This Day In Music History: Neil Sedaka and Bad Blood

1975 was a very good year to Neil Sedaka. After having been a superstar of the 50’s and early 60’s he was on a comeback from an 11 year dry spell. Now he was hot. He had written 3 of the #1 songs in the first 10 months of that year. They were “Laughter In The Rain”, “Love Will Keep Us Together” and on this day in music history, October 11, 1975, he had the #1 song in the country again with ”Bad Blood.” He had been signed to Rocket Records that was owned by Elton John. He was a guest on many network TV shows and was appearing in Las Vegas. He was the opening act for the Carpenters at the Rivera. His act was better received then the Carpenters. Really in hindsight that should not come as a surprise. Karen and Richard Carpenter had been doing this for only a few years. Sedaka had been doing it for about 20 years. One night he introduced two people who were seated in the audience. They were Dick Clark and Tom Jones. The next day Sedaka was asked to leave the show. He did but he also signed with the Rivera to come back later as a headliner.
After “Laughter In The Rain” was a hit he released two more songs. “The Immigrant” which he wrote about John Lennon and “That’s Where The Music Takes Me.” The RKO chain added one of his songs to their playlist. However, it was not any of the songs listed above. It was an album track called “Bad Blood.” One possible reason is that Elton John also owned RKO and he was singing background on the song. When Neil was about to record the song he thought it would sound better as a duet. He asked Elton to record it with him. He did agree to sing the backing vocal but was not credited on the song. When the song was a hit on the RKO playlist Rocket Records rushed it into release as a single in America. The album it was on in England was called Overnight Success. When the album was released in the States for some reason they changed the title to The Hungry Years. As far as singles go his follow up to “Bad Blood” was a new ballad version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” The new ballad version went to #8 and it is the only single that was #1 and re-recorded later by the same artist to make the top 10 a second time. I remember seeing Sedaka on a talk show. He said he wished that he had written more songs like that so he could get more hits out of them.
In the 1980’s Neil had two hits with his daughter Dara. They were “Should’ve Never Let You Go” on Electra Records and in 1983 on MCA/Curb Records they had a hit with “Your Precious Love.” These hits made Neil Sedaka one of very few singers who had a career that spanned 4 decades.