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Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 24, 1941. After receiving a scholarship for fencing, he attended New York University, where he decided to major in medicine. He pursued medicine fully until his senior year when he was offered fifty dollars a week to write songs, an offer made by a music publishing company. His early career was defined by songs that he wrote for himself, but ended up being released by other groups before himself. Songs such as "I'm A Believer" and "Red Red Wine " found favor with other groups before he managed to release them himself. The benefit to such a release style is that Neil began to be recognized as an accomplished songwriter.
While he continued to release musical albums, Neil began to expand his influence into other areas. One such foray that didn't work out too well was his performance in the 1980 remake of "The Jazz Singer." Diamond was actually awarded the first ever Razzie award, for worst actor in a leading role. For every low mark there is a high mark. In January of 1987, Diamond performed the national anthem at the Superbowl.
Neil Diamond once collapsed on stage in 1979, after ignoring symptoms of a numbing leg that had been plaguing him for a number of years. After a large tumor was removed from his spine, he was convinced he was going to die. To this day, he is still plagued by severe back pains.
Neil Diamond has, to date, released 31 studio albums. He has also charted 37 top forty songs. Neil has also released 8 live albums. His debut album was entitled "The Feel of Neil Diamond" and his most recent album is entitled "Dreams". He has been nominated and won several Grammy awards. The most prestigious award to date would probably be his award at Kennedy Center Honors. Neil Diamond, Meryl Streep and Yo-Yo Ma were among the recipients during the ceremony that took place in early December, 2011.
Neil Diamond has been said, by some, to have two distinct personalities. While he has written light pop songs as well as deeply introspective songs, throughout the majority of his career he performed in excessively sparkly suits. This would lead one to believe that he doesn't take himself too seriously and knows that he's occasionally a target for ridicule. He actually portrayed an exaggerated version of himself in the 2001 film "Saving Silverman". Neil Diamond is about to embark on an 2012 arena/theater tour throughout the whole of the United States. Dates have been announced and tickets are available for purchase.
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