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All you had to do was close your eyes, follow the wanderings
of your memory, and you were back at your high school prom.
The bridge gapping three decades or so disappeared as you found that
long-lost teenager who grew up in the rock 'n roll generation.
While Neil Sedaka sang, "Happy Birthday, Sweet 16" your feet,
keeping time with the beat, danced right back into the 1960s when you
were 16.
There in the crowded Pavilion at Harrah's Cherokee Casino a roomful
of baby boomers joined you, traveling their own personal journeys back
to carefree days of youth...days of long, straight hair with head bands,
colorful tie-dyed shirts and strings of love beads, bell bottoms –
all adorned with peace symbols.
Sedaka's music symbolized the music of our roots – back when most
of the guys' hair had roots.
"My songs were happy – even naive, but at least you could
understand the lyrics," Sedaka described his style. Even those
"Tra-la-las" and "Dobby-dos."
Known as the King of Tra-la-la and Dobby-do, Sedaka told the Friday
night crowd he used those ditties when he couldn't think of words to
fit the rhythm. This was a guy who started writing songs at age 13.
The theme of love echoed throughout all his music, songs like "Oh
Carol," "Where the Boys Are," "Stairway to Heaven,"
"Diary," and "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do."
Perhaps it is that theme which sustained him 'cause, after all these
years, isn't love what it's all about? Don't we all have the need to
connect to someone?
Sedaka's talent has sustained him, too, because in addition to singing,
he is a marvelous piano player, consummate entertainer, a song writer
for others and has "reinvented" his music for today's listeners.
So if you are thinking Sedaka might just be some old fuddy-duddy, think
Clay Aiken, who turns 25 Sunday, Nov. 30. This cutie from North Carolina,
who stole our hearts as runner-up on "American Idol" sang
one of Sedaka's songs in competition and, on Dec. 12, will release his
version of Sedaka's "Solitaire."
Why did this hot young talent choose Sedaka's songs? "Because I
like music that brings people together," Aiken said, and I can't
say it any better.
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