Neil Sedaka
A singer, songwriter, and pianist, Neil Sedaka was one of the first teen pop sensations of the 1950s and, with the lyricist Howard Greenfield, one of the original creators of the Brill Building sound. Their partnership sold forty million records between 1959 and 1963, “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” went to number one on Billboard’s Hot 100, and on his 1970s comeback “Laughter in the Rain” and “Bad Blood” both reached number one. Captain and Tennille had three Top 10 singles with his songs, among them “Love Will Keep Us Together,” which won the Grammy for Record of the Year, and he was one of the first musical guests on Saturday Night Live. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983 and received its Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. A street in his hometown of Brooklyn bears his name.
Sedaka, a Brooklyn native born on March 13, 1939, had begun intensive classical piano training at the Juilliard School of Music by the age of nine. Howard Greenfield’s mother introduced the two in 1952, and Connie Francis recorded their “Stupid Cupid”; she went on to sing the theme they wrote for the 1960 film Where the Boys Are, and Sedaka signed with RCA Victor as a writer and performer. His early singles included “The Diary,” “Oh! Carol,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Calendar Girl,” “Little Devil,” “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen,” and “Next Door To An Angel,” and “Oh! Carol” became an international number one.
When the British Invasion changed American music in 1964, Sedaka kept writing hits for other artists: Frank Sinatra recorded “The Hungry Years,” Elvis Presley and The Carpenters recorded “Solitaire,” Tom Jones had “Puppet Man,” and The Monkees and The Fifth Dimension also recorded his songs. His albums Emergence and Solitaire found a large audience in the UK and caught the attention of Elton John, who signed him to his new Rocket Records; Sedaka’s Back (1974) and The Hungry Years (1975) became top-selling albums around the world and hold Gold certifications in the United States, and “Laughter in the Rain” and “Bad Blood” were both written with Phil Cody. The 1975 ballad version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” made the Billboard Top Ten, Captain and Tennille’s recording of his “Lonely Night (Angel Face)” reached number 3 on the Hot 100, and the line “Sedaka Is Back” can be heard as their “Love Will Keep Us Together” fades out. Later he returned to his classical roots with a symphony, Joie De Vivre, and a piano concerto, Manhattan Intermezzo, both recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra of London.
Sedaka’s death came on February 27, 2026. His five Grammy nominations include Song of the Year for “Love Will Keep Us Together” and two for “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,” and his honors include a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, The Ivors’ Special International Award, and an honorary doctorate in music from Moravian College, awarded in 2019, the year he marked his sixtieth anniversary as a performer.
In April 2024 Sedaka partnered with Primary Wave Music on his music publishing, covering all the songs he wrote, and on his master recordings. By October 2024 he had his own show, In the Key of Neil, on SiriusXM’s 50s Gold channel.
