![]() ![]() Often bored in class, he found writing song lyrics more to his liking. He was a member of the 1960 NCAA men's championship fencing team. : 26ĭiamond next attended New York University as a pre-med major on a fencing scholarship, again on the fencing team with Herb Cohen. There he first met Jaye Posner, who would years later become his wife. : 10 He spent the summer after graduation working as a waiter in the Catskills resort area. His male classmates took note and began asking him to write poems for them, which they would sing and use with equal success. ![]() By writing poems for girls he was attracted to in school, he soon learned it often won their hearts. ĭiamond also used his newly developed skill to write poetry. He added that his attraction to songwriting was the "first real interest" he had growing up, while also helping him release his youthful "frustrations". "And the next thing, I got a guitar when we got back to Brooklyn, started to take lessons and almost immediately began to write songs", he said. Seeing the widely recognized singer perform, and watching other children singing songs for Seeger that they wrote themselves, had an immediate effect on Diamond, who then became aware of the possibility of writing his own songs. ![]() When he was 16 and still in high school, Diamond spent a number of weeks at Surprise Lake Camp, : 21 a camp for Jewish children in upstate New York, when folk singer Pete Seeger performed a small concert. įor his 16th birthday, he received his first guitar. Also on the team was his best friend, future Olympic fencer Herb Cohen. After his family moved to Brighton Beach, he attended Abraham Lincoln High School and was a member of the fencing team. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." Also in their class was chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer. In Brooklyn, he attended Erasmus Hall High School and was a member of the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, along with classmate Barbra Streisand : 155 Diamond recalled they were not close friends at the time: "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. He grew up in several homes in Brooklyn, having also spent four years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where his father was stationed in the army. His parents were Rose ( née Rapoport 1918–2019) and Akeeba "Kieve" Diamond (1917–1985), a dry-goods merchant. All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland on his father's side and Russia on his mother's. Early life and education ĭiamond was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a Jewish family. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. He has also acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.ĭiamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, including " Sweet Caroline". Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: " Cracklin' Rosie", " Song Sung Blue", " Longfellow Serenade", " I've Been This Way Before", " If You Know What I Mean", " Desirée", " You Don't Bring Me Flowers", " America", " Yesterday's Songs", and " Heartlight". He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. ![]()
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