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Presented by John Clark and his Great American Music Experience
The songwriting team of Hal David and the late Burt Bacharach and the singer/ songwriter Neil Diamond were the most successful of the second wave of pop music songwriters from the Brill Building. The elder statesmen of this bunch, lyricist Hal David was writing songs for the Big Bands of the 1940s; then he and Bacharach began collaborating in the late 1950s. They teamed with singer Dionne Warwick for Don’t Make Me Over, Walk on By and 20 more Top 40 entries. They also wrote smash hits for Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert and the Carpenters. In 1970 they scored a Grammy for their musical, Promises, Promises and an Oscar for Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head. The duo split in 1973 and Bacharach went on to collaborate with other writers, including new wife, Carole Bayer Sager. Neil Diamond dropped out of high school to pursue a songwriting career and had a couple of false starts as a recording artist in the early sixties. His breakthrough year was 1966 when the Monkees took his I’m a Believer to the top of the chart and he hit big as an artist with Solitary Man and Cherry, Cherry. He enjoyed tremendous success during the seventies, including soundtracks for the film version of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the re-make of The Jazz Singer in which he starred. The 1990s showed a resurgence of his earlier hit Sweet Caroline, as it became regularly sung at national sporting events. In 2005, Neil followed in the footsteps of Johnny Cash releasing several intensely personal albums until his retirement in 2018.
About John Clark: Music Historian, Lecturer
Great American Music Experience – Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
John teaches classes on Bob Dylan, American Roots music, fifties and sixties music for community education programs in Newton, Lexington, Brookline and Cambridge and in adult Ed programs at Brandeis and Tufts Universities. He also presents the history of Jewish-American songwriters at various local synagogues.
