Pop’s chia-chested hitmaker opens up about his legion of Guatemalan seamstresses, trash-talking with Bob Dylan and his secret gangsta past.
You almost changed your name to Eice Cherry. What the hell were you thinking? Dmvsucks, ChicagoI was thinking Neil Diamond was such an ordinary name! Everybody called me that since I was a baby. If I was gonna make a record, I needed a real rock & roll name. It was either going to be Eice Cherry or Noah Kaminsky. But my grandmother was in the hospital at the time, and I knew I could never show her a record with another person’s name on it and have her believe it was me. So I stayed Neil Diamond. I thank God
every day.
You once recorded an anti-drug tune called “The Pot Smoker’s Song.” What do you have against the sweet leaf?Gregcowles, Pittsville, MD
It makes you stupid. I recorded that song at the height of the drug culture, in 1968. People thought I was so unhip. It almost cost me my career. And yes, I’ve smoked pot, but I stopped years ago. Because it made me stupid.
I’ve seen photos of you from the ’70s—your hair is phenomenal! Can you give me any styling tips? l_gonzalez6, Amarillo, TXShampoo, conditioner and a good comb. I like to keep things simple.
I read that as a kid you were shot in the face. That’s pretty gangsta! TaKe2dastreets, Metairie, LA
When I was 12 I moved to a neighborhood in Brooklyn called Flatbush. It was a rough place: very somber, very gray, very working-class and very easy to get in trouble. On weekends, my friends and I would go out and get into fights with kids from other neighborhoods. One night we were scrapping with these guys in Prospect Park, around the corner from my house, when all of a sudden I heard this pop and felt a hit under my left eye. It turned out I’d been shot. It was only a pellet gun, but it hurt pretty bad—it gave me a nice black eye. I went straight home and never told my mother. That was my first and last gang fight.
Have any politicians ever asked to use “America” for their campaigns?Subwayhero1, Stamford, CT
Michael Dukakis used it in 1988, but he never asked. I didn’t mind. To me the song talks about immigration and my grandparents, so any political party that wants to use it is welcome to it—McCain, Obama, whoever. Of course, it didn’t seem to turn out very well for Dukakis. But don’t blame the song.
Is it true you turned down the Robert De Niro role in Taxi Driver? Diamonds4eyes, Boise, ID
The producer spoke to me a few times to see if I was interested, but I wasn’t. De Niro was their first choice, and I think they made the right decision. Acting is different than music. I don’t think I have any talent for it—as my reviews for
The Jazz Singer will attest. If they’d let me sing in Taxi Driver I might have been interested. But that would have been a pretty different movie.