It's one of the great performer names, right up there with Lady Gaga and Snoop Dogg. In other words, "Neil Diamond" perfectly describes Neil Diamond. It's a fantastic name for a legendary singer who holds court before giant arenas full of people, bringing down the house with classic hit after classic hit while wearing very sparkly clothes. Never mind the subjective nature of judging the man's music we can all admit that "Neil Diamond" is a marvelous name. For "a year," he says, he spent 35 cents a day on food - 23 cents for a sandwich, 10 cents for a Coke, and two cents for a piece of candy. "I'd spent a lot of time on lyrics, and they were looking for hooks and I didn't really understand the nature of that." He'd sell a song occasionally, forcing himself to severely ration his funds. "I had very few things that were recorded even," Diamond told Rolling Stone. Unfortunately, it didn't really go anywhere, so Diamond bounced around various music publishers for seven years, barely getting by. When his contract ended it wasn't renewed, but based on the strength of his voice on the demos of songs he'd written, Columbia Records hired him to make a record. Although he needed just 10 credits to graduate college, Neil Diamond dropped out of school, headed to Tin Pan Alley, and got a 16-week gig at $50 each week with Sunbeam Music. These folks hired songwriters to sit in offices all day and churn out songs. It's a nickname for an area of New York where a number of record labels and music publishers had their offices in the early to mid-20th century. "Tin Pan Alley" is a legendary institution in the history of American music.
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