Neil Sedaka Wrote Hits for 6 Decades

Neil Sedaka, a Brill Building graduate whose songs helped define early 1960s pop and later fueled a mid-'70s comeback, has died. He was 86 and died Friday, his family said, per the Los Angeles Times. Sedaka logged three No. 1 singles and nine Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," "Calendar Girl," "Laughter in the Rain," and "Bad Blood," Variety reports, the last a 1975 chart-topper featuring Elton John. He was surrounded by pop songwriting from the beginning: He dated Carole King in high school, and Neil Diamond lived across the street. "We all lived in Brooklyn," he said in 2021. "It was a wonderful time."

Sedaka showed early talent, earning a place in Juilliard's children's program before shifting from classical music to pop as a teenager. He first performed with the doo-wop group the Linc-Tones, which evolved into the Tokens, then moved into solo work and Brill Building songwriting with partner Howard Greenfield. After the British Invasion stalled his chart run, Sedaka revived his career with success in Australia and the UK, then in the US with John's Rocket label and the 1974 album Sedaka's Back. "I had to reinvent Neil Sedaka," he said in 2019. "I couldn't keep repeating 'Calendar Girl' and 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do' over and over." To do that, per the Washington Post, he found inspiration in the music of James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, and King.

"He combined a genius for melody, the commercial instincts of a pop savant, a boyish high tenor and an unabashed enthusiasm for performing onstage," the New York Times writes. Beyond his own records, Sedaka wrote major hits for others over six decades, among them Connie Francis' "Where the Boys Are," the Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together," Frank Sinatra's "The Hungry Years," Elvis Presley's "Solitaire," Tom Jones' "Puppet Man," the Monkees' "When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door," and the Fifth Dimension's "Workin' on a Groovy Thing."

Over his career, Sedaka received five Grammy nominations, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1978, and induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983. In 2007, the Lincoln Center honored his 50 years in show business with a concert featuring Natalie Cole, David Foster, and Clay Aiken. He worked steadily over the next two decades. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, Sedaka began staging mini-concerts on social media. "This is a gift I was born with," he wrote on his website, adding that he strived to constantly "raise the bar and reinvent Neil Sedaka."