August 11: Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” became a #1 hit on this date in 1962. Sedaka, born in Brooklyn in 1939, had a Sephardi father and Ashkenazi mother (the family name is a variant of “tsedoke,” the Jewish word for charity). His childhood friend, Howard Greenfield, collaborated as a lyricist with Sedaka in writing numerous songs in New York’s Brill Building, alongside such powerhouse songwriters as Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Paul Simon, and Laura Nyro. Sedaka also founded the Tokens, a doo-wop band that had a hit with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” after Sedaka had left them. His own peak as a performer came between 1959 and 1963 with hits that included “Calendar Girl,” “Right Next Door to an Angel,” and “Happy Birthday, Sweet 16.” Sedaka and Greenfield also wrote hits for Connie Francis (“Stupid Cupid”), Gene Pitney (“It Hurts To Be in Love”), The Captain and Tenille (“Love Will Keep Us Together”), and several other performers. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983.

“The public loved The Beatles’ style. So my career was over. People used to walk up to me in the street ‘Didn’t you use to be Neil Sedaka?’ ” —Neil Sedaka

Watch Neil Sedaka perform (lip-sync?) “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” on Shindig in 1965: