N IDE

MS"-

MARTIN NATCHEZ

Special to the Jewish News.

OUT WITH HIS
FIRST SOLELY
WRITTEN
CD OF NEW
SONGS SINCE
1974, SINGER-
SONGWRITER
NEIL DIAMON

Neil Diamond: "I've
always accepted some
kind of deity, especially
as a songwriter:"

eil.DiarriOnd is like a love -
affair. Passionately hot.
Seductively cool.
Moreover, the pop icon, at
age 60, with songs 7 sung-new and a cur-
rent concert tour, is attracting a new
audience of younger fans.
Shrewdly, the Brooklyn-born "Jewish
Elvis" initiated his latest love call in late
July, when he appeared on the A&E
cable network's Live By Request program
and mounted the series' highest-rated
broadcast.
During the same week, his new CD,
Three Chord Opera, hit stores, marking
the singer's first solely written effort since
1974. The album then leapt into -
Billboardmagazine's Top 200 Albums
chart at No. 15, notching the highest
debuting - alburri of Diamond's career.
But making - and breaking recordsdoes-
med Brill Building
n't stop there for the fa
tunesmith, who• was honored last year
with aLifetime Achievement Award from
the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
With a flashY traveling shoW —
ing a wardrobe of signature, glass-beaded
shirts — Diamond-has embarked on a
four-month, 32-city itinerary that will -.-
include performances at the Palace of
Hills on Oct. 5 and - 6. And he's
hoping to stretch his streak as the fifth
biggest touring act of the '90s into the
21St century and show that he can still
sell out venues with his kind of music.
Why have '60s rock classics 'Solitary
Man," "Cherry Cherry' and his intimate-
ly lyrical masterpieces "I-Am ... I Said,'
"Holly -Holy" and "You Don't •Brino - Me
Flowers. Anymore" survived? • Diamo nd
once said they all have one thing in con -i-
soul."
"a wish
je
n-ion
As a "fairly observant je'v" who always
attends synagogue on the "serious holi-
- days,' Diamond affirrns that he has
always clung to being very spiritual and is
a true believer in some kind of higher
• authority:
accepted some.kind of
'Tye
deity, especially as a son2:writer," he said
in a recent Reuters interviev.... "There's a
mystery to writing.; and Wu ti JOIA real';-
know where most of it comes from. Yo
like to think that its something you cre-
ated, but secretly YQU. know that you had
some kind of help."
It took a year to write the songs for

MULTI-FACETED

on page. 68