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Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 14:03:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Maclauchlan <paulmac@vex.net>
To: Beautiful Noise <beautiful-noise@listserv.prodigy.com>
Subject: News: Nashville vibe helps Diamond's songs get back to basics
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The Detroit News Home Page (http://detnews.com/menu/stories/54043.htm)
June 29, 1996
Music Preview: Nashville vibe helps Diamond's songs get back to basics
By Steve Morse / Boston Globe
LOS ANGELES -- A relaxed, unshaven Neil Diamond invites his guest into an
office that has a boyish, Peter Pan flair. There are sports posters and a
cap-gun collection on the walls, signifying "the cap gun I always wanted
as a kid but never got," explains Diamond, who grew up in Brooklyn.
Elsewhere are framed cartoon drawings, a chessboard and a friendly golden
retriever that answers to the name Sol, short for its owner's song
"Solitary Man." It was a gift from a fan who named a whole litter of dogs
after Diamond songs.
Says Diamond of his office, "I think of it as a holy mess. ... It's more
like a clubhouse."
It's also vivid proof that Diamond does not live some phantasmic superstar
life: He is as homespun and earthy as many of the fans who've supported
him for 30 years. During that time he's written such breezy, hook-laden
songs as "Sweet Caroline," "Cherry Cherry," "Cracklin' Rosie," "Song Sung
Blue," "I'm a Believer" (a hit for the Monkees) and "Red Red Wine" (a hit
for UB40).
Diamond's appeal lies in his childlike spirit, his melodic simplicity, his
sweet romanticism, his unpretentious baritone voice and a die-hard work
ethic that has kept him writing songs since he was 16 and kept him on the
road delivering long, entertaining shows for the masses who want value for
their dollar, sans cocky attitude. At 55, Diamond is still so popular that
he regularly books multiple nights in each city he plays.
Clutching a cup of coffee, Diamond beckons his visitor onto a terrace
outside his second-story office, which lies above his Arc Angel recording
studio in the heart of Los Angeles. He calls the terrace his "Carmen
Veranda."
"It sort of feels like an ocean cruise with a lot of traffic outside,"
says Diamond, stretching his legs and relaxing. "But this place is very
important to me, because I'm mainly indoors all the time, especially all
those years of working on the road and living in hotels. I just need a
place to get outside and get some fresh air. I've spent too many years in
hotels."
All those years have come full circle on Diamond's latest album, Tennessee
Moon. It's a populist, country-music-filled disc that restores the
rhythmic, acoustic-guitar sound of his early years and even includes a
remake of one of his biggest hits, "Kentucky Woman."
"I wanted to demonstrate how far I haven't come as a writer," he says with
a laugh. "It's taken 30 years for me to come back to this point."
Diamond describes the process as "back to basics," adding that the
Tennessee Moon disc is "definitely pointing the way for me. It's shown me
the light. Forget about 40-piece string sections anymore on my records.
I'm going with basic rhythm sections and great players and hopefully great
songs."
Tennessee Moon was recorded last year in Nashville, where Diamond went to
find new songwriting inspiration -- and to take refuge after his long-term
marriage broke up.
"I had gone through a divorce four or five months before and was just
hanging around, of use to nobody," he says candidly. "And I just felt I
had to get productive again. The idea of Nashville came up, and I just
decided to do it. I felt this was the time if I ever was going to do it."
So Diamond became a Nashville cat for a year. He rented a house, wrote
songs with the city's top songwriters and recorded tunes with Chet Atkins
("Blue Highway"), Waylon Jennings ("One Good Love") and Raul Malo of the
Mavericks ("Reminisce for a While").
"These people came to it with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm," says
Diamond. "I liked that. I hadn't felt that in a long time. There's an
attitude down there that you don't find too often. It's one of real
personal pride in what they do. You'll have musicians who'll want to come
in on a Saturday just to tinker with the parts they played, to fix them or
make them better. You don't find that usually in other places."
To reflect the album's predominant country music tone, Diamond is bringing
a fiddle player on tour. The tour will again utilize a
theater-in-the-round format, of which Diamond has become a huge devotee.
"We have a new stage that gives me a lot of room to play on, and brings
everybody in the audience up 50 percent closer. It's the way I want to go
now."
What's surprising, though, is that Diamond, who seems so unflappable,
admits to getting the jitters when facing a new tour. "I have my share of
butterflies," says pop music's Peter Pan. "It's nice to lay back and rest
on your laurels, but I still have to go out there and entertain an
audience. That's the real deal. ... It gets you a little scared, but it
gets your adrenaline going."
--
.../Paul Maclauchlan
paulmac@vex.net http://www.vex.net/~paulmac
"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."/JL&PM'67