Velvet Gloves and Spit [PA]

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Performer: Neil Diamond
Distributor: Infinity Entertainment Gr

Notes: Producers: Tom Catalano, Neil Diamond, Chip Taylor. According to the liner notes for IN MY LIFETIME, "Shilo" was the song that led Neil Diamond to split with Bang Records, his first record label. As Diamond tells it, the song's personal tone convinced both the label and the artist that it was time to move on. Diamond's desire to stretch beyond the confines of his early hits "Cherry, Cherry" and "I'm A Believer" are fully evident on VELVET GLOVES AND SPIT, his first album for MCA. VELVET GLOVES AND SPIT includes both "Shilo" and "Brooklyn Roads," songs that did not tear up the charts at the time but have since become standards. It also includes several "should-have-been" hits, among them the raucous "Two-Bit Manchild," the bouncy "Honey-Drippin' Times," and the hook-laden "Sunday Sun." The album also includes several earnest but laughable efforts, notably the anti-drug song "The Pot Smoker's Song," which intersperses a singsong chorus with the horrifying spoken confessions of drug addicts, and "Knackelflerg," a failed effort at writing a folk-pop equivalent of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Even the failures, however, show that, in his prime, Diamond was virtually incapable of writing an unmemorable melody. Just try getting "Knackelflerg" out of your head once you've heard it!

Record Collector (magazine) (p.91) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he album's highlight is certainly the autobiographical 'Brooklyn Roads'. As well as being a fine song, it benefits from a great arrangement and fine atmospheric playing."

With a career as a hitmaker stretching across the decades, Neil Diamond has purveyed catchy, three-chord pop/rock, progressive singer/songwriter material, middle-of-the-road balladry, and even traditional country. He started out as a Brill Building hitmaker; a songwriter for hire, he worked alongside the likes of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and penned hits for the Monkees and Jay & the Americans. His solo career took off in the mid 1960s and made him one of America's most successful recording artists and concert attractions for a long time to come. Even decades down the road, younger groups such as UB40 in the '80s, Urge Overkill in the '90s, and Smash Mouth in the 2000's were still scoring hits with Diamond's evergreen compositions.

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