Neil Sedaka was born on March 13, 1939 in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, where he started his writing collaboration with Howard Greenfield. Sedaka was 13 and Greenfield was 16. When a teacher noted Sedaka’s musical talent, his mother took a job at Abraham and Straus department store to pay for a second-hand upright piano. His father drove a taxi.
Sedaka, whose name means “charity” in Hebrew, spent two years at the Julliard School in New York on scholarship, but began a lucrative songwriting career while there, penning "Stupid Cupid" for Connie Francis in 1958, the same year that
Guyden Records released Neil Sedaka's solo debut, “Ring A Rockin’” b/w “Fly, Don’t Fly on Me” (Guyden 2004).
Neil Sedaka had his first appearance on American Bandstand to sing “Ring A Rockin’.” Guyden got the record from Boston-based Cupid Records. The label name and "Stupid Cupid" may not have been a coincidence— certainly their deep pink stationery was no coincidence.
Neil Sedaka’s performance career took longer to take off than his writing career, which had already begun well at Juilliard. Atlantic Records took Sedaka-Greenfield songs for LaVern Baker and Clyde McPhatter. Doc Pomus advised Sedaka to join Don Kirshner's publishing company, Aldon Music, which represented the epitome of early rock and roll with the songs of Carole King, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, among a stellar writing stable.
Kirshner furthered Sedaka's singing career by signing him to RCA Records, where the performing hits started to flow with "The Diary" (No. 14), "I Go Ape" (No. 42) and "Oh! Carol" (No. 9) in 1959.
The Guyden release attests to--and gave a performing start to--Neil Sedaka's amazing career of more than 50 years of selling many millions of records as performer and songwriter.
