BREAKING: Neil Diamond has taken another wife
Neil Diamond and Katie McNeil attended the Jack and Jill premiere in 2011. Source: Getty.
On Saturday, April 21, the 71-year-old singer married his manager Katie McNeil in Los Angeles for the third time.
The couple exchanged vows in a small ceremony in front of family and close friends, his agent revealed to People magazine.
The Sweet Caroline hitmaker tweeted: “Katie and I got married last night, and we wish you all could have been there. It was magical! “Love, Neil.”
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Neil also announced his engagement to Katie, 42, on Twitter in September, tweeting: “Good news coming from sunny LA/ and you’re the first I want to tell/ Katie & I just got engaged/ and I hope you wish us well.”
Neil has two children, Marjorie and Elyn, from his first marriage to Jaye Posner, which ended in 1967.
He also has two kids, Jesse and Micah, with his second wife Marcia Murphey, whom he married in 1969 and divorced in 1994.
The second marriage ended in one of the most expensive divorces in the entertainment industry, with Neil paying an estimated $150 million settlement.
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’12 Songs’: Neil Diamond and Rick Rubin Create Magic Together
Neil Diamond had nothing left to prove in 2005. But with this late-career classic, he proved it anyway.
Neil Diamond had nothing more to prove in 2005. But with the late-career classic 12 Songs, he proved it. Diamond had gone through so many phases—upstart rocker, melancholy folk-rocker, larger-than-life entertainer—that it was easy to forget he was first and foremost a lyricist. Enter Rick Rubin, fresh off a production triumph with Johnny Cash (featuring a Diamond song, “Solitary Man”) and eager to recreate the magic.
In Diamond’s discography, 12 Songs did not emerge out of nowhere. His previous album, Three Chord Opera, was his first totally self-written record in decades and signaled a departure from the flashy productions of the past. But Rubin took it a step farther. As he said in the album’s liner notes, the producer insisted on giving him extra time to write: “Rick was determined not to rush the process, but to wait until we got to the essence of the songs I was working on.”
Rubin had Diamond pick up his guitar again, and the strummed acoustic became the album’s sonic core. The album isn’t quite as stripped-down as it sounds, with a good dozen other musicians, including familiar names like studio vet Larry Knechtel (who shares piano duties with modern pop figure Roger Joseph Manning from Jellyfish) and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell (the album’s musical MVP, playing guitar and arrangements). Nonetheless, the album seems intimate from beginning to end: On the opening “Oh Mary,” your ears expect a room full of people to join in during the chorus, but it’s just one man repeating his beloved’s name, which makes it all the more striking.
Like the Cash albums, 12 Songs focuses on more serious content. But there’s a huge difference: Cash’s American Recordings series is chock-full of songs about looming death, with each edition becoming darker. But Diamond didn’t actually roll that way: His own song on getting older, “Hell Yeah,” is both gracious and humorous. He refers to himself as a “lucky old dreamer” who has “been around a good long while,” and he certainly learnt and had a good time. The speaker addresses the listener directly, saying, “I hear you wondering out loud, are you ever going to make it?”Simply believe you can. Absolutely, you will.”
Similarly, “Man of God” references the philosophical Diamond of “I Am..I Said”: the message here is that you can discover God in love or in a song, even if you “never learned to pray.” The legendary Billy Preston, who is making his final recorded appearance, adds a touch of gospel with his Hammond organ.
But this is still Neil Diamond’s record, and the heart is still his natural territory—whether he’s lamenting a lost love on “Evermore” or celebrating a new one on “Save Me a Saturday Night” (the songs are cleverly arranged back to back). His old Brill Building pop sensibilities are also present: “I’m On to You” harkens back to his swaggering Bang Records days and is the only track with drums. The charmingly nostalgic “Delirious Love” already has a Beach Boys sound, with an easy-rolling “Help Me Rhonda” groove, so it made perfect sense to record an alternate version with Brian Wilson providing backup vocals.
12 Songs received some of his greatest reviews in decades, and it became one of his rare albums to reach the Top 10 without the help of a major hit single. And it answered the question of whether Neil Diamond could make a comeback at the age of 64: Absolutely.
