The second album, 1973’s UK-only release The Tra-La Days Are Over, featured a song called “Love Will Keep Us Together.”Īccording to Neil, “Love Will Keep Us Together” (a co-write with Howard Greenfield) was inspired by the singing styles of the Al Green, The Supremes, and The Beach Boys, specifically their 1968 single “Do It Again” (and unmistakably so–check it out here). He recorded two albums within the walls of Strawberry Studios, with a pre-fame 10cc as his backing band. It was in 1972 that the official rebirth of Neil Sedaka-Pop Star began. His efforts earned him a loyal following in both countries, and this cult popularity led to albums and songs being released exclusively in those territories to capitalize. By the late ’60s he’d begun hitting the live circuit again, specifically within the UK and Australia, whose audiences seemed especially receptive to his charms.
Neil’s undeniable songwriting skills were still keeping him active (penning songs for The Monkees, amongst others), but in the wake of Beatlemania, like most of his previously successful early ’60s peers, he was instantly persona non grata in terms of being an actual pop star…so much so that by 1966, RCA, his label at the time, dropped him.īut Neil persevered. To say the Beatles made nearly everything that had come before them sound and look ridiculously antique and wildly unhip would be a gargantuan understatement.
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airwaves, TV screens and actual shores, all the saccharine artists and tunes that had been so dominant at the start of the decade were straight-up done for. Yup, once the British Invasion hit the U.S. He was also a fledgling pop star himself, scoring a solid handful of hits during the first half of the’60s, the best known being evergreen goofballs “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” and “Calendar Girl”(composed with writing partner Howard Greenfield). Alas, doom was on the horizon for all the teen sweethearts of the early ’60s pop universe with their pastel sweaters and corny love songs.
Neil began his career as part of the songwriting stable at the legendary Brill Building in NYC in the late ’50s along with Gerry Goffin and Carole King. All of which is to say, it was a great time to be Neil Sedaka. And it was not uncommon for these songs to hit the heights in the illustrious pop top 40.
It was downright normal to see people your parents’ (occasionally even grandparents’) age, with sideburns and unbuttoned shirts, performing their latest frothy radio-friendly single on prime-time network television. It was surprisingly common for songs performed by artists 35 and up to be rubbing shoulders with the songs by the “kids.” Not only did radio embrace the “ageless” approach, but all the afternoon talk shows and nighttime variety hours on TV were complicit with the notion. You didn’t have to be a hot young thing in your early twenties (or younger) to score a massive hit. When it came to the pop charts in the ’70s, age literally was just a number. “Love Will Keep Us Together” was the musical embodiment of everything the Captain & Tennille seemed to be about, a mission statement if you will, a song so aligned with their whole persona, so custom fit to their sugary weirdness, that even 45+ years later it’s still hard to believe it was a freakin’ cover. If asked to pick a song that best encapsulates the swinging ’70s in all its shag-carpeted, Pet Rock’d, earth-shoed glory, you’d be hard pressed to find a better specimen than the Captain & Tennille’s 1975 #1 hit “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Infectious, bouncy, and supremely sticky, sounding like both a commercial jingle and the kind of thing a Disney World in-house performing arts ensemble would include in the love-themed portion of their act (see the legendarily tacky incredible-ness of “ Up With People,” or even better, The Simpsons‘ reimagined take “ Hooray For Everything“), it was POP with a capitol P and Proud of it.
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