Neil Diamond

The story of Song Sung Blue and Pearl Jam's bizarre night with a Neil Diamond tribute band. The Hollywood film Song Sung Blue loosely tells a story based on the real-life Neil Diamond tribute duo Lightning and Thunder from Milwaukee, Mike and Claire Sardina. The pair are down-on-their-luck performers who reinvent themselves as a high-energy Neil Diamond act playing fairs, casinos, and small venues across the Midwest from the late 1980s into the 2000s. A key scene in the film shows Eddie Vedder inviting them to open for Pearl Jam and perform onstage with him, which prompts the question of how much of this story is actually true. Next, I trace the origins of Lightning and Thunder, starting with Clare walking into a Milwaukee band audition in 1987 and later being recruited by bandleader Mike Sardina to join his Neil Diamond tribute idea. Mike, a Vietnam veteran and auto mechanic, throws himself into the persona, studying The Jazz Singer and adopting sequined shirts, bell-bottoms, and sideburns, while Claire becomes a powerful vocalist impersonating artists like Patsy Cline and Barbra Streisand. They build a devoted following on the Wisconsin State Fair and festival circuit, even getting married onstage in front of their fans and becoming local heroes who embody the dream of turning unabashed showmanship into a life. From there, the story collides with the rise of Pearl Jam and the grunge era, which at first seems worlds away from a glittery Neil Diamond tribute act. The narrator describes how rumors circulated that Pearl Jam once had a Neil Diamond tribute band open for them in Wisconsin, though official records do not show such an opener. Instead, the real connection comes through Eddie Vedder, a Neil Diamond fan who learns about Lightning and Thunder and invites them onstage during Pearl Jam’s July 8, 1995 Summerfest show at Milwaukee’s Marcus Amphitheater in front of roughly 24,000 fans. The highlight of the night is not a Pearl Jam deep cut but a joyous cover of Neil Diamond’s Forever in Blue Jeans, performed by Mike and Claire with Vedder, creating a brief, surreal union of grunge icons and tribute-band showmanship. That performance becomes the pinnacle of Lightning and Thunder’s career and a cherished local legend, effectively turning them into a small but memorable footnote in rock history. However, the story also recounts the tragedy that followed: in the late 1990s Clare is hit by a runaway car, suffering life-altering injuries that end their performing career and lead to financial hardship, and Mike dies in 2006 without ever meeting Neil Diamond. Claire eventually meets Neil Diamond backstage at a Milwaukee show, an emotional encounter described by her brother, columnist Jim Stingl, where Diamond treats her warmly and promises she can be his guest whenever he returns. Filmmaker Greg Kohs later makes the 2008 documentary Song Sung Blue, with Eddie Vedder reportedly helping secure music rights and including real footage of the 1995 performance. The story closes by noting that the new Hollywood film (starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson) will bring Lightning and Thunder’s tale of love, sequins, and unlikely musical friendship to an even wider audience, underlining how music history is also written by local tribute acts and dreamers, not just superstars. Follow us on YouTube @rnrtruestories

SPIRIT ANIMAL JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL by Neil Diamond (Columbia, 1973) There were alot of self-help manuals popularized in the 70’s; I remember gifting my mother the book “Your Eronneous Zones” (but that’s another story)…. My acting teacher in college based her syllabus on Eric Berne’s “I’m Ok, You’re Ok”. But one of the biggest New Age parables making the rounds was Ex-Aviator Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the story of an anthropomorphized Christ-like Seagull, who has to fly off from the pack to find his true self. It was a zeitgeist sensation, and spawned a movie with this soundtrack by the immortal Neil Diamond. Maestro Diamond is currently in the middle of a career renaissance - his biographical musical A BEAUTIFUL NOISE is playing on The Great White Way, and although he struggles with Parkinson’s he continues to work on new music. No one was bigger in the 70s, and although the 1960s Neil Diamond that I loved, the Brill Building song plugger who wrote and recorded Cherry Cherry, You Got to Me, and Solitary Man had seemingly transformed himself into a borscht belt crooner, there was no denying his powers of voice and composition, no matter how cheesy the venue (The Jazz Singer?) I chuckled ironically when I pulled this tape from the pile, anticipating mounds of Velveeta. But now, listening for the first time, I am moved to tears. (This is probably because all my youthful cynicism has given up the ghost). It’s a beautiful musical meditation produced by Tom Catalano, and arranged by Lee Holdridge, and Neil’s voice soars, aloft on chords of longing. Indeed, the album out-grossed the movie by 10 million dollars, and garnered the 1974 Grammy for Best Original Score, demonstrating that although the radio-controlled gliders representing the flying birds in the film might have been fake, Neil’s inspiration was not.