Neil Sedaka, the hit-making singer-songwriter whose boyish soprano and bright melodies made him a top act in the early years of rock ‘n’ roll and led to a second run of success in the 1970s, has died.
Sedaka, whose hits included “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” and “Laughter in the Rain,” died Friday at age 86.
Neil Sedaka (/səˈdækə/;[1] March 13, 1939 – February 27, 2026) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Beginning his music career in 1957, he sold millions of records worldwide and wrote or co-wrote over 500 songs for himself and other artists, collaborating mostly with lyricists Howard "Howie" Greenfield and Phil Cody.
After a short-lived tenure as a founding member of the doo-wop group the Tokens, Sedaka achieved a string of hit singles over the late 1950s and early 1960s, including "Oh! Carol" (1959), "Calendar Girl" (1960), "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" (1961), and "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (1962). His popularity declined by the mid-1960s, but was revived in the mid-1970s, solidified by the 1975 US Billboard Hot 100 number ones "Laughter in the Rain" and "Bad Blood". Sedaka maintained a successful career as a songwriter, penning hits for other artists including "Stupid Cupid" (Connie Francis), "(Is This the Way to) Amarillo" (Tony Christie), and "Love Will Keep Us Together" (Captain & Tennille). He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983 and continued to perform, mounting mini-concerts on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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His first single for RCA Victor, "The Diary", was inspired by Connie Francis, one of Sedaka and Greenfield's most important clients, while the three were taking a temporary break during their idea-making for a new song. Francis was writing in her diary, Sedaka asked if he could read it, and Connie said no. After Little Anthony and the Imperials passed on the song, Sedaka recorded it himself, and his debut single hit the top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 14 in 1958.[10]
His second single, a novelty tune titled "I Go Ape", just missed the top 40, peaking at No. 42, but it became a more successful single in the United Kingdom at No. 9. The third single, "Crying My Heart Out for You", was a commercial failure, missing the Hot 100 entirely, peaking at No. 111 but reaching No. 6 on the pop charts in Italy. RCA Victor had lost money on "I Go Ape" and "Crying My Heart Out for You" and was ready to drop Sedaka from their label; Sedaka feared he was headed for one-hit wonder status. Sedaka and his manager, Al Nevins, persuaded the RCA executives to give him one more chance.[10]
Sedaka then bought the three biggest hit singles of the time and listened to them repeatedly, studying the song structure, chord progressions, lyrics, and harmonies before writing his next songs.[citation needed] "Oh! Carol" delivered Sedaka his first domestic top 10 hit, reaching No. 9 on the Hot 100 in 1959 and going to No. 1 on the Italian pop charts in 1960, giving Sedaka his first No. 1 ranking. In the UK, the song spent a total of 17 weeks in the top 40, peaking at No. 3 (4 weeks).[11] In addition, the B-side, "One Way Ticket", reached No. 1 on the pop charts in Japan. Sedaka had dated Carole King when he was still at high school, which gave him the idea to use her name in the song. Gerry Goffin—King's husband—took the tune and wrote the playful response "Oh! Neil", which King recorded and released as an unsuccessful single the same year.[12][13][14]
After establishing himself in 1958, Sedaka wrote many more hits from 1960 to 1962. His flow of top 30 hits during this period included: "Stairway to Heaven" (No. 9, 1960); "You Mean Everything to Me" (No. 17, 1960); "Run, Samson, Run" (No. 27, 1960); "Calendar Girl" (No. 4, 1961; also reached No. 1 on the Japanese and Canadian pop charts); "Little Devil" (No. 11, 1961); "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen" (No. 6, 1961); his signature song, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (No. 1, two weeks: August 11 and 18, 1962); and "Next Door to an Angel" (No. 5, 1962). For several of those songs, Sedaka was paired with Stan Applebaum and His Orchestra. Sedaka singles not making the top 30 during this period included "Sweet Little You" (No. 59, 1961) and "King of Clowns" (No. 45, 1962). RCA Victor issued four LPs of his works in the United States and Great Britain during this period, and also produced Scopitone and Cinebox videos of "Calendar Girl" in 1961, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" in 1962, and "The Dreamer" in 1963. His second LP was an album mostly of old standards. He made regular appearances on such TV programs as American Bandstand and Shindig! during this period.
"Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" was his first number one.
He was very big. Then he faded as happens. He still wrote hit songs but he didn't sing hit songs in the US anymore. And then he came back. In the 70s, he came back with "Laughter In The Rain" which, in 1975, went all the way to number one.
Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
Trump’s questionable denials
Speaking of Trump’s name being in the files, that’s one of several instances of him downplaying his proximity to Epstein using claims that were subsequently undermined or called into question:
- Trump in July denied being told his name was in the files, shortly before we found out Attorney General Pam Bondi had indeed told him that back in May.
- In 2019, he said that he “wasn’t a fan” of Epstein’s and added, “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him.” In fact, lots of evidence has suggested they were friendly before their falling out, including archived video footage and photos of them together uncovered by CNN’s KFile. The New York Times even reported Epstein once called Trump his “best friend.”
- Trump in 2024 said he was “never on Epstein’s Plane,” despite flight logs showing he had been seven times in the 1990s.
His opaqueness
When Trump hasn’t made demonstrably false claims, he’s often been opaque:
- He and his allies offered a number of claims for why Trump hadn’t written Epstein a lewd birthday letter published by the Wall Street Journal. While we don’t have proof that Trump authored the letter, the claims they used to deny it seemed to fall apart.
- Trump in July seemed to reluctantly acknowledge he had known that Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell recruited their victim, Virginia Giuffre, from Mar-a-Lago. Trump previously avoided discussing why he and Epstein had a falling out, including saying in 2019: “The reason doesn’t make any difference, frankly.”
- We then learned recently that Trump told a local police chief when Epstein was first under investigation in the mid-2000s that “everyone has known he’s been doing this.”
There have been other data points at least gesturing in the direction that Trump knew Epstein liked young women. But what he told local Florida police is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that Trump knew something about Epstein’s crimes way back when.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said she couldn’t confirm whether that conversation happened. She added that if it did, it “corroborates” Trump having called Epstein a “creep” and broken ties with him. But Trump has never been forthcoming about why he decided Epstein was a creep.
The Maxwell prison transfer
Shortly after she interviewed with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last summer, Maxwell was moved to a minimum-security prison camp.
You begin to see how that might look bad. Maxwell, after all, is a convicted sex offender. She was also saying things that could help Trump — even as he dangled a potential pardon.
But the administration spent months not explaining why the transfer occurred.
Eventually Blanche told NBC News shortly before Christmas that the Bureau of Prisons recommended the transfer, and he suggested he had signed off on it. Blanche said that Maxwell had been facing “numerous threats against her life.”
WASHINGTON - Today, Congressman Ted W. Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) and Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche calling for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi for allegedly committing perjury during her February 11, 2026 testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary when she said, “there is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Following the hearing, NPR reported that the Justice Department has withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump from the public database.
In the letter, the Members write:
Dear Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche,
As former prosecutors, we watched – along with millions of Americans – Attorney General Pam Bondi lie under oathbefore Congress. Testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 11, 2026, Attorney GeneralBondi emphatically stated, “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Yet a number of thedocuments from the Epstein files released to date by the Department of Justice directly contradict her statement.When confronted with her lie, she did not retract her statement, she doubled down. She stated, “Don’t you ever accuse me of committing a crime.”
Attorney General Bondi committed the crime of making false statements under oath, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. We request that you immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Bondi for committing perjury. America cannot have a liar and a criminal as our top law enforcement officer.
Donald Trump is all over the Epstein files released to date – which is only half of the total number of documents in your possession – referenced over 38,000 times. Below are just a few examples of the evidence released by the Department of Justice alleging that Trump committed crimes:
The DOJ released a 21-page internal slideshow presentation about investigations into Epstein. In it, there aretwo accusations against Donald Trump provided by two witnesses:
o “[REDACTED] stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to hisexposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked herout. (Date range 1983-1985, [REDACTED] would have been 13-15).”
o “[REDACTED] remember Epstein introduced her to Trump saying “this is a good one, huh” and Trumpresponded “Yes”. (Date range roughly 1984, [REDACTED] would have been 14).”
A separate FBI record reflects that an individual contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Centerreporting that, as a limo driver, he overheard Trump “continuously stated the name ‘Jeffrey’ while on the phone, and made references to “abusing some girl.” The individual also said he met a girl who said she was raped by Trump and Epstein.
In July 2019, FBI interview transcripts released by the DOJ indicate that a witness expressed fear of retaliation when discussing individuals who were “well known” including “current United States President Donald Trump.”
These examples contradict her claim that there is “no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime.” Whenconfronted with one of these pieces of evidence, Attorney General Bondi doubled down instead of retracting her false statement. She also inappropriately and creepily spied on Members of Congress who were searching through the Epstein Files, so we know that she would have seen the documents that incriminated Trump.
Further, it appears that the DOJ removed a document indicating that the underage accuser referenced above in the21-page internal slideshow was interviewed not once, but “at least four times” by the FBI.6 The removal of that document is not only suspicious, it raises obvious concerns about a coverup.
Moreover, both you and AG Bondi have stated that all of the survivors who have reached out to the Department have been able to provide testimony and evidence. As the country saw during
last week’s hearing, that is demonstrably false. Every survivor who attended that hearing indicated that they hadtried to meet with the Department and were rebuffed but would still be willing to provide evidence and testimony. Unless the Department is overtly covering up for President Trump or other child predators, we expect that theDepartment will meet with those survivors immediately.
Attorney General Bondi’s conduct meets all the elements of the crime of making false statements under oath. Sinceshe obviously isn’t going to prosecute herself, a clear conflict of interest exists.
Therefore, under 28 C.F.R. § 600.1, we request that you immediately appoint a special counsel to investigate Attorney General Pam Bondi for making false statements under oath during her February 11, 2026, testimony before the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this important matter. We look forward to receiving your response.
Sincerely,
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and the former chair on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, issued the following statement on the Trump administration’s moves to roll back worker protections. Today, the Trump nominee-packed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced its decision to formalize the return of the first Trump administration’s joint employer rule. This coincides with this morning’s announcement from the Department of Labor of its intent to rescind the Biden Administration’s employee and independent contractor classification rule.
“Every day, little by little, the Trump administration is rigging the system to benefit giant corporations and shortchange workers—it’s an outright grift and working people should be furious. The joint employer rule is nothing more than a return to Trump’s anti-worker policies that let giant corporations skirt their basic obligations to employees—Trump is giving the biggest corporations cover to deny workers their ability to band together for better wages and working conditions and leaving millions of workers in the lurch, vulnerable to egregious violations of their rights.
“At the same time, today, the Trump administration announced they’re working to rescind the independent contractor rule. Trump wants to let giant corporations classify workers as contractors so that they don’t have to pay them minimum wage and overtime—these workers deserve fair pay.
“Under the Trump administration, giant corporations get giant tax breaks paid for by cutting Medicaid—the health care that the poorest workers are forced to rely on. Now, Trump wants those same corporations off the hook for every benefit, protection, and dollar they’d otherwise owe to millions of workers—it’s a shakedown. Republicans are proving time and again, they don’t care about workers—they don’t want to even let workers have crumbs, but billionaires can get trillions in tax breaks that will blow up our national debt. I am going to keep fighting for laws on the books that protect workers and build an economy that grows the middle-class, not just profit margins for the largest corporations on earth.”
Senator Murray has long led efforts in Congress to shield against employee misclassification and protect workers’ rights. In January of last year, Senator Murray forcefully condemned President Trump’s illegal firing of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox and the firing of Jennifer Abruzzo—Murray has consistently called for the immediate reinstatement of Wilcox and condemned Trump’s move as a breach of the NLRB’s independence. Senator Murray is fighting to pass—and is the original Senate author of—the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which, among other things, would close loopholes that allow employers to misclassify their employees and deny them protections under the law. Among many other pieces of pro-worker legislation, Murray also leads the Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act, to fight wage theft and protect workers hard earned wages, and the Paycheck Fairness Act to combat wage discrimination and help close the pay gap, and has helped lead the fight for paid family and medical leave since she first joined Congress. Most recently, Senator Murray reintroduced her Bringing an End to Harassment by Enhancing Accountability and Rejecting Discrimination (BE HEARD) in the Workplace Act, in response to Trump and Andrea Lucas, Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), eliminating workplace anti-harassment guidance and attacking transgender workers for using the locker rooms, bathrooms, and private spaces. BE HEARD takes critical steps to address workplace harassment, protects against discrimination based on gender identity and sexuality, and ensures workers can seek accountability and justice.
In December 2023, Senator Murray led 21
of her colleagues in a letter in support of the Biden Administration’s
proposed rule to reinstate the joint-employer standard and she fought
efforts to weaken the historic joint-employer standard under the
previous administration at every step of the way. She continuously opposed the first Trump administration’s attempt to overturn the historic standard and led her colleagues in opposing its rule eroding the standard, which was finalized in 2020.
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The Rotunda Is Too Small for the Reverend Jesse Jackson
By Dr. Julianne Malveaux, PhD
Our email address is BlackCommentator@gmail.com
Our voicemail number is 856.823.1739
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