It was Richard Bennett, his faithful guitarist -- on this night 40 years ago, and still today -- clamoring outside Diamond's hotel room. He had a new picking melody he said he needed to share.
Diamond wanted no part of the pitch; he was sitting on his bed, somewhere in the '70s midwest, watching a cowboy movie and eating Cracker Jacks. No new music tonight.
But Bennett insisted.
"So I said, 'Fine. Richard, sit. Play it, and then we're gonna watch some movies.'"
On a raised platform Thursday night, Bennett began that evening's tune -- the opening riff to "Forever in Blue Jeans" -- as a swell of cheers rose from the Madison Square Garden audience.
"How was I supposed to know it was gonna be a No. 1 record?" Diamond laughed over the crowd's noise. "Thank goodness for Richard's persistence."
After all, persistence is was what got Diamond noticed in the first place; the Brooklyn native was a faceless songwriter in New York, working in the Brill Building and elsewhere for years before "Solitary Man" and "Cherry, Cherry" hit the airwaves under his own name, way back in 1966.
Diamond was 26 years old when he first broke through. And now, at a spry 76, the venerable music man is celebrating 50 years of silky adult contemporary on a spring anniversary tour, which trotted through New York Thursday and plays there again Saturday night.
More:
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2017/06/neil_diamond_50th_anniversary_tour_nyc_msg_review.html
