It is hard to imagine a more unlikely late night phone conversation.
Neil Sedaka, one-time teen idol and clean cut pop balladeer, conversing with John Lennon who, with long hair, avant garde leanings and ongoing troubles with the FBI, had spent the previous ten years shaking-off his own pop beginnings.
“John was a friend. It was 1975. He was having trouble with the immigration department here in the US getting a green card because of some talk of drugs.
“I’ll never forget, I wrote ‘The Immigrant’ and dedicated it to him. I left him a message to tell him, and he called me back. And he was a little frightened.
“He said: ‘People normally call me and ask me for favours, but I am over the moon that you’ve dedicated this song to me.’”
Sedaka talks warmly about The Beatles front man, and his memories of Liverpool, from his 14th floor office on Lexington Avenue, New York.
Barely 2 miles across town is the Brill Building, the golden doored mecca of 20th Century pop where he plied his trade during the Fifties and Sixties.
Leiber and Stoller, Burt Bacarach, Neil Diamond, Phil Spector, Doc Pomus and Paul Simon all passed through its famous doors at one time or another, setting a new standard for popular songwriting along the way.
Sedaka was still in his teens when he arrived there in 1958 and, over the next four years, crafted a huge catalogue of hits, songs that still get frequent airplay around the world.
“Being from the Brill Building we were taught to write hooks and lyrics that stay with you.”
“But I never thought things I wrote 50 years ago would still be on the radio today.”
Signature tunes like ‘Oh! Carol’, ‘Calendar Girl’, ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’, ‘Stupid Cupid’ and ‘Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen’ were performed by Sedaka in his distinctive high tenor, then covered by dozens more.
Stars like Elvis Presley and Connie Francis gave memorable renditions of his melodies, but Tony Christie’s version of ‘Is This The Way To Amarillo’ is the one he credits for making him relevant again this century.
Christie originally recorded Sedaka’s song in 1971, finding huge success when he re-released it 34 years later for Comic Relief.
“Tony’s a great singer. His record is far better than mine. But I think Peter Kay’s video had a lot to do with the success.
“I got a record from the World Guinness Book of Records, the most successful song of the 21st Century. I’m looking at it now, it’s on my wall.
“I’ve become contemporary again. I’m not a nostalgic act.”
But just as his popularity reaches a fresh plateau, Sedaka, now 70, says he is ready to bid farewell to the genre on which his reputation was founded.
“After a thousand songs, which I am very proud of, I am going back full circle to my classical roots. I’ve written a symphony and a piano concerto.
“As much as I love the pop writing, I feel it’s a limited framework. With classical music, I think you have much more freedom. It’s an exploration that’s limitless.”
He arrives in Liverpool next week for what could be his last pop concert in the city, bringing with him a new album, The Music of My Life, which he sees as something of a farewell.
“If I may say so, it’s my crowning glory and my swan songs. I don’t think I can top them.”
The Brooklyn-born songwriter is now semi-retired and handpicks the venues he travels to, making it clear the northwest of England bears special significance for him.
He recorded two albums in Stockport’s Strawberry Studios in the early 1970’s, working with then studio band 10cc.
Solitaire and The Tra-La Days Are Over marked a major shift in direction for Sedaka, as he shook off the teen idol image, re-establishing himself as a sophisticated songsmith for the older generation.
But the change was not instantly accepted, and he recalls fondly the struggle he had with Merseyside audiences back then.
“I do have great memories of an old club, the Wooky Hollow in Liverpool.
“I came over in the early seventies and of course everyone wanted to hear ‘Oh! Carol’ and ‘I Go Ape’, and I wanted desperately to get some of the new songs in.
“But it took me a couple of years of touring to finally be accepted as a mature artist.”
Now, almost forty years on, he will once again give Liverpool audiences first refusal on his new songs.
He performs at the Philharmonic on June 22nd and says the challenge of playing new material is something he still relishes.
“There is that excitement of the new audience response. That’s always a great feeling. I love the live performance, that adrenaline rush that keeps you going.”
But fans will not have to call out for the classics this time around.
“I never tired of the old songs, I never do a medley. I always do them in their entirety. I’m doing a solo concert, which is one of my favourites; it’s the pure form of my compositions, the way I wrote them.
“I have a video screen, I’ll tell stories about why I write, how I write. I think people are interested in the personal side.”
Sedaka has been married to his wife Seba since 1962, together they have two children, and he lights up as he describes their life together.
“We live in New York and Los Angeles, half and half. Many weeks we’re with the grandchildren in California, or going to a movie or a theatre in New York. For my big birthday in March, we went on a cruise with the grandchildren. We went from Mexico to LA.”
He talks excitedly about his grandchildren, and credits them as the inspiration for his last album, Waking Up Is Hard To Do.
“They inspired me to do a children’s album where I sing my old hits with different lyrics. So, for example, ‘I love, I love, I love, I love my calendar girl’ becomes: ‘I love, I love, I love, I love my dinosaur pet’,” he sings.
He adds playfully that he checked Amazon.com earlier that morning and was surprised to see his kids album as the #1 seller, just ahead of Bob Dylan’s new album, Together Through Life.
“I was looking at the charts and, if I may blow my own horn, Neil Sedaka had the number one album and Bob Dylan had the number two. I’m in good company.”
Asked why artists like him and Dylan retain such huge appeal half a century on, he said that the clue, as ever, is in the melodies.
“Adele has a beautiful Dylan song on her album (‘To Make You Feel My Love’) and I absolutely think people are going back to the melodic songs. They are getting a little tired of the hip hop.
“It’s quite flattering. I think everyone wants some form of immortality, and I think my songs will outlive me.”
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