and I had the number one record in the
country in seventy five. Laughter in the Rain with Elton's label.
Elton signed me to a label, his label, Rocket Records,
and I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Don Kershner.
(41:05):
I said, Donnie, I'd love to be on your show.
He said, well, if you bring Elson on, I'll put
you on Son of a Bitch. I'm sorry, So you're naive,
But then people become more sophisticated. What ended up happening
with those songs which are legendary songs, in the ownership
(41:27):
of those songs? Which songs are you referring.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
The early songs you wrote for Aldon?
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, they were perennials, they went on they have played today.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
No, no, no. What I'm trying to say is you signed
a contract. You were not aware. But as time goes on,
there's money and lack thereof.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Oh. I had a I hive accountants and lawyers absolutely
Freddie the lawyer, and the accountants, and they got right
on top of it.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Okay, and that's an early song. But did you get
the songs back under rights of reversion?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
I re recorded Happy Birthday steet sixteen calendar Girl, Break
it Up. It's hard to do almost exactly like the
original master And I was able to sell those. I
owned them, like Teyliswhip. I owned these. I was able
to sell it for commercials on television because these were mine.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
Now those are the recordings, though, but that's a different
right than the song.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
I got the publishing rights finally, how it ran out?
The contract ran out with Alan down, and I stupidly
I got the kind I got the publishing, and I
stupidly sold the publishing a year later for half a minute,
five and a half million dollars. Oh, I was so happy.
(42:53):
Little did I know that it would be millions in
the future. Schmuck that I am.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Just so No, was that it? Or did you ever
get the songs back again?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I never got the songs back again.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Okay, so you make a deal with RCA, you're farting around?
How long until you have a hit?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Was that? The first career of the second career?
Speaker 1 (43:20):
First career?
Speaker 2 (43:22):
The first record with RCA was a hit. The Diary
sold six hundred thousand records, went to number twenty two
in Billboard. That was the first one. Oh, but I
had two others, excuse me, I had. I befriended a
comedian named Lenny Maxwell who heard me playing at the
(43:43):
Lake Charlton Hotel in New Hampshire. I was with the
band and I was seventeen and he heard me playing
and he said, gee, with you have no record company, nothing,
no publisher. I said no. He said, I know Phil Ramone,
the great producer. Make a demo of your voice and piano.
(44:06):
I will take it to Decca. Put a piano, put
a bass, a guitar and a drum on it, and
lo and behold. He handed me a finished Jecca record.
Kneels to Jaka saying fly don't fly on me. A
great flop, and then So Time, a great flop. Those
two were flops before the Diary, before Rcier.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
So okay, she had this deal with Decca. Tell me
about O Carol.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
They were dropping me. Rcier was dropping me because I
had two flops in a row. After the Diary, I
go eight, which they hated and nobody hated. And then
they said we're giving you one more shot. I said, please,
I won one more shot, and my mother was ironing,
I'll never forget it. Nineteen fifty nine, super Zion, I
(45:01):
was at the piano in desperation. I said, let me
save my singing career with RCA. What can I write,
and I bought the number one records in every country
in the world. They had hits of the world in Billboard,
and they.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Look.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
I analyzed them. What's the drum beat in number one
in Hungary, what's the guitar lick in Venezuela, what's the
drum beat in caracas Uh? And I analyzed them and
put together, piecemeal a new song, drum beat, the electric
(45:47):
guitar riff, the drum fills, and I wrote, Oh Carol ps.
I sold four million records with Oka, We're a.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
Little bit slower. You write the music, How does how
we write the lyrics?
Speaker 2 (46:01):
He hated it. He hated it. I had to convince
him to write the lyric, and he didn't like Carol King.
He said, I'm not writing a song called Oh Carol.
That was my suggestion, and I convinced him to write it.
On the session, I had a recitation. In those days,
(46:24):
the middle of the record was, Oh Carol, I am
but a fool darning I love you, though you treat
me cruel, and how he ran into the bathroom. Not
only is my lyrics shit, but you had to recite
my lyrics in the middle of the record. I said,
how he trust me? And there it was.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Okay, you wrote this song in the brill building at
my home at home, that's my question, right, bit did
you know it was going to be a hit when
I heard the record back, I knew it.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
I knew it.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Okay, So you deliver it to RCA. What do they say?
Speaker 2 (47:06):
This is a smash. This is a smash and it
was number one in almost all over over the world.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Okay, So how did your life change? You have a
number one record?
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Oh my godness, ah, I think, as I said, with
success comes more success, and then I was able to
do the other do up songs of the day, all
of the early hits from nineteen fifty nine to sixty three.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Okay, at what point did you leave your house have
your own place to live.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I stayed with my family until I was married, and
I'm married sixty sixty three years to the same woman, Liba,
and my mother, who is a very Jewish mother, said,
I will get you an apartment, Neal. It's right across
the street so I can visit you and the coming grandchildren. Yes,
(48:16):
I was a mama's boy.
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Oh okay, Oh, Carrol's a number one hit. Are you
performing live?
Speaker 2 (48:23):
I started to perform live. Yes, I did in Syracuse,
the Rivers in in Syracuse, I did the in New Jersey,
this smart spot like five six, seven hundred people. I
didn't want to do rock and roll to his I
(48:44):
want to be like Honey Francis. She did adult copa cavanas.
Finally I went into the copa cavana in New York.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
To what degree did you go on the road or
was it all pretty much in the New York area.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
I went on the road, but only the cabarets, only
the adult cabarets with a big band, And I had
an act at the time where I sang my funny
Valentine and the standards of the day smile though your
heart is breaking. With a big band. It flopped because
(49:21):
I should have been doing my own songs. But I
wanted to appeal to the adults because I knew that
the range of my success would fall. Eavely Brothers had
five years, Frat Salvenho had five years, Connie Francis had
five years, and then Caput who was finished. So I
wanted to appeal to the adults.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Okay, you have this hit, to what degree do you
feel pressure to follow it? Up and how do you
come up with Calendar Girl?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
I was in Howie's apartment in Brooklyn, Brighton Beach and
Uh we saw and TV guide an old movie called
Calendar Girl. I said that would make a great title
every month of the year, and I set it the
piano boom. There was a tune called uh you Got personality?
(50:21):
Oh yeah, I remember, and it was a shuffle beat
on the on the drum, I love my love, I
love the Calendar. I saw that the beat would accommodate
my new tune, the beat of personality boom, and we
finished it in two and a half hours each month
(50:44):
to a different girl.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
Okay, a couple of things. You have the big hit
with old Carol, to what degree do you feel pressure
to have another hit? And to what degree you have
confidence you can deliver or not deliver.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
I wanted it with a vengeance. I knew I didn't
want to be a one shot wonder, and I sat
down with the most the most self assuredness you can imagine.
I wanted to stay there. I wanted to stay at
(51:19):
number one. Unfortunately, they trickled to five and six, which
is great a top ten record, but in sixty three
the bottom fell.
Speaker 1 (51:31):
Out well before we get to sixty three. Okay, your right, calendar, girl.
You know it's going to be a hit.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Yes, absolutely, that's a bigger hit than Oh Carol.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
What did it feel like.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
That I was on the right track, that I could
match the culture of the day, I could blend in
with what was happening. I could please people a certain way,
the way they felt I was in tune with them.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Okay, you were on the cusp of the switch from
radio to TV. To what degree was that palpable in
your life?
Speaker 2 (52:11):
In radio? They only heard Nil Sazaka's voice. When TV started.
I was on the Carol Burnett Show, on the MURV Griffin,
the Mike Douglas, the Osmans, and they saw a face
with the voice. Hey, here's a nice face. We've heard
(52:32):
his voice. He's like he looks like somebody I went
to school with. Or uh, he looks like your favorite
bank killer. Uh, he's the most unlikely looking rock and
roll star. And they liked it. They felt I was approachable.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Okay, you're living in Brighton Beach. At what point does
your family get a television?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
I tried to convince Maxie the Taxi no Tango tang O'Neil. Finally,
after a year of begging, we got a ten inch
television with the antenna on the roof. Go up on
the roof or the snow, the snow, move the move
the antenna this way, that way, this way that and
(53:17):
there I saw Melton Burrell and I saw your show
of shows, said Caesar and imaging Coca, and it was
it was. It was marvelous, marvelous. And before that, a
friend of mine said, you see your radio, O'Neil, it's
going to have a screen one day. You see the
people talking. I said, you're full of it. How the heck,
how can that be?
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Okay, you have a huge hit with Calendar Girl. Tell
me about breaking Up is Hard to Do?
Speaker 2 (53:46):
Okay. I came up with the title. I thought it
was very significant.
Speaker 1 (53:53):
How'd you come up with the title?
Speaker 2 (53:55):
I thought of it? I thought, I like the way
it wrote rolled off my Okay.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Bob Crue had a philosophy and he taught it to
Desmond Child. Did you come up with the title first?
Was that something that you embraced?
Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yes, I came up with breaking Up his Heart to
Do and the tune and how we liked it, and
we sat with it for a week. We dropped it.
The next week we picked up a few more bars
and I said, it's great on the piano, but it's
(54:30):
not a hit until you get into the studio, until
the musicians lock in with the feel. So I wrote
out the chors scheme, the bass part, I wrote out
the drum licks, and they read it off my sheets,
and little by little they got into the groove of
(54:53):
my song. And then when it was finished, Bob I said,
this is a fucking number one. There's no doubts. Multiple
three meals, two on the top and one of the bottom,
multiple voices. We only had three tracks in those days.
Speaker 1 (55:12):
Recording was very different in those days. A expensive usually
in the record company's studio c union. You're going to
make a record, to what degree are you in control
in terms of picking the musicians, etc.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
I was able to pick musicians. I was. I was
only three hours. You had to do three songs and
three hours that's what they gave me as their budget,
and if you went over you'd have to pay. But
I stuck to the three hours.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
So when you did breaking up as hard to do,
you cut that song in two other songs in three hours.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Yes, I break it up with two takes, two takes.
We were hasted, but the takes were two.
Speaker 1 (56:05):
And what was on the record you were singing? What
else was on the record? Bass?
Speaker 2 (56:10):
Drums, guitar, keyboard and three meals free, multiple meals?
Speaker 1 (56:19):
And in retrospect would we say you were the producer
or was there another producer?
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Al Evans was a producer, great producer. I did not
have any knowledge of that. Little by little I would
sit with Al in the room and go over the
balance with him, the mastering room, the recording room, the balance,
what more of this? Less of this?
Speaker 1 (56:45):
Okay? Al is producing? What made him a great producer?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
He was a musician originally call He was in a
group called the Three Sons on RCA and they had
a number one record, heavy Ly Chase of Lighter Falling.
It's while a time, Da Da Da da, And he
was very musical.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Okay, back in those days you cut breaking up as
hard to do. How long before it hits the radio
in retail?
Speaker 2 (57:21):
A couple of weeks, three weeks, four weeks most.
Speaker 1 (57:26):
Okay, that was just a gigantic kit. What was it
like for you?
Speaker 2 (57:32):
Oh? I bought my first car, my Chevy and Palla
White with the Wings. I. I was on the radio,
every channel. I turned up the radio on King's Highway
in Brooklyn, and I listened, and everybody on the street
listens to the eelsa daks. Then you break it up. It
(57:52):
was a thrill, an absolute thrill.
Speaker 1 (57:56):
Okay, top forty radio. There's forty records on the chart
to what degreed? Did you know the other hit makers?
Speaker 2 (58:04):
I knew them very well, very well. I knew the
writers and the singers.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Okay, you have these three. Two of them are just
absolutely gigantic kits. You're thinking to yourself, what's next for me?
Speaker 2 (58:20):
What's next to equal it or more better? Top it?
Top it? And I got next Door to an Angel
was the next record. It went before pretty good. You
can't be a Kaza. Don't be a Kaza deal. You
know four is great? You can't be number one every time?
Speaker 1 (58:45):
Okay, when did you realize it was not going in
the right direction?
Speaker 2 (58:51):
After too many Trilla laws and Doobie doos. Nineteen sixty
three it fell out and I didn't have another chart
record until nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 1 (59:05):
Okay, let's talk about sixty three. Yes, let's go through
your brain.
Speaker 2 (59:11):
I walked down the street and people stopped me. Didn't
you used to be Nil Sadaka? Oh too bad? Uh?
Then I had a manager who said, Dick Fox is
a great ancient manager. Go to England because it's not
long before then.
Speaker 1 (59:33):
Okay, I wrote, there's like seven or eight years there.
You're in the wilderness.
Speaker 2 (59:38):
Got it? I jumped. I wrote for Tom Jones, I
wrote for Peggy Lee. I wrote for the Fifth Dimension.
But it wasn't me singing. It was great, you know,
I made money, but it wasn't me singing, and I
wanted it desperately to sing again. Ok I won.
Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
So if we had this conversation in nineteen sixty six,
we're having a heart to heart, what would you have
told me.
Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
I'm going to come back. I'm going to study the
singer songwriter. I'm going to study Jonny Mitchell. I'm going
to study Gordon Lightfoot. I'm going to study so many greats.
Then you know, okay, okay, okay, So Jameson get the
(01:00:31):
rights back?
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
You sell them for this money. There's tax et cetera.
In this career, which is going on for almost seventy years.
Have you always had money or if you had times
where we were broke.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
I had to do work as a studio musician for
fifty dollars because I was broke.
Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
And when was that.
Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven?
Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
What year did you sell the songs? Again?
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
From nineteen fifty eight to sixty three? When I sixty
three till sixty seven sixty eight? Okay, are you cutting
this into one program or is this going to be
all on tape?
Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
We always get into the money. It's always in the tape.
People feel all that person's a star. They have no
idea what it's like being on the other side. So
you got this big check for your songs? What'd you
do with the money?
Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
I put the children in private schools. I got an
apartment in Manhattan. My mother let go and I bought
a car every year, from the Cadillac, from the Chevy,
went the Cadillac to the Thunderbird where the top folded
(01:01:54):
in the back that I went to a rolls Benflee.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
So in retrospect, did you blow the money?
Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
No? What happened was uh? In England? I met a
guy by the name of Elton John. Do you ever hear?
Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
No? No, wait, wait, wait, whoa whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Before we get to that, I can't get to that
story in this down period from sixty three to the
early seventies. Yes, you're looking back now sixty years. No,
you feel like, hey, I have this month.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Wasn't sixty years.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I had this money. I feel pretty good. And you say, god,
I was a schmid gaggy. Look at how I spent
all my money?
Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
True? True?
Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Okay, So how did you meet your wife?
Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Her mother had a hotel in the Catskill Mountains estrum
a hotel. I had a band. We've talked about this.
I had a band.
Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Oh what a little bit slower. You have a band,
they have a hotel. How do you meet her?
Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
She was sixteen. She was behind the desk and I
said to my friend, the trumpet player, I'm going to
marry that girl. She's sixteen years old. I said, she's
very pretty. I'm going to ask her for adge. And
I wanted to impress her, so I said, she said,
(01:03:30):
what do you do? I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer.
I said, I write songs. I don't know anybody who
writes songs. What what did you write? I said, well,
I have a big record. Stupid Cupid with Connie Francis.
She said, I'd never heard of baby so crazy. That
night she heard Stupid Cupid on the radio. I saw
(01:03:54):
her the next day and she said, you were telling
the truth. You are a song writer. Yeah, okay?
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
So was it an instant romance?
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Instant romance? And she lived where she lived in Montcella,
New York, not far from her hotel.
Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
What was the name of that deli and mant Sollo?
It's a famous Delhi whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
So how long is this interview? Babis? Where we're going?
Speaker 1 (01:04:25):
We're going? Neil myself?
Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Does this hurting?
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Now you have the manager who talks about going to England?
Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Dick Fox said, I could book you into the Wookie
Hollow and Liverpool, the Golden Daughter in Manchester, real drinking
men's clubs. Hey sing, oh Carol thing breaking up. It's
hard to do. I had to sing it, of course
(01:04:55):
they were the his But then I said, I'll never
have a comeback with these songs. I'll always be a
ghost from the past. So I said, Dick, what about
the Albert Hall? What about the Festival Hall in London?
(01:05:16):
And it took him a couple of weeks, but He
booked me with THEE hughs. C. Houston, the aunt of
Whitney Houston. She was the star of the show at
the Albert Hall. I opened the show doing breaking Up,
(01:05:37):
It's hard to do calendar Girl, Oh Carol, and then
I did a new song called Solitaire. The audience didn't move.
They didn't move. They were like hypnotized by me singing
a new song. At the end there was thunder us applause,
(01:06:02):
and that's where Elton Sehn found me.
Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
He no, wait, wait, wait a little bit slower. Yes,
before that, you hook up with the guys who turned
into ten CC.
Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
Correct. They were called hot Legs before there were ten SEC.
I was working at the Battley Variety Club and their
manager who I will remember the name Lisburg. Thank you,
my goodness, you are something. And he said, Neil, I
have a great new group called the Hot Legs in Stockport, England.
(01:06:39):
I think you should do a couple of sizes with them.
I said, oh, well, let me hear them. He played
some of their records. I liked them. We arranged for
me to go to Stockport and I recorded three songs.
I said, holy geez, these songs. This group is fabulous.
(01:07:00):
In fact, I did wind up doing two albums with them,
the Solitaire album and the Tralla days are over with
new songs, So Nils de Daca came to a new
generation of listeners.
Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Okay, so when you play the Royal Albert Hall and
you sing Solitaire, you've already made two new albums.
Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
That is correct.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
And to what degree were they commercially accepted?
Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
They were very big in England, very very big in America.
Nothing until Rocket Records Elton started.
Speaker 1 (01:07:40):
Okay, so let's get that break. So how does Elton
approach you?
Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
He calls me up and he found out where I
was living, and he came to May I come to
the apartment. I said absolutely. He said I want to
hear some of their new deals to Daka so wounds.
My son was ten or eleven years old living in London
(01:08:05):
with me. I said, marks to the door, and he
went to the door and opened it. He almost fainted.
There was Elton John in the full regalia and he
was lovely Elton. He sang Candle in the Wind for
me and this and that, and he said sit down
and play and I played Stroller along Country Road. Oh,
(01:08:32):
he said, that's very good. I'm gonna make you another
Carol King. I said, really, I'll take it. She had tapestry.
I'm Jeane Million, I'll take it, and he did. After
being off the shows, let me go ahead. After be
off the child Bow twelve years, I went to number one.
(01:08:54):
There are very few people who could do that. Tina
Turner did it?
Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Okay? He can't to your door?
Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
What happened to make the record number one?
Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
He walked into the radio station as EJ the GJ.
When he walked into a station, they fainted. Play this
nil Sadaka record deal Todaka. Wasn't he a Dooby Dooby singer?
Listen to it? And he got it on the air
with his with his presence. They said, if An L.
(01:09:31):
John thinks fires great, it must be great.
Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Okay, now you have a new lyricist. Why does it
end with Howie?
Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Too much? The same songs sounded too much alike. Howie
was wonderful. He could tie a ribbon around the words
beautifully moon June, Cruon spoon, perfectly, very wholesome. I was
at Screenshem's music. Phil Cody was a new writer and
(01:10:07):
he had an album called The Laughing Sandwich. I listened
to it. Who was on the desk at somebody's office.
I said, Gee, this is really good. I approached him
the next day. I said, Uh, Phil Cody, Phil Cody,
I'm Neil Saijaka. I'd love to write with you. And
(01:10:29):
I saw his face. So he said to his friend,
Neil Sajaka wants to write with me. He's like a
ghost from that era. And his friend said, it's Neil Sajaka.
You should Phil, you should write. We got together. It
was magical, he wrote. He painted pictures. He he did,
(01:10:54):
Hi didn't do boon June krun spoon he did Uh
strolling along country roads with my baby, it starts to rain,
it begins to pour without an umbrella, with soak to
the skins. I mean, this was poetry. I loved it,
and he forced me. He forced me to write new
(01:11:18):
kind of melodies because of his lyric.
Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
How did you tell Howie you were breaking up?
Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
Well, we wrote one more song, I said, Howie, I
really like to jump into the new singer songwriter. I'm
writing with Phil. I know that you've been writing with
Jack Keller and you've been having success. When I'm on
the road. He wrote with Jack Keller and we wrote down.
We sat down and we wrote our last song together.
(01:11:48):
It was called Our Last Song Together. It was very moving.
It has titles of all the twenty years that we
had written together. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Okay, how he was gay? What was it like being
gay in the fifties?
Speaker 2 (01:12:06):
Not good? Not good? He would keep it in the closet.
He would have quiet interludes with the rent men. And
then he met a wonderful man, Torri Damon, who he
(01:12:27):
spent the rest of his life with.
Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
I jumped he was in the closet, but you and
the people around him knew he was gay. Yes, okay,
let's jump forward. Tell me about laughter in the.
Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Rain, pentatonic scale, all the black notes, Aaron Copeland, open canyons,
open fields, trees and grass and rain. It was. I
wanted to capture that musically. I played it for Phil.
(01:13:05):
He said, where the hell did you get that? That's great?
I said, well, I was working before you came, and
this is it. He said, I the words talk to me.
Let me go away into the fields for an hour
and it wasn't raining. He came back with this magnificent
(01:13:29):
Two people soaked and they were laughing. And happy and
in love. It was such a wonderful lyric. Wonderful lyric.
Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
It goes to number one.
Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
What is the like after twelve years? Right? The ultimate? Vell?
You know that? That worse? The ultimate? I mean I
thought I was jetten buried jed bar and I wasn't
because I wanted a badly.
Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Do people tweet you differently now that you're back?
Speaker 2 (01:14:11):
Absolutely? Because I could reinvent myself where a lot of
the one shot wonders could not do that. I had
musical background. I studied classical music for many years. As
a matter of fact, I'm jumping. I wrote my first
piano concerdo Manhattan and to mezzo, and my first symphony,
(01:14:35):
Jois de Vive, which I recorded with the London Symphony.
Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Okay, tell me about bad Blood.
Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Okay, Phil? And I sat down. I had had Love
in the Shadows a hit, I had the immigrant hit,
and I wanted to change the pace again. I don't
like to repeat myself in the mood and the tempo feel.
So I was at the piano. There was an old
(01:15:09):
beat bo diddly bah bah bah b. I'm gonna take
that beat. It could have been me, but it was
you have nothing to do with him, but it was
a new tune to an old beat. I mixed the two.
Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
How did it end with Elton?
Speaker 2 (01:15:34):
Not great? With still friends, I'm happy to say. After
the success, my contract ran up and he said, of
course you you're going to say with Bracket Records. I said, well,
I have to listen to my lawyers and accountants. How
(01:15:58):
much will you pay me to resign? He said nothing.
I I made you a star again. I said, oh,
but you made a lot of money, and I, yes,
I appreciate that. I certainly understand you made me a star,
but it was my writing and singing. And he said,
(01:16:19):
you're right. And I went to Electra, who gave me
four hundred thousand dollars an album for the next three years,
whether they were hits or.
Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Not, all this time later. Good decision, bad.
Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Decision, Bad decision, bad decision. They were Seatdwarmers, Smith, Joe Smith,
Theyris and Peace Joe Smith. Electra, Uh, he didn't. We
got George Martin to produce the first album. He was
(01:16:59):
mouss as you know, and it was wonderful, but Electra
didn't have the right mechanism to promote it and couldn't
get it up there. So I didn't have very much
success with them. It was a mistake.
Speaker 1 (01:17:22):
Now when you were on Rocket. Other than promoting the records.
Did Elton have any input creatively.
Speaker 2 (01:17:29):
On record records? No, not at all. He loved the
way I sang and wrote. As a matter of fact,
I went to one of his record sessions. I played
him something that I wanted to record Lonlina, I cry myselflessly,
Tell me what am I going to do? He said,
go ahead, Neil, I love it. Whatever you think, I'll
(01:17:52):
back up ps Jumpin'. It was recorded by the Captain
and O'Neil Top three record Billboard.
Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Tell me about love will Keep Us Together?
Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Ah, I think I did. Told you about Diana Rawson's
and Al Green. It was I couldn't get away from it,
the radio, the television, the commercials. I couldn't get away
from it. It was an unbelievable feeling that I was
(01:18:28):
correct writing that tune, and Howie was correct with writing
that lyric. For the time, it was very you know,
people were upset with the punk and the and the
other rock things. They wanted a little up, a little brightness.
Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Okay, you got back together with how we to write that.
Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
That was one of the last songs we wrote. It's
that dormant for a couple of years, with the sense
disease in an album.
Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
You recorded it and it wasn't a hit.
Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
It was in an album, right, I ignored it. I
forgot about it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:12):
But when you did the original version, you didn't hear
it as a hit.
Speaker 2 (01:19:17):
I thought it was very entertaining, but I wanted to
put out something controversial, the Immigrant There was a time
when strangers will welcome here and it was a top twenty.
I would have had a number one with my love Will.
It wasn't as good as the Captain. It's nil, but
(01:19:38):
I would have had.
Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
I think, Okay, how did you hear the Captain d'anil
did it? Did you hear they were gonna do it?
Or just turn on the radio? How did you discover?
Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
I was living in England and someone mailed me the record?
How he did? How he mailed me the record? He
had driving his car one day and heard the Captain
and somebody with his song and my song leve will
keep Us Together hits a meal. You got to hear
this record? He mailed us to me to wrote London
(01:20:12):
and I put it on the turntable. My daughter Dara
was there and we looked at each other, Holy shit,
this is a great record. When I got home, it
was everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:20:28):
So from the moment you heard it, you were happy
with their arrangement.
Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
I was thrilled. His keyboards, the Captain's keyboards, her vocal,
she sounded a little like Elephans Gerald and Linda Ronstead,
and she was fabulous, fabulous.
Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
So you have this great running frocket, You make a
number of albums for Joe Smith. It all drives up commercially.
Where does that leave you emotionally?
Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
Uh? I will become a concert artist. That's where the
money was for me. I want to do concerts, and
I got the gigs and I got the money, and
I I loved performing, loved performing, and I became a
(01:21:26):
concert artist.
Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
And did you, in the back of your mind say
I'm coming back one more number one?
Speaker 2 (01:21:36):
Well, you always have that dream. Once you're at the top,
that feeling. You don't lose that feeling. The records were
repackaged the greatest hits of Nil, said Jaka blah blah
blah blah bub And I never I went back on
the chart with an album. Uh. Raisor and Tai Records
(01:22:01):
sign I had done a tribute concert to Joni Mitchell
of many artists, and I sang one of her songs
and people from Razor and Tire in the audience, and
they signed me and they put out an album. I
think it was called The Anthology or Nielson's Actor's Greatest Hit,
(01:22:22):
and it went to number twenty on Billboard. I was
very happy.
Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
And how much did you work live?
Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Oh? Forty weeks a year, wow, every country of the world.
I recorded Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German.
Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
Now doing some research, I saw you played the villages
in Florida that's known as a right wing retirement community.
Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
What was that like? The money was good and the
people knew me, of course from the first career and
the second career, so it was very nice. You know.
Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
Did you play any other of the condo tour in Florida?
Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
No, that was the only one, the only one. But
I started. I remember the Eden Rock Hotel of Miami,
and yeah I did. I did forty weeks a year
all over the world.
Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
And when did you wind down?
Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Ah? Then I started writing new songs and I started
my own label and I'm very proud of the new songs.
I think they weren't promoted properly. I didn't have the
wherefore and but some of them are the neglected children
(01:23:51):
once again. The songs are as good, if not better
than my old songs. But you know, it's up to
the public. What can I tell you? I thought I
thought they were as good. The public didn't really get
to hear them. There was no distribution. It was on
(01:24:14):
social media or you know those things.
Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
And how did you decide to stop playing concerts?
Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
I was eighty one years old and the last concert
was in Palm Springs. I couldn't hit the high notes.
I I am a perfectionist. I didn't want to go
out there under par. I mean a baseball player won't
go out there if he's under par. So good, and
(01:24:45):
I'm a perfectionist. I couldn't hit those notes. Forget it.
I had a gorgeous voice. Just ask me, I'll tell you. So.
Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
You mentioned social media during COVID you did some zoom stuff.
How did that all come to be?
Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
Well, we were all locked up. I had nothing here
but just sit at the piano and make all of
these videos of the public who were stuck at their
house on YouTube and I got an award. It's in there,
over one hundred thousand hits for Nil sazakas videos. I
(01:25:23):
went back to the fifties songs, the sixty songs, the
seventies songs, the eighties song and it was a revelation
to me. I had to relearn them. I had to
sing them. And it was who the hell wrote that
it was? It was a marble's feeling and I was
(01:25:44):
glad the people were happy that I did it for them.
Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Was it your idea?
Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (01:25:51):
And to what degree are you computer savvy?
Speaker 2 (01:25:54):
Not much? I had some somebody help me. I can't
do that, Okay, let me before.
Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
What was it like when the Beatles hit for you?
Speaker 2 (01:26:07):
People said, didn't you used to be Neil Sazaka? It
was a terrible drop to the ego, to the pocketbook.
The Beatles came in, wasn't good? They changed the face
(01:26:27):
of music. I thought they were marvelous. I thought they
were absolutely marvelous and I could write that kind of song.
But the public wants to do be do downtown the
old meal.
Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
Okay. How important to you is legacy and that you
and your songs are remembered.
Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
It has become very important to me. I say to
myself I have left, I will leave things behind that
will be appreciated and bringing shored people way way into
the future. And it's a nice feeling. I was given
a gift and I was able to share it with people,
(01:27:10):
and in my passing, they will continue to hear it
and enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
It in your everyday life. Do people still know who
you are?
Speaker 2 (01:27:22):
Yes, they do. The older people. Some young people get
into nil sadaka. They'll go into the YouTube or one
of those and see me, excuse me, they see me
on a video on Albert Hole and singing in various concerts.
Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
Well, we had a huge schism in the music business
at the turn of the sentry where everything went to
the internet. A lot of people believe the internet is
the devil. What's your viewpoint.
Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
I think it brought it more close to the public. Absolutely,
and they're touching a phone, touching a computer. And it
brought music most so to the people before it was
a radio and a record.
Speaker 1 (01:28:12):
So is a hit a hit a hit and nothing changes?
Or do things change?
Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
Things change? A number one record now has to sell
in the millions. In the old days, you could sell
six hundred and seven hundred thousand records like The Diary
and it went to number twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
Okay, but I'm a little younger than you, and I
certainly remember before the Beatles, the Four Seasons and a
lot of stuff that wasn't so good Bobby Rydell, Fabian,
et cetera. But the Beatles were a whole cultural phenomenon,
akin to the Renaissance in Italy. So some people say, now, oh, no, no,
(01:29:00):
you were just alive back then. It's not the same.
Do you believe your era was just part of the
ongoing continuum or was it something really special going.
Speaker 2 (01:29:11):
On my era at the fifties or the seventies?
Speaker 1 (01:29:15):
Both.
Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Oh. I think the first Korea was very imaginative, very creative.
The songs were happy, go lucky, perfect with the time.
Then I reinvented myself for the Elton Days, new songs,
sing a songwriter, more respected as a songwriter. I think
(01:29:42):
the songs were most sophisticated. The chord changes were wonderful.
It was a hold new ball game.
Speaker 1 (01:29:53):
So at this late date, you go out for lunch,
you go out for dinner, you're talking to me, you
have Allly Marbles, anything on the bucket list, anything you're
looking forward to doing.
Speaker 2 (01:30:05):
Maybe the last nil Shazaka concers. They know I'm eighty
five years old, so I'll go out and croak a little,
but it's still on the creator. I went through all
of the sixty years. I would to blow my own horn.
There's only four artists who had hits in the fifties, sixties, seventies,
(01:30:27):
and eighties.
Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
On one of them, and on that note, Neil, I
think you've said it all. I want to thank you
so much for taking time with my audings. I could
talk to you forever. Great artist, great personality, upbeat after
all these years. Thanks for taking this time.
Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
I enjoyed it, Bobby, I really did. I had to
pick my brain, but I remembered every note.
Speaker 1 (01:30:51):
Okay, till next time. This is Bob left Sex