Sweet Caroline Live Elvis Presley

Barry Egan talks to Neil Diamond ahead of his Aviva show

HE danced with Lady Diana -- at the princess's insistence -- at a White House ball in 1985 when Ronnie and Nancy were residents. Neil Diamond isn't as sprightly today as he walks to his limo -- but in his black jean jacket, baseball cap and faded black jeans, he doesn't look his 70 years, not by a long shot. He has good genes. His mother Rose is 93 and hounds him about taking her to his shows.

"I had to break it to her very gently that she could not come to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in New York recently because she was sick," says her superstar son. "So, she got over that. Then I did this Las Vegas thing and she said she wanted to see the show and she also wanted to gamble. She is indomitable, this woman."

Rose lives in LA. So, to get her to Las Vegas was, he says, "doable". But she got bronchitis before she and Neil could go. "The doctor said he couldn't let her go," says Neil. "So I told her when I get back from this tour, we'll both go to Vegas and we'll party. And we will do it. She worries me, but I am flying her down to Vegas when I get back."

I wouldn't be surprised if it is Neil that Rose worries about more. He is a sweet, sensitive soul. He doesn't seem entirely at odds with the man he sang of on his 1966 classic Solitary Man. Lest we forget, Neil sings as much about the search for meaning in life as he does about romance. Listen to Love on the Rocks again.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the "Byronically smouldering hunk, carpeted in heroic chest hair", as Jan Moir described him in 2002, admitted to having visited psychiatrists since 1971. "I am difficult," he said. "I am very sensitive, and can be hurt and disturbed by things around me. It is hard for me to shake things off, and writing songs is my great saviour. One song is worth a thousand hours of therapy as far as I am concerned."

Born on January 24, 1941, to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, he was a melancholic child. It has remained with him all his life. "It is part of my genetic make-up," he tells me. "There is that side of me I see as melancholic. It shows in the songs.

"There is also another side, which I think is the dominant side, which is very expressive and very outward-leaning and joyful and excited. All the things that melancholia is not. There's part of both in me."

I ask him if he gets a sense of being alone when he comes off stage from playing to a huge stadium of people. "You definitely get a sense of aloneness," he says. "It's like whiplash. You go from performing in front of thousands of people, and the adulation involved in that, and the music, and there is a whole experience to being alone in your dressing room and it brings you back to reality.

ElvisNews.com: Black Diamond - CD / Vinyl

Just out is a re-release of 'Black Diamond' featuring an audience recording of Elvis’ last Las Vegas show on December 12th 1976. The 2xCD set comes in a digipack longbox.

Tracklisting:

CD-1: 2001 Theme / CC Rider / I Got A Woman - Amen / Love Me / My Way (with false start) / Fairytale / You Gave Me A Mountain / Elvis Talks With The Audience / Jailhouse Rock / Little Sister / O Solo Mio - It’s Now Or Never / Trying To Get To You / Happy Bbirthday Charlie Hodge / Blue Christmas / Softly As I Leave You / Are You Lonesome Tonight (Laughing With The Audience) / That’s All Right / Bridge Over Troubled Water.

CD-2: Band Introductions / Early Morning Rain / What’d I Say / Johnny B. Goode / Drum Solo (Ronnie Tutt) / Fender Bass Solo (Jerry Scheff) / Piano Solo (Tony Brown) / Electric Piano Solo (David Briggs) / Love Letters / Band Introductions/ School Days / Hurt / Such A Night / Sweet Caroline / Can’t Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp. I actually had a Cassette Recording of this show, and gave it to Entertainer Wayne Newton for his 50th Birthday (as Elvis introduced him in the audience). I originally gave this to him after reading his biography where he said this was Elvis' "Swan Song", "as he sang Many Religious-Type Songs, as if saying goodbye". After he heard this recording, he revised his thoughts on that final show. Those of us who experienced these December '76 Concerts knew they rocked, don't judge Elvis' Shows by "Music Experts" who were never there and guess what Elvis was doing, thinking, etc. on these recordings. It is not fair to Elvis' Work or his True Fans.

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