Neil Sedaka, composer and singer of ‘Oh! Carol’ | Culture | EUROtoday

The New York composer and singer Neil Sedaka, writer of profitable songs within the Nineteen Fifties and Sixties reminiscent of ‘Oh! Carol’ or ‘Breaking Up is Hard to Do’, died on Friday in Los Angeles on the age of 86. “We are devastated by the loss,” his kin introduced in an announcement, with out specifying the causes of his demise. “He was a true legend.”

Born in Brooklyn in 1939 and skilled as a pianist on the prestigious Julliard School, Sedaka composed quite a few songs for different performers all through his profession, typically with Howard Greenfield, his neighbor, three years older, whom he met at age 13. Together they might work for greater than 1 / 4 of a century.

Sedaka’s profession started on the finish of the Nineteen Fifties, within the Brill constructing close to Times Square and the true epicenter of the New York music trade the place lots of the hits of these a long time have been solid. One of the primary songs he composed, with a romantic theme like so many others he signed, ‘Stupid Cupid’, was the good success of the singer Connie Francis. She additionally carried out one other of her well-known compositions, ‘Where The Boys Are’. More than a decade later he signed ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’, with which Captain and Tennille hit the bottom operating in 1975. Throughout his profession, which spanned some six a long time, Sedaka composed many hits for others.

He fashioned his first group, The Tokens, within the fifties, and after the success of ‘Stupid Cupid’ he achieved a contract with RCA Victor. In the next decade he topped the charts with songs like ‘Oh! Carol’ (devoted to Carole King who was his highschool girlfriend, and responded to her with the track Oh! Neil), ‘Stairway to Heaven’, ‘Calendar Girl’, ‘Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen’ o ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’.

With the arrival of the Beatles and British pop, he put apart his solo profession and devoted himself to songwriting. He wrote songs for Frank Sinatra (‘The Hungry Years’), Elvis Presley (‘Solitaire’) and Tom Jones (‘Puppet Man’), amongst many others. In the seventies, supported by Elton John, he returned to primary on the charts with ‘Bad Blood’. And in that decade he additionally composed the track ‘Ring Ring’ by ABA.

Sedaka was nominated for a Grammy 5 occasions. In October 2007, a tribute live performance was held at Lincoln Center in New York, half a century after his debut within the music trade, through which Captain and Tennille, Natalie Cole, Connie Francis and Aiken, amongst others, carried out. In 2022 he formally retired.