Neil Sedaka is an American singer, pianist, composer, and record producer who has a net worth of $100 million. Sedaka accumulated his net worth through his many hit records and concerts and as co-composer of hit songs for many recording stars. He has written or co-written more than 500 songs and sold millions of albums; his most frequent songwriting collaborators were Howard Greenfield and Phil Cody.
Neil has released 25+ studio albums, including Emergence (1971), All You Need Is the Music (1978), Come See About Me (1983), and The Music of My Life (2010), and he is known for hits like Stairway to Heaven, Calendar Girl, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, Laughter in the Rain, and Solitaire. In 1982, Sedaka published the autobiography Laughter in the Rain: My Own Story. Neil has hosted the monthly Sirius XM radio show In The Key of Neil since late 2019.
Early Life
Neil Sedaka was born on March 13, 1939, in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Eleanor, an Ashkenazi Jew, was of Russian-Jewish and Polish descent, and his father, Mordechai, was a Sephardi Lebanese Jew who worked as a taxi driver. Neil was raised in Brighton Beach, and in second grade, his choral teacher suggested that Sedaka take piano lessons, so Eleanor worked part-time at a department store for six month to pay for a second-hand piano. In 1947, Neil earned a scholarship to the Preparatory Division for Children at the Juilliard School of Music, which he attended during the weekends. When he was 13, Sedaka’s neighbor heard him playing piano and introduced him to her teenage son, Howard Greenfield, who was an aspiring lyricist; Neil and Howard began writing songs together and eventually became composers at the Brill Building in Manhattan. Sedaka attended Abraham Lincoln High School, graduating in 1956.
Career
After high school, Neil formed the band the Linc-Tones with some former classmates, and they had a few regional hits before Sedaka left the group to pursue a solo career in 1957. He signed a recording contract with RCA Victor, and his first single with the label, 1958’s “The Diary,” reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Italian pop charts. His next hit was 1959’s Oh! Carol, which reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The single’s title was inspired by Carole King, who Neil had dated in high school. Sedaka had several hits in the early 1960s, including Stairway to Heaven, You Mean Everything to Me, Calendar Girl, and Breaking Up Is Hard to Do. His first studio album was 1959’s Rock with Sedaka, and he followed it with Circulate (1961), Neil Sedaka Sings Little Devil and His Other Hits (1961), and Workin’ on a Groovy Thing (1969) and recorded the album Three Great Guys (1963). In the ’70s, Sedaka released the albums Emergence (1971), Solitaire (1972), The Tra-La Days Are Over (1973), Laughter In The Rain (1974), Sedaka’s Back (1974), Overnight Success (1975), Steppin’ Out (1976), A Song (1977), and All You Need Is the Music (1978).
