Growing up, I always thought of Neil Diamond as someone who was in the record collections of people whose record collections I had no interest in thumbing through. He seemed to represent the ultimate Vegas crooner who people with good taste in music wanted to have nothing to do with. You couldn't even get on him for being a sell out because he never seemed to have any principles in the first place. Then, it emerged that he was also this talented songwriter who wrote "I'm a Believer" for The Monkees and "Red, Red Wine" which was eventually a massive hit for UB40. Turns out, he also had a dark heart that fed into proto-goth compositions like "Solitary Man" and "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon", the latter of which was memorably featured in 1994's Pulp Fiction. Then, we all discovered the sheer delight of "Sweet Caroline" from pub singalongs and as a karaoke favourite - and long before it became an arena/stadium cliche in the world of profession sports. The guy was a serious musical giant.
Except he really wasn't for the most part. In truth, the opening paragraph lists just about everything the man accomplished of note. He wrote a few other songs (as I have already stated, "The Boat That I Row" is a banger but not until Lulu got a hold of it) but his recorded output is remarkably thin. No wonder the majority of his best remembered tracks were made popular by other artists. I was surprised to discover that he only had one solo Canadian number one (I will eventually be reviewing a duet that also topped the RPM hit parade) but then I realized that for such a popular recording artist, he doesn't have a great deal that has remained in the ether. No doubt Diamond loyalists remain and I wish them all the best but the rest of the world has quite happily moved on.
I feel that Diamond's biggest weakness was having an ambition that towered over his already considerable abilities. Was he a country crooner like Faron Young and George Jones? A jazz vocalist in the tradition of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra? A seventies' singer-songwriter right up there with Carole King and Cat Stevens? He was sort of all of these things but couldn't quite nail any of them. Not quite a sonic shapeshifter (had he and Todd Rundgren been merged into a single being — God help us — this abomination would have qualified) but the sort of entertainer who, perhaps with the best of intentions, made the wrong-headed decision to be all things to all consumers of music. It didn't really work but he still made a very good career of it.
"Cracklin' Rosie" has elements that sound like a potentially good pop song. Diamond's gift for winning melodies is certainly present but his singing is way too all over the place. A vocalist with the ability/interest to pick a lane would have likely pulled off an effective less-is-more-approach. It could have been a pleasant country number or a lovely vocal jazz exercise. I don't necessarily hear a hit single like "I'm a Believer" or "The Boat That I Row" but it could have at the very least been a serviceable deep cut on an album by, say, Willie Nelson or Luther Vandross or maybe even Bryan Ferry. Rather than sounding lost as inexperienced vocalists might, he sounds all too sure of the way — only for him to trip over himself en route.
I know I come across here as an intolerable music snob but that's what people like Neil Diamond do to people like me. He could have crafted truly exquisite pop — and there are even rare instances in which he did — but he couldn't help get in the way. Many of his predecessors in the Tin Pan Alley/Brill Building American staff songwriter tradition had ambitions to be recording artists in their own right. While a few like Barry Mann and the duo of Boyce and Hart saw fleeting success, only a very select few managed to fully crossover. Neil Sedaka pulled it off by being the epitome of the pop star that he had been writing for. Carole King did so by gradually moving away from commercial pop and in the direction of opening herself up. But everything about Diamond's shift proved to be counterintuitive: a charismatic performer with a powerful range who could interpret the material of others better than the songs he wrote himself and a man who oversold what didn't need flogging in the first place.
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