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6123 HAGGERTY RD. ousr N. OF MAPLE)

Noll

BLOOMFIELD AVENUE SHOPS
WEST BLOOMFIELD

(248) 668-1800

27060 EVERGREEN (AT 11 MILE & EVERGREEN)
LATHRUP LANDING
LATHRUP VILLAGE

in...A

THREE
CHO R D
OPE R

(248) 559-9099

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27903 Orchard Lake Rd. (NW corner of 12 Mile)
Farmington Hills

(248) 553-4220

Open 7 days a week

Mon-Sat 11 am - 10 pm
Sunday 4 pm - 9:30 pm

Diamond will
sing songs
from his new
critically praised
CD ,"Three
Chord Opera,"
Oct. 5 and 6
during concerts
at the Palace of
Auburn Hills.

Three Chord Opera,

notes Diamond, the
father of two sons
and two daughters.
He's a thrice-blessed
grandfather, too, and
one who frankly
admits that he was
largely uninspired to
write new songs after
divorcing his second
wife.
The couple ended
their 25-year-old marriage in May 1996,
to the tune of Marcia Diamond receiv-
ing a record $150-million settlement. "I
was happy to do it," Diamond com-
mented about the highly publicized pay
out. "She's been with me through thick
and thin and deserves half my fortune. I
wish her all the happiness that $150
million can bring."
This year, "I Believe in Happy
Endings," a new song Diamond wrote
for the spring-released film Saving
Silverman, finally rekindled the musi-
cian's songwriting and landed him a
quirky cameo role in the comedy about
a Neil Diamond tribute band.
And even before Three Chord Opera
was issued, summer movie audiences
were being Diamond-ized with "I'm A
Believer," the singer-songwriter's No. 1

Martin Natchez is a freelance music
writer and record collector who lives in
Grand Blanc and treasures his rare
stereo copy of Neil Diamond's first
album, "The Feel of Neil Diamond."

smash for the Monkees in
1967, which was being given
new exposure in the hit animat-
ed film Shrek.
"It was totally cool! I loved
Eddie Murphy's version of it,"
Diamond told the Live By
Request viewing audience. "It's
great to be in a film like that
and kind of bridge the genera-
tions. It just makes me feel
good."
Thirty-four years later, Smash
Mouth's bonus rock remake of
"I'm a Believer" on the Shrek
soundtrack album became a siz-
zling summer radio staple. Not
bad for a song that was originally waxed
as an LP cut and thought to have little,
if any, hit potential.
"I didn't care for the song that much,
and I didn't particularly care for the way
I sang it," Diamond explained in Alan
Grossman's 1987 biography, Diamond.
"It was just a simple, happy song, and I
liked it for that."
Diamond rarely gives interviews and is
fiercely private about discussing his per-
sonal life, although most fans know that
Neil Leslie Diamond was born the first
son of Kieve and Rose Diamond in
1941. Two years later, the family
expanded with the arrival of his younger
brother, Harvey, and the boys spent
most of their upbringing in Brooklyn,
where their father ran a dry-goods store.
Their parents were first-generation
Americans of Polish-Russian descent,
and both boys learned to speak fluent
Yiddish from their grandparents at a
very early age. Looking back, those
formative years would later press upon
one of Neil's most profound career-mak-
ing decisions, to star in the 1980 motion
picture remake of The Jazz Singer.
The movie script about the son of a
cantor who seeks to splinter from his
father's cantorial lineage and pursue a
career as a pop singer seemed custom-
made for Diamond, who nudged out
'70s hit-maker Barry Manilow for the
starring role of Yussel Rabinowitz, oppo-
site actor Sir Lawrence Olivier.
Today, the severe scissoring of
Diamond's performanCe by a rash of
poison-penned critics seems unusually

"The title came from a
sign over the entrance
o it fi-iend's recording
studio, and I thought
it had more applica-
tions,'' siiys Dia11201111
()ills new song "Leave
a Little Room Jo. r
God."