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In a wide-ranging 2022 interview with MS NOW, Neil Sedaka reflected on his Brooklyn upbringing (“Carole King, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand lived across the street…I think there was something in the egg cream!”) and the legacy of music he’d created (“I think the songs will outlive me, so it’s a form of immortality…That’s [what] I’m most proud of.”)  The singer-songwriter passed away last week at the age of 86 but not before notching 33 hit singles on the Billboard pop chart as an artist (including nine top ten entries, three of which went to No. 1), five Grammy nominations, and an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

A child prodigy at the piano, Sedaka was just eight years old when he earned a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music’s Preparatory Division for Children.  His love of, and aptitude for, classical music remained with him through his lifetime; his final studio album, 2016’s I Do It for Applause, concluded with the long-form symphonic piece appropriately entitled “Joie de Vivre.”  Indeed, joie de vivre imbued Neil Sedaka’s oeuvre from the goofy rock-and-roll of 1958’s “I Go Ape” through the sublime pop of 1974’s “Laughter in the Rain.”  A Sedaka melody was sweet but sophisticated, accessible but intricate – and always instantly memorable.

He was generous to fellow artists, too, providing hits and favorites for Connie Francis (“Stupid Cupid,” “Where the Boys Are”), Tony Christie (“(Is This The Way To) Amarillo”), The 5th Dimension (“Puppet Man,” “Workin’ on a Groovy Thing”), The Monkees (“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” “When Love Comes Knockin’ (At Your Door),” Davy Jones (“Rainy Jane”), and, of course, Captain and Tennille (the international hit and U.S. chart-topper “Love Will Keep Us Together”).  It’s Neil’s piano you hear on Gene Pitney’s hit recording of “It Hurts to Be in Love,” written by Howard Greenfield and Helen Miller.

Neil, an original comeback kid, famously told the story of being down-and-out as a performer after his initial run of early ‘60s hits – an enviable run which included the indelible likes of “Oh! Carol,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Calendar Girl,” “Little Devil,” “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen,” “Next Door to an Angel,” and the original “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” all of which featured lyrics by Greenfield.  But during that supposedly fallow ‘60s period, Sedaka reinvented himself as an in-demand songwriter, penning some of the finest material of his career.  (Just listen to “We Gotta Get Back to the Good Times” – a quintessential Sedaka/Greenfield tune that remained unreleased until 2018, and even then, only on a limited release.)  During the mid- to late-‘60s, he began writing with Carole Bayer (later Sager) and Roger Atkins while continuing to work with Greenfield.  This period yielded beautifully-crafted songs recorded by artists including Nancy Wilson (“Don’t Look Over Your Shoulder”), Lesley Gore (“Magic Colors”), Frankie Valli (“Make the Music Play”), The Friends of Distinction (“Time Waits for No One”), and Johnny Mathis (“The World I Threw Away”).

The comeback came in 1975 with the patronage of Sedaka disciple Elton John and “Laughter in the Rain,” a buoyant co-write with young lyricist Phil Cody which hit No. 1 in February.  Just months later, in June, Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” (co-authored by Greenfield) occupied that spot for a four-week run, becoming the year’s best-selling single.  Toni Tennille exuberantly declared “Sedaka is back!” in the fade of the song, and she wasn’t kidding.  His new run of success continued with the triumvirate of “The Immigrant” (a moving and still-relevant ballad inspired by Sedaka’s friendship with John Lennon), “Bad Blood” (another No. 1, featuring Elton on uncredited background vocals), and the “slow version” of “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” which became a top ten Pop hit and an Adult Contemporary No. 1.  The latter had been percolating in Sedaka’s fertile musical brain since 1969, when he demoed the ballad version of the uptempo rocker for crooner Lenny Welch.  Lenny’s 1970 single actually reached the Pop top 40 and AC top ten, but it took Sedaka’s own magic to make the slow reinvention as familiar as the upbeat original.  The hits just kept on coming in 1975 when Carpenters took the soaring, Chopin-inspired “Solitaire” to the top of the AC survey.  Rolling Stone acknowledged the singer-songwriter, who’d once doubted his place in the pop firmament, as “the new phenomenon.”

Armed with the masters from his ‘70s triumphs as well as “spot the difference” re-recordings of his ’60s RCA hits, Neil continued to write and record concept albums dedicated to new settings of classical themes (1995’s Classically Sedaka), Yiddish music (2003’s Brighton Beach Memories), holiday songs (2005’s The Miracle of Christmas), and even children’s songs (2009’s Waking Up Is Hard to Do).  His piano concerto Manhattan Intermezzo was included on a 2016 album by pianist Jeffrey Biegel and the Brown University Orchestra alongside compositions by Keith Emerson, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin.  Neil’s 2018 digital-only collection Sings His Original Country Songs explored one particular strain of Americana that had long been present in his writing. Despite a rich and varied songbook that’s earned him fans from Elton John to Ben Folds, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame still hasn’t recognized Sedaka’s contributions to the art form.

Neil Sedaka was a craftsman of the highest order who confessed in song, “I Do It for Applause.”  But it was more than that; the man who urged listeners to “Let the Good Times In” did it to spread sunshine and solace as well as nostalgia for happier, simpler times gone by.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, he began performing mini-concerts online, directly engaging with fans as he explored the various corners of his songbook. Though he retired from songwriting in 2022, he returned to the performing stage in 2025 at Los Angeles’ Vitello’s for a series of concerts within the restaurant’s intimate confines.

Tiny fragments of a song keep playing softly in my mind/The sound of your voice will always haunt me in a dream/Even though we said goodbye…, Neil sang on I Do It for Applause.  Happily, we never have to say goodbye to the beautiful, uplifting, inspiring music of Neil Sedaka.