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Before talking about Neil Diamond's big comeback, it's important to know that to many, Neil was never really gone in the first place, despite the media attention thrown his way over the past few years: the Saving Silverman movie, the countless cover performers, and the like. Like the turgid latter-day Elvis, Diamond continued to sell out arenas. Women didn't throw their panties at him -- rather, they (and their husbands) threw dollar bills, as a Diamond show became one of the higher-priced regular touring units.
His longtime fans say the experience is the thing: in a musical and cultural climate where everyone wants to take the consumer's dollar but not actually admit that they breathe the same air, Diamond comes across as a guy that puts on his sequined shirt one sleeve at a time just like everyone else.
While some attribute it to the $75-100 a head Diamond receives for a gig, Debbie Ogden, a Charlotte-area fan, posits that Neil's enthusiasm might well be the reflected glee of his fans, who have come to count on the performer to express things they might have a hard time with.
"He is at his absolute best when audiences stand, dance, clap, and actively participate in the experience," Ogden says. "I think anyone who has played music on stage can understand the way the performers feed off of the crowd and vice versa."
Ogden also points to Diamond's "emotional versatility."
"Name any mood or state of mind and I betcha there is a Neil Diamond song to console or commiserate or lift your spirits. Should he rightfully be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? You bet your sweet Cherry Cherry ass he should!"
Problem is, most don't consider him rock anymore. Conversely, he's not quite easy listening or smooth jazz, either. With his army of devoted fans, then, think of Neil as a kind of a one-man Grateful Dead. Fans following him from town to town, million-plus hits on Diamond bulletin boards, three-hour shows, set list trading, and a rabid audience ready to pounce at the drop of a sequin.
"I did a review of a Neil Diamond concert for the Charlotte Observer back in the 70s," says Charlotte author and journalist Frye Gaillard. "Although his music by then was not to my taste (I had bought a couple of his records in the mid-to-late 60s before he was Neil Diamond), I praised him for the energy of his show and the competence of his band, but had some minor criticisms as well. I got more angry mail for those minor reservations than for anything I've ever written. I still don't have an explanation for it."
The real question, then, is why the 30-and-under crowd seem to be eating it up so. John Strausbaugh, editor of New York Press and author of the book Rock 'Til You Drop, a look at geriatric rockers, suspects "among younger folks the appeal is mostly ironic -- see the first issue of Heeb, the magazine for hipsters of the Jewish persuasion, with its Neil Diamond centerfold. (It's) kind of like the ABBA phenomenon among people who were in their diapers when ABBA was in its heyday. For older fans, I've always assumed he was a milder, safer Elvis figure."
"He's a curious bird," says North Carolina-based music writer Parke Puterbaugh, who has written for Rolling Stone and others. "A rock & roll-era Brill Building songwriter and performer who actually turned out some pretty decent stuff in the early days, then went on to become the male Barbra Streisand. I think those who came of age in the rock era -- to wit, those who are and will remain forever young, no matter how old and wretched they become -- find great maudlin humor in the hammy way Diamond labors over midlife crises in song. It's like watching your dad have a breakdown after a bridge game."
Greg Kot, music critic at the Chicago Tribune, is typical of most music folks surveyed when it comes to mining the critical opinion of Diamond -- he may be heavy, but he's a mutha.
"I called him the Teflon Entertainer the first time I reviewed him in concert," Kot says. "Even though songs like 'You Don't Bring Me Flowers' are almost unforgivable for the heavy schmaltz factor, he wins over even the skeptics with his obvious enthusiasm for what he does. 'No one cared at all, not even the chair' may be the worst throwaway line in a standard ever written, but like other deeply flawed signature songs -- 'My Way,' for example -- 'I Am, I Said' rises above its deficiencies to become undeniable. I have no doubt it will endure on jukeboxes for generations. The guy gives good tune, though the stone classics are outweighed by the guilty pleasures. But, make no mistake, he has written classics. 'Solitary Man'? No excuses necessary. Johnny Cash knew what he was doing when he covered it recently."