Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Musical Interlude: Laughter In the Rain (1974)

Neil Sedaka made a modest return to the charts in the mid-70's, fitting right in with all the soft pop-rock that filled the AM airwaves. Over the course of six years (1974-80), Sedaka would score at least 3-4 more hits for himself, and co-wrote the Captain & Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together", a chart-topping smash in 1975.

What got my attention, however, was this dreamy ballad from 1974, "Laughter in the Rain". Neil takes us back in time to the late 50's-early 60's, when he first emerged on the scene. The tempo's a little slower than the high energy hits like "Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen", but I would think today, "Laughter" would still get some airplay on adult-contemporary stations.



2 years later, Neil's daughter, Dara, made her debut performing with her father. Here, Dara takes over lead vocals on "Laughter", while papa Neil plays the piano and sings backup:



The Sedakas' last top 40 hit was "Never Should've Let You Go", in 1980. These days, Neil's on TV doing one of those StarVista/TimeLife informercials, but one wonders whatever happened to Dara.......

4 comments:

magicdog said...

"Laughter in the Rain" is still one of my all time favorite songs! It does get quite a bit of airplay in my local market.

Neil ended up with the short end of the stick for a while - Beatlemania really put his singing career in a tailspin, even though he did have his songwriting skills to carry him through.

I remember seeing him perform with Dara on TV; they performed the song, "Bad Blood".

Dara still sings - in fact a large part of her singing career has been singing for TV and radio commercials. His son Marc is a screenwriter.

Sedaka did get a big boost during Season 2 of American Idol when he was a guest judge and several of his past hits were trotted out by the contestants. I remember Clay Aiken singing his song, "Solitaire" and it became a hit all over again (to the point Sedaka himself said Clay OWNED the song).

Whenever his tunes would turn up on the old WCBS - FM radio station, Cousin Brucie would refer to him as "By Crackie - it's Neil Sedackie!" . Yeah, corny but Cousin Brucie is a treasure!!

hobbyfan said...

I remember seeing a commercial for Wonderama promoting the Sedakas appearing on the show, with a clip of "Bad Blood".

Too bad Cousin Brucie's show isn't available in my neck of the woods. Used to be, but upstaters pretty much said, "Who's he?", and changed the channel.........

magicdog said...

Cousin Brucie still hosts on satellite radio. It's "The 50s on Five". I've been able to catch it because several satellite radio stations are part of my Dish package.

Maybe you could get it online or a podcast?

hobbyfan said...

Seeing as how I don't have the means for satellite radio, maybe catching it online will work. I've heard about the satellite show on SiriusXM, BTW.