Neil Diamond Phil Donahue 1993

May 1, 2023 3:31 PM

Neil Diamond had just released a new album in the second half of 1993 when he appeared on the Phil Donahue Show [46m]. I feel like this is peak early Nineties daytime television.
posted by hippybear (10 comments total)

PSA: Neil Diamond is still alive
posted by Jon Mitchell at 3:32 PM on May 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think I saw the Chicken Lady in the audience.
posted by whatevernot at 3:45 PM on May 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

yeah, Niel Daimond gets overlooked enough as is.
posted by philip-random at 5:18 PM on May 1, 2023

I feel like this is peak early Nineties daytime television.

Sadly too true. Where's an inanimate carbon rod when you need one?
posted by y2karl at 5:38 PM on May 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Y’all probably caught this already but I just love it: opening night of A Beautiful Noise on Broadway.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:38 PM on May 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

speaking of the early 90s, that was when I properly rediscovered the Neil Diamond magic. Punk and new wave and hardcore and whatever had all crashed and burned and here was this fabulously uncool guy who'd been all the over AM radio when I was little kid still sounding fabulous, cool even. In fact, there was one "grunge" outfit I was friends with at the time who used to say, "There are two kinds of people in the world. People who know that Neil Diamond is better than U2, REM and Nirvana combined, and people who are wrong." You'd be hanging out with them and there'd always be a point (around the fourth or fifth drink) when the Neil Diamond vinyl would get hauled out -- Hot August Night in particular, because it is, of course, the greatest live album ever recorded.

That link is to a 2008 performance of Crunch Granola (first song from Hot August Night). Here's the whole concert.
posted by philip-random at 6:48 PM on May 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow, this is amazing. This is an odd amalgamation of daytime television populism, and rock legend pop cult of personality with the kind of sweater clad holiday smaltz my grandmother would love. Donahue is the foundation of am entire genre of television and it's strange to see him close to his peak... considering it's a genre I had no real love for... and while I also have a mostly detached... Academic? ... affection for Neil Diamond, he traveled such an amazing road, he was born around the same time as my father but couldn't have possibly lived a more different life... a Brooklyn jew in high school with Barbara Streisand who attended NYU on a fencing scholarship before joining Tin Pan Alley as a songwriter for the Monkeys and so many others, and then continued creating for 5 decades. On this show Neil tells a story about Irving Berlin and it's bizarre to think of the two of them showing up at the same building every workday to earn a living, even if the overlap was only for a few months.

Lastly... will middle America ever get tired of New York Jewish singers releasing Christmas albums?
posted by midmarch snowman at 7:01 PM on May 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Four years later, the world was ready for 'Neil Diamond Parking Lot.'
posted by box at 5:03 AM on May 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Monkees
posted by Billiken at 5:52 AM on May 2, 2023

I misread this as Neil Young and was expecting something very different.
posted by tom_r at 11:04 AM on May 2, 2023