Who among us doesn’t have a Neil Diamond tape (record? CD?), can’t hum along with or sing along to one of his old classics?
You can’t avoid his old chestnut “Sweet Caroline” at Albuquerque Isotopes ballgames this summer. During a pitching change or between innings sometimes the song plays over the ballpark’s loud speakers and is potted down several times, so only the fans may be heard singing “Good times never felt so good” or “bom bom bom.” (The ‘Topes borrowed that from Fenway Park, it seems. He’s appearing there on Aug. 8.)
|
|
So it wasn’t a surprise to see Santa Ana Star Casino’s event center jam-packed Wednesday afternoon to see a reasonable facsimile thereof, namely Barrie Cunningham.
Except for a sound system problem, which annoyed Cunningham, the crowd of about 1,200 (a crowd of 1,900 attended the evening show) seemed to enjoy the music of the band, “Hot August Nights,” the “Diamond Girls” back-up singers, and about 16 of Diamond’s hits, from “Cracklin’ Rosie” to “”Coming to America.”
The “real” Neil Diamond’s career began in 1966, when “Solitary Man” became his first of countless hits – and he’s still cranking them out.
Roy and Dora Dominguez, a definite “Diamond demographic” and in their fifties, drove to the casino from the North Valley, attracted by the free concert and an afternoon out. Dora saw the “real” Diamond a little more than two years ago while on a job assignment in Dallas. And only last week, she watched “the Jazz Singer,” which starred Diamond.
Why does she like Neil Diamond?
“The way he sings and the type of music he sings,” she replied, noting more of the Diamond crowd, “Older and middle-aged,” in the casino’s event center prior to the 3 p.m. concert. “His music appeals across the board,” she said.
Cunningham, at age 59 just two years younger than Diamond, said he’s been a performer for most of his life, playing in bands after teaching himself how to play the guitar as a young teen in California, where he not only surfed but grooved to the music of Jan and Dean and The Beach Boys.
“From 15 years old I was playing in every club that they would allow me in, underage, (clubs), and a lot of them were coffeehouses, where they didn’t really serve alcohol,” he recalled. “I sang in my high school choirs, I sang in church, but I really loved the guitar. … I’m pretty much self-taught, put bands together.
“I got really into the rockabilly thing and later on in the 80s when rockabilly came back – actually, we were rockabilly before Stray Cats came out with ‘Rock This Town’ – we were performing alongside groups like The Blasters and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, that were doing kind of an R&B, rockabilly type of a sound. And we had a group called Black Slacks, which was a rockabilly group.
He’s been impersonating Diamond for more than 25 years – he also does a Jimmy Buffett impersonation – and makes a good living at it. In fact, one of his recent gigs was at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, where a former president George W. Bush was in the audience.
“I performed ‘Coming to America’ for the opening … They presented flags to the actual pilots who were the first ones to drop the bombs to stop Hitler, so we had representatives who were the veterans who flew the bombers and they handed them the flags. It was the most-touching thing you could ever see. And to perform a concert at the Brandenburg Gate, where there’d only been like one or two in the history of the world. I was just thrilled to death. Anyway, Neil’s music is very universal.”
Excluding the reaction from his audiences, Cunningham said he feels best when he’s mistaken for Diamond away from the venue, like in airports, or the time a mall security person asked where his personal security detail was because he was being followed.
“I’m a singer and a guitar player that did an awful lot of work as a solo artist, so I had to cover many, many people’s music – I couldn’t be a solo artist singing in a bar for four hours a night and sing just Jim Croce music, or just James Taylor music, or just Elvis or just Neil or just Jimmy,” he explained of his current act. “You do have to pick songs from artists so when you do their song it sounds good to the audience and to you. … If you’re going to do a tribute show, it has to be someone with a big catalog, first of all, with a lot of songs.”
Not many artists have a catalog as large as Diamond, who has had more than three-dozen top-40 hits in his long career. And there’s no doubting his popularity and longevity: According to Wikipedia, only Elton John and Barbra Streisand have sold more records – and how could he pull off tributes to either of them?
“You have to keep current on Neil and Jimmy Buffett’s stuff because they’re constantly coming out with albums,” he added. “They really want to hear the most-popular songs, but I’ll get people, ‘How come you didn’t do anything off Neil’s new album?’ And that was one person out of, I don’t know, how many did we have in here?”
Cunningham said Neil Diamond has “heard me as part of our Superstars show one time when he was passing through Reno. We were at the Flamingo Hilton, he was riding motorcycles through,” he said. “His kids were best friends with my wife’s best friend’s kids, so there was a connection with my kids a little bit. And they’d take like one of my tapes or something like that; he’d watch that.
“He’s well aware of who I am,” he said. “I know for a fact he finds it very flattering – and it’s also great marketing for him when I play in countries like Australia and they splash Neil Diamond all over. They’re rushing to buy his CDs, not mine, so it’s a great business, great marketing for him.
“They actually used my picture to announce his world tour in Australia … by accident,” he continued. “So he finds it very flattering.”
Cunningham said the best part about his tribute show is that it’s not “some freak show where you’re going to see some guy who makes himself up real freaky to look exactly like somebody. This is my hair, this is my face, my eyebrows. I just don’t do it.
“I realize that’s it’s really all about the music and I assemble the best musicians that I can, have the charts written by the best chart writers available, and try to stick to the most-popular arrangements instead of trying to get artsy or cutesy or trying to change anything.
“It’s about the music.”
Comments
No comments posted.