Neil Sedaka in Conversation with Anthony DeCurtis

Grammy Award winner Neil Sedaka was born and raised in Brooklyn to a Turkish-Jewish father and Polish-Russian Jewish mother. A teen pop star and writer, his credits comprise more 1,000 songs including hits such as “Calendar Girl” and “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” After a career downturn in the 60s, he rose again in the 70s with “Love Will Keep Us Together,” “Bad Blood,” and “Laughter in the Rain,” a resurrection partially due to his being signed by Elton John’s Rocket Records. Sedaka’s mid-70s re-recording of “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” makes him the only artist to have entirely reworked and rearranged versions of the same song reach the Top 10. Sedaka went on to have yet another career peak in the 21^st century, with regular appearances on American Idol. Sedaka discusses his extraordinary career with Anthony DeCurtis, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.