Legendary record executive Russ Regan (1928-2018), in one of his first moves as president of the 20th Century Records label in the fall of 1972, decided to deliver an instrumental tribute album to the music of Neil Diamond – just in time for the holidays.
Regan had been significant in developing Diamond’s career at Uni Records between 1968 and 1972, when Diamond scored some of the biggest hits of his career to that point. While at Uni, Regan was also responsible for launching the careers of Hugh Masekela, Olivia Newton-John, and most notably, Elton John.
For this 20th Century project, Regan drafted an L.A.-based studio group dubbed the Marina Strings, which had released only one previous record, Love Theme from the MGM Film ‘Skyjacked’ in July 1972 (“Skyjacked” is a forgotten “Airport”-style disaster thriller starring Charlton Heston, Yvette Mimeux and James Brolin).
The Marina Strings were meant to be the house orchestra for the fledgling and short-lived Marina Records label. Marina, an MGM Records’ subsidiary, was Harold Berkman’s baby. Berkman was also an exec at MGM, where he oversaw the development of Herman’s Hermits, The Animals, the Lovin’ Spoonful and other acts, and acted as liaison between the record and film divisions on such soundtrack projects as the hugely-popular “Dr. Zhivago” and “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Apparently, Berkman loaned Regan his easy-listening project’s name for this perfectly wonderful set of instrumental Neil Diamond covers.
II.
Despite the many Neil Diamond covers out there, relatively few Diamond tribute albums were ever released back in the day. Perhaps two of the best known were Neil’s Diamonds Fashioned by Hugo Montenegro (1973) and Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Play the Neil Diamond Songbook (1975), making the Marina Strings set one of the earliest.
Others are far more obscure, but include the uncredited Tribute to Neil Diamond (Black Tulip/1972), the Norwegian A Tribute to the Great Neil Diamond by Tony Dillon and Orchestra (a.k.a. Sounds Like Neil Diamond [1973]), the British The Neil Diamond Sound by Pete Symonds (1973), Song Hits of Neil Diamond by Kings Road (1974) and the New Zealand collection Skybird and Other Neil Diamond Hits by another unknown entity called Copperfield.
Surprisingly, Regan himself didn’t supervise a Diamond tribute set earlier at Uni, or on one of the other MCA subsidiaries, like Decca or Coral, that featured any number of easy-listening instrumentalists which could have easily done justice to this music.
(The CD generation is probably familiar with the 2006 Shout! Factory compilation Forever Neil Diamond, a collection of Diamond covers by The Monkees, Deep Purple, Elvis Presley, UB40, and others.)
The program here closely resembles the 1974 MCA release Neil Diamond – His 12 Greatest Hits. But the oddly-titled Neil Diamond Solid Gold Songbook, released about a year-and-a-half earlier, replaces the MCA compilation’s “Brooklyn Roads” and “Done Too Soon” with the far more memorable “Solitary Man” (1966) and “Kentucky Woman” (1967), both originally Bang tracks.
That also means that two essential gems are included here: “Song Sung Blue” – whose title was given over to the 2025 film about a mid-west Diamond tribute band – and, of course, everyone’s (especially Boston Red Sox fans) favorite anthem, “Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good).”
The uncredited arrangements are tastefully restrained, yet thoroughly effective and appropriate to the Diamond miniatures on tap here. One doubts that the singer’s fans – or the singer himself – would disapprove. It’s that rare disc that serves well as either honorable background music or karaoke fare.
Highlights, to these ears, include “Holly Holy,” perhaps the disc’s finest moment, “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show,” a country-fied George Shearing Quintet-like take on “Song Sung Blue,” “Kentucky Woman” and “Solitary Man,” with its lovely string washes.
“Walk on Water” would have been highly welcome here as well, but Diamond’s original was only released several weeks before this album came out. So, it’s unlikely Regan knew anything about it.
Discogs credits Jeffrey Kaufman as the album’s conductor, but my copy of the Neil Diamond Solid Gold Songbook lists no such credit. Kaufmann, a conductor and producer of 20th and 21st century music and founder of the CD-only label Phoenix USA, would conduct a similar easy-listening tribute record devoted to The Carpenters in 1975, credited there to the Festival Strings.
Released in December 1972 on the 20th Century Records label, The Marina Strings Play the Neil Diamond Solid Gold Songbook died a quick, ignoble death. It deserved better. Despite the label’s allegedly extensive publicity campaign, it disappeared into the scrum of cheap easy-listening records almost immediately. (“Shilo” was the album’s single release.)
“The label has here,” enthused music-biz weekly Cash Box in January 6, 1973, “what is to date, the best instrumental rendering of Diamond’s gems. They’re all done to perfection – from ‘Solitary Man’ to ‘Play Me.’ Harold Berkman produced the Strings in the best tradition of MOR music that’s more than background.” I whole-heartedly agree.
This album beautifully captures and celebrates Neil Diamond’s unique and rousing melodicism – infused with such forms as seemingly disparate as pop, folk, gospel and even quasi-classical – while reveling in the sheer beauty of his conceptions.
III.
Shortly after the release of The Marina Strings Play the Neil Diamond Solid Gold Songbook, Harold Berkman took a job as director of promotions at Polydor Records (a position he only held for about a year). He would later found the iconic executive transportation service Music Express.
Like Berkman, Russ Regan had nothing more to do with the Marina Strings. But one of the 20th Century president’s very next signings was singer Maureen McGovern, who scored a huge hit in 1973 with “The Morning After,” from the Oscar-winning disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure” yet another disaster picture.
An even bigger win for 20th Century was signing R&B singer/songwriter Barry White and his various groups Love Unlimited and the Love Unlimited Orchestra and taking them to the top of the charts with such hits as “Can’t Get Enough of You Love, Babe,” “Love’s Theme,” and “You’re the First, Last, My Everything.” Regan also brought jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal to 20th Century, where he waxed some of the best (if least-known) work of his career.
Several years later, Regan, created and crafted the 1976 curiosity “All This and World War II,” a bizarre mix of WWII footage scored to Beatles cover tunes. The film has never seen a physical-media release, which may be for the best. Regan would go on to supervise such successful soundtracks as “Chariots of Fire” (1981), “Endless Love” (1981), “Flashdance” (1983), “The Karate Kid” (1984), “This is Spinal Tap” (1984), “A Chorus Line” (1985) and many others.
In March 1981, the then-recently founded budget label Bainbridge Records – which apparently acquired the rights to this disc as well as Bob Shad’s Time Records catalog – reissued this record as Neil Diamond Solid Gold in Canada (which distributed the record throughout Europe) and Venezuela.
While the Marina Strings’ previous record, Love Theme from the MGM Film ‘Skyjacked’ was issued on CD in 2014, the Neil Diamond Solid Gold Songbook – which an Amazon reviewer aptly noted was “Very well done. Instrumentals that are true to the originals by Neil Diamond” – has never been issued on CD.