Neil Sedaka was a fluke as concerning his meteoric rise to popularity in Brazil, much earlier than he was recognized as a performer in the USA, his own country. 'The diary' was released in early 1959 and charted higher here than in the USA. By mid-1959, Celly Campello, a 17 year-old small town high-school student shot to Number One with a cover of Sedaka's 'Stupid cupid' (Estúpido cupido).
By November 1959, Neil Sedaka had been signed by TV Tupi to perform live in São Paulo and Rio. That was actually Sedaka's first professional tour as a rock act . He was in Brazil on 7 December 1959, when he was told 'Oh! Carol' had reached #9 at Billboard charts.
Brazilians are a funny lot. As Paul Anka, the 'other' teen-age heart-throb had already been established as a full-on 'teen idol' since 'Diana' was released, some journalists - especially some at Rio de Janeiro's 'Correio da Manhã' decided they preferred Anka over Sedaka. These media desperadoes started bad-mouthing Sedaka portraying him as 'thief of melodies', a plagiarist... and here are some instances of silly stuff published in that paper concerning the supposed 'rivalry' between the Canadian Caruso and the Brooklyn kid who would be a concert pianist...
22nd November 1959 - 'Correio da Manhã's music columnist claims Neil Sedaka, who has been known for being a plagiarist (his words) pilfers the melodies of two different songs on 'Run, Samson, run'; parts of Brazilian folk tune 'Acalanto' that goes: 'boi, boi, boi, boi da cara preta leva essa menina que tem medo de careta'... and the whole second part of 'Mamãe, eu quero' written by Jararaca.
He goes on to say that in 'You mean everything to me', Sedaka shamelessly pilfers parts of Paul Anka's 'You are my destiny'.
9 December 1959 - Carol Sedaka (an obvious pseudonym) from Mesquita-RJ, writes to 'Correio da Manhã' to express her outrage of what she considered a slanderous lie about her idol. As one can see, Sedaka's popularity in Brazil was built in a few months. The columnist answers all the accusations against him... and adds another Sedaka's 'plagiarism'... that in 'All I need is you', Sedaka 'copies' parts of Paul Anka's 'Diana'... The columnist was obviously biased against Sedaka...
14 April 1961 - 'Correio da Manhã' - Carol Sedaka, from Nilópolis-RJ writes to Rossini Pinto's 'Esquina Sonora' again to ask for the lyrics of 'Run, Samson, run'.
'Stairway to heaven' was Sedaka's 3rd single in Brazil; on the right the (terrybly mistaken) lyrics of 'Stairway to heaven' with all the misunderstanding one could commit...it's actually funny. Nonsense should be considered an 'art form'... Climb up way up high = becomes 'why not way of time'.
exerpts from Peter Dunbavan's book 'An Avid's Guide to Sixties Songwriters'.
'Oh! Carol's chorus, 'darling there will never be another lover...' was taken from Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos's 'Family Suite Number 1', and the verses were reminiscent of The Diamonds' doo-wop hit, 'Little darlin'.
Girls' names were popular in songs at the time, so Sedaka suggested to Greenfield that he wrote a lyric with a girl's name in it, and went as far as suggesting his old high school girl friend Carole Klein (later to be songwriter Carole King). Greenfield duly obliged and the result was 'Oh! Carol', a Top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic in late 1959, and the beginning of a string of major hits for Sedaka from the Greenfield-Sedaka team.
Neil Sedaka went on the road to promote 'Oh! Carol' and Howard Greenfield found himself at a loose end. Don Kirshner suggested that he should try writing a song with Brill Building composer Jack Keller, and the second song they wrote together, 'Everybody's somebody's fool', became the first chart-topper in the US for Connie Francis. She had been looking to record a C&W style song, and came to Greenfield & Keller asking them if they had anything suitable. They mentioned 'Everybody's somebody's fool' but didn't think it would be quite right, envisaging the song more as a blues number. She asked them to adapt it to country and Jack Keller duly obliged, but no-one, apart from Francis, really believed it would be a big hit; it topped the US charts in the summer of 1960.
Howard Greenfield & Jack Keller wrote Connie Francis's next single, her second US chart-topper, 'My heart has a mind of its own', which gave her the distinction of being the first female singer ever to have two consecutive number one's; she also came second to Elvis Presley as the top performing artist of 1960. To enable them to write another country-influenced hit for Francis, the pair had done their homework by going through the back catalogue of Hank Williams's songs and obviously this had worked well, because apart from writing 'My heart has a mind of its own', they managed a third hit single in the same genre, 'Breaking in a brand new broken heart'. It reached number 7 on the US charts in mid-1961.
Howard Greenfield had been writing with Jack Keller on a regular basis since Neil Sedaka started performing, and they had a routine of collaborating every Monday and Wednesday, from 10 in the morning till 5 in the evening.
'Venus in blue jeans' was a product of one to these meetings. Keller said: 'there was a giant competition between Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka. Howie and Neil felt their hits were teenage but they were intellignet lyrics. Anka ws 'love' and 'above', 'moon' and 'June'. He was getting Number One's and it was killing Howie & Sedaka. (Jack Keller interview with Ken Emerson on 3rd June 2003).
Keller & Greenfield, therefore, set about writing a song tha would effectively copy Anka but do it better. Keller's melody for 'Venus in blue jeans' was superb and original, while Howie's lyrics stole from other songs tha had been hits such as 'Mona Lisa' by Nat King Cole, and 'Venus' by Frankie Avalon. The result was a classic 'pop' song that was a Top 10 hit in the US for Jimmy Clanton and a number 4 in the UK for Mark Wynter. Illustrating how the writers at Aldon worked for each other, Barry Mann sang lead and the Cookies sang backing-vocals on the demo; Carole King wrote the arrangement for the brass and strings, while her husband, Gerry Goffin, was responsible for the muted trumpets on the middle eight. A finer example of collaboration from writers at their peak would be hard to find.
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