A piano was all Sedaka needed

Neil Sedaka at St David’s Hall, Cardiff

WHEN music royalty like Elvis, Neil Diamond, Cher, Sheryl Crow, our own Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones and even The Simpsons covers your songs then your place as a top songwriter is surely assured.

Working with lyricist Howard Greenfield, Sedaka penned some of the best known songs of the last 60 years and enjoyed hits on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world, also recording in languages other than English.

Although now 78, Sedaka clearly still loves entertaining and enjoys adulation from audiences. He has a great rapport with fans and in between the music tells stories from his life and career. Sedaka is alone on stage with his beloved piano and that’s all he needs. His concert at St David’s Hall was his last on a short tour of the UK and Sedaka ran through a seemingly endless back catalogue of hits.

The big breakthrough came with the hit, Oh! Carol, written about this high school girlfriend, Carole Kline, later Carole King. And between 1958 and 1963, the Tra-La man sold 40 million records. Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen, Breaking Up is Hard to Do and Calendar Girl all followed.

It all came to a shuddering halt, as Sedaka explains, when four lads from Liverpool changed the face of pop music. He fell out of fashion as the so-called British Invasion of the US dominated the charts and it took 13 years for him to re-emerge with Laughter in the Rain.

Sedaka explained that he was dedicating You to his Cardiff audience and the breadth of his talent was highlighted when he sung Do You Remember? in English and Spanish and even played a piece of music by Frederic Chopin. We don’t know how many more years Sedaka can go on entertaining audiences but the Tra-La man’s legacy is assured.

Opening the night with a short set was Irish singer-songwriter Jack Lukeman. His unaccompanied version – even without the support of microphone – of Ol’ Man River, made famous by Paul Robeson, was outstanding.

Phil Nifield