Neil sedaka birthdate

American singer and songwriter (born 1939)

Musical artist

Neil Sedaka (; born March 13, 1939) is an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Since his music career began in 1957, he has sold millions of records worldwide and has written or co-written over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard "Howie" Greenfield and Phil Cody.

After a short-lived tenure as a founding member of the doo-wop group the Tokens, Sedaka achieved a string of hit singles over the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Oh! Carol" (1959), "Calendar Girl" (1960), "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" (1961) and "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (1962). His popularity declined by the mid-1960s, but was revived in the mid-1970s, solidified by the 1975 US Billboard Hot 100 number ones "Laughter in the Rain" and "Bad Blood". Sedaka maintained a successful career as a songwriter, penning hits for other artists including "Stupid Cupid" (Connie Francis), "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" (Tony Christie) and "Love Will Keep Us Together" (Captain & Tennille). He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983 and continues to perform, mounting mini-concerts on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Early life: Juilliard and the Brill Building

Sedaka was born in Brooklyn. His father, Mordechai "Mac" Sedaka, was a taxi driver of Lebanese Jewish descent. Sedaka's paternal grandparents came to the United States from Istanbul in 1910. Sedaka's mother, Eleanor (née Appel), was an Ashkenazi Jew of Polish and Russian descent. He grew up in Brighton Beach. His father's cousin, Rachel Gorman (née Cohen), daughter of Isaac Cohen and Calo Cohen (née Sedaca or Sedaka), was married to Morris Gorman (né Garmezano; paternal uncle to singer Eydie Gormé). Gormé's mother was of Lebanese Jewish descent.

Sedaka demonstr

Singer. Songwriter. Composer. Pianist. Author. Neil Sedaka’s impressive sixty year career ranges from being one of the first teen pop sensations of the 50’s, a tunesmith for himself and other artists in the 60’s, an international superstar in the 70’s, remaining a constant force in writing and performing presently. This is all thanks to the countless songs he has written, performed, and produced that continue to inspire artists and audiences around the world.

Neil Sedaka was born on March 13, 1939. Neil’s interest in music began at the young age of eight, when he would listen to The Make-Believe Ballroom. It was not Rock and Roll, but Classical music that would shape Neil into the musician he is today. By the time he was nine, he had already begun his intensive classical piano training at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music attending both the Preparatory School and the College. At 16, Arthur Rubinstein voted Neil as The Best New York High School Pianist. Though Neil considered pursuing his Doctorate in music, Neil’s next choice became his chosen vocation.

Eager to gain acceptance from his peers at Abraham Lincoln High School, Neil began performing Rock N Roll outside of his classical training. At this time, he would form the Doo-Wop group The Tokens, in which they would record two singles that would go on to be regional hits. But, it was his introduction to his young neighbor Howard Greenfield, by Greenfield’s mother, that began one of the most prolific songwriting partnerships of the last half-century that sold forty million records between 1959-1963.

Sedaka and Greenfield became one of the original creators of the “Brill Building” sound in the late fifties and early sixties when they were the first to sign with Don Kirshner and Al Nevins at Aldon Music. Aldon Music would go on to sign Neil Diamond, Carole King, and Paul Simon among many others, and they became the center of the pop world.

Sedaka catapulted into stardom after Connie Francis recorded h

Neil Sedaka was born in Brooklyn, New York on March 13, 1939. He was a piano prodigy as a child and later attended the Julliard School of Music.

In 1956, he was seleceted by Arthur Rubenstein to perform on New York City’s classical music station, WQXR. However, prior to that, at the age of 13, he had met and befriended Howard Greenfield. Both lived in the same apartment building in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach section. They didn't know of each other's existence until Greenfield's mother had a chance meeting with the young Sedaka in a Catskills Mountain resort. Suggesting to the juvenile pianist that "You should meet my son; he writes great lyrics," Mrs. Greenfield arranged the meeting (in the same apartment complex) and what was to become the most productive and successful team from the Brill Building was formed.

Soon, Greenfield, the budding poet, and Sedaka, the 13-year-old piano student at the Juilliard School, had become a team, and established a regimen of writing a song a day, a routine they continued for nearly two years. At the same time, they began making the rounds together in Broadway's Brill Building, one of several major centers for writers and producers of pop music. During one of their music publisher visits, they met what was to become another brilliant songwriting duo of the era, Mort Shuman and Doc Pomus, who steered them to another office in another music business center known as 1650 Broadway, where a new publishing company was just being formed by the veteran music man, Al Nevins, and his younger partner, Don Kirshner.

Hearing some of the material as Sedaka played the piano and sang, and Greenfield watched for hopeful reactions, Nevins commented, "Where did you steal these songs?" Finally convinced they were on the level, Nevins signed the pair. Thereupon, an association began which was to last, off and on, for the next 36 years, and which was interrupted only by Greenfield's death in 1986.

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