Neil Diamond ~ Forever In Blue Jeans 1978 Disco Purrfection Version

Neil Diamond was born January 24, 1941 in Brooklyn, NY. His early interest in music led to his joining the Choral Club where he met a young Barbra Streisand, nothing serious, just hanging out smoking cigarettes away from the eyes of the educators when they could. He got his first guitar at the age of 16 and learned to write his own music and hone his poetry writing to attract the ladies. This passion affected his college studies so much he began hanging out in the now famed Brill Building where all the best songwriters were located. When he was offered a job with a music publishing company for four months he quit school to earn 50$ a week salary. After the job ran out he set himself up to record as a duo and had little success, but made enought to keep his head above water. It was not until 1965 when Jay & The Americans recorded his "Sunday & Me" that he began to work in earnest writing classics like "I'm A Believer" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" for the The Monkees. He recorded a few songs like "Cherry, Cherry" and "Solitary Man" when he was really rocking out. His style of MOR pop turned "Sweet Caroline" and "Holly Holy" into Top 10 hits. "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Song Sung Blue" topped the charts and he continued having top 40 hits when he came back with his duet with ex-schoolmate Barbra Streisand for "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" a #1 pop hit for two weeks. I so remember the Grammy Awards when Neil Diamond came out to sing the song and just as he was going to sing Barbra's line, she stepped out of the shadows and sang. I think the entire TV watching audience gasped at the same time cos it was heard round the world! What a stunning revelation it was. The reason the duet happened was because Neil and Barbra had each recorded their version of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers". A DJ heard both and since they were both in the same key, created a mash up that ended up being a fake duet and it actually got played on the radio. The phones went wild and when Columbia heard about the ruckus, got the two into the studio to properly record the song. Well, Neil had this little downtempo dance tune called "Forever In Blue Jeans" that peaked at #20 the spring of 1979 as the follow up. It could have been a commercial for jeans, and I'm wonderin' when someone is going to snap it up for that.