It was in June 1972 when I saw Neil Diamond play the Bristol Colston Hall. He played two shows on the same night – I attended the evening show. Diamond was at the end of his time as what we then called a singer-songwriter, although he was in reality much more than that. I was in the front row and was staggered by his powerful voice and sheer energy. He was absolutely brilliant.
1972 was the year in which Diamond morphed from singer-songwriter to cabaret performer. He never deserted his best songs, even if they were blended with the dreary MOR singalongs like Song Sung Blue and Forever in Blue Jeans. You would still hear Brother Loves Travelling Salvation Show, I am…I said, Girl, You’ll be a woman soon and Cherry, Cherry.
Diamond has announced his retirement from touring at the age of 77 as he struggles with Parkinsons, the poor man. Friends who saw his show in 2017 said his voice was almost undiminished from his heyday. And as a performer he had few equals.
I don’t think Diamond made a good album after Stones in 1972 and he didn’t make a great one after the stunning Taproot Manuscript in 1970, but the songs he wrote in the 1960s and 1970s sustained him into old age, so good were they.
I would not have liked to have seen latter day Diamond because I saw him once, at his peak in 1972, and I was certain he could never have got close to that level today. That is not to say the level he is today is in any way shoddy – it isn’t – but an ageing pop star on the arena cabaret circuit is an ageing pop star on the cabaret circuit.
The last great Diamond tune was I am…I said from 1971. It was about the boy from New York who moved to Los Angeles to further his career but no matter how much he tried to love LA, New York would always be home. My mother, born in Rotterdam and effectively stranded in Bristol, picked up on it the first time she heard it and knew it was really about her. That’s what a great song can do for you.
The man is still going to write and record new music and we can but hope he somehow once again scales the dizzy heights he achieved in the late sixties and early seventies. With Neil Diamond, good times never seemed so good.
