BREAKING: Stafford Township Arts Center are reportedly set to host Neil Diamond Tribute at STAC on……
Stafford Township Arts Center are reportedly set to host Neil Diamond Tribute at STAC on July 18
The Stafford Township Arts Center will feature Jay White’s “Sweet Caroline Tour” on Thursday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $55 or $65, and can be purchased online at stacnj.com or by calling 718-423-8394.
There have been numerous tribute events, but anyone who has seen records of White’s performances will surely agree that he looks and sounds so much like Neil Diamond that it is almost frightening.
Diamond, now 83, has won just about any award that an American singer-songwriter can earn. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, was an honoree at the Kennedy Centers Honors that same year, and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide and some 49.5 million in the United States alone. Diamond had 10 No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 or Billboard Adult Contemporary charts – “Cracklin’ Rosie,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Longfellow Serenade,” “I’ve Been This Way Before,” “If You Know What I Mean,” “Desiree,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” “America,” “Yesterday’s Songs,” and “Heartlight.” Interesting, isn’t it, that the song he is most associated with these days, “Sweet Caroline,” wasn’t one of them, although it did reach No. 4 on the Hot 100.
Not bad for a Brooklyn-born child, the son of dry-goods trader Akeeba Diamond and his mother Rose. His four grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland. In 1981, he wrote the song “America” in honor of a grandma.
“It was almost 100 years ago when a little girl, 12 years old, was put on a train in Kiev, Russia (at the time, Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire) and made the 1,200-mile journey to Rotterdam in Holland,” Diamond remarked when introducing the song at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in 2012. “She then boarded a ship on the epic journey to freedom in a land called America. That little girl was my granny. She and her daughter Rose encouraged me to do everything I’ve done in my life. Her bravery will not be forgotten. It sings in every song that I sing. “This one is for her.”
Diamond said in 2018 that he would stop touring after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
However, White captures a Diamond performance almost precisely.
When White encountered Diamond after a performance in Vegas, the legend was caught on tape asking him to “keep up the good work.” And White’s percussionist, King Errisson, who has accompanied Diamond on every record and concert tour since 1974, was effusive in his appreciation for White:
“Well, I’ll tell you what, he looks the most like Neil Diamond of anyone I’ve ever seen. So near to Neil Diamond that if you closed your eyes, you’d swear you were onstage with him. —R.M.
