I Am... I Said

The legendary NEIL DIAMOND on making new music, living with Parkinson’s and the stories behind his greatest hits.

Three years ago, Neil Diamond shook the music world with the news that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and wouldn’t be touring anymore. But did that mean the end of his music? Not at all. “I’m working on new songs right now,” he says brightly, on a Zoom call with Parade from his home in the mountains of Colorado. “I always have a scrap of paper or a pad around to jot down ideas. Then, when I have more time, I develop them. It’s part of my life.”

The new songs he plans to record will extend one of the deepest, and most popular, catalogs in pop history, one that has given him gold or platinum albums in six consecutive decades. In the process, he has racked up no fewer than 13 Top 10

Billboard singles, from the rousing “Sweet Caroline” to the solemn “Holly Holy” and the No. 1 sing-along “Song Sung Blue.”

Diamond reworked those three songs, and 11 more of his hits, for his latest album,

Classic Diamonds (available now), while at the same time modifying them, pairing his voice with grand arrangements by the London Symphony Orchestra. It was about time, he thinks, for those songs to get a new shine and a renewed sense of reflection. “I’m older and wiser,” says Diamond, 79. “I’m different.”

But the quality of his voice isn’t that different. Unlike Linda Ronstadt, whose experience with Parkinson’s made it impossible for her to sing, Diamond’s voice shows none of the effects of the neurodegenerative disorder. “In a strange way, I think I’m singing better than ever,” he says. “It’s probably because I’m not on the road singing fullout and tearing up my voice. So it’s in very good shape, which I didn’t expect.” Also, he adds, “I take my medication. I do my exercises and my workouts.”

As for the emotional impact of the disease, he says, flatly, “I don’t deal with it. I think I’m in denial or something. I feel fine. And it’s music—I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager. I don’t tense up when I get in front of a microphone. That’s when I loosen up and let it all hang out.”

Diamond recorded all of the vocals for the album in his studio in another one of his homes, in Los Angeles. (The London Symphony cut its parts at Abbey Road Studios in the U.K.) He finished cutting his vocals just as the COVID-19 lockdown went into effect last March. Most of the time since then he has been holed up in Colorado, at his gorgeous and sprawling cabin made of enough wood to fill a forest. “It was a kit house, like you send for in the mail,” he says with a smile. “The people who put it together made it great. Then I came in years later and made it a little bigger, and it’s home.”

It looks especially homey on this late November day, with his wife since 2012, Katie McNeil, sitting off to his side while their golden retriever, Mighty, romps in the background. Out the soar

ing windows is a panoramic view of the Rockies. An enormous, and fully trimmed, Christmas tree is in the living room. “When I was a Jewish kid growing up in Brooklyn, I never got to celebrate Christmas,” he says. “Now, as an adult, I can do whatever I want. My wife loves Christmas, and so do I. We celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, which we call Christmukkah.”

The celebratory atmosphere Diamond has created at his home has helped ease the frustration of this terribly isolating year, with a pandemic, social-distanced isolation and divisive politics. “No one asked for this,” he says. But “I happen to be very lucky to be in a location in the mountains, which is very conducive to feeling good.”

At the same time, he greatly misses being on the road. “I love performing,” he says. “But I’ll have to deal with it. In my heart, I secretly think, Well, maybe I can do a few more shows.”

But even if he can’t, his songs will be performed by scores of other singers when the pandemic ends and the curtain goes up (hopefully!) on a forthcoming Broadway musical based on his life and career. “It’s written and the music is set,” he says. “All we need is a venue that will work.”

The show will offer a warts-andall portrait of him, he says, and will feature a unique conceit which, for now, he wants to keep secret. A hint? The scenario will probe his inner