Pop master is still top of the Brill

HIS MOTHER wanted him to be a classical pianist and saved up to buy him a secondhand upright piano by working in a department store.

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But then, much to his mother’s dismay, the young Neil Sedaka, who had won a piano scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music’s Preparatory Division for Children in New York, discovered pop music.

Born in Brooklyn, Sedaka’s father “Mac” was a cab driver of Lebanese Jewish descent and his mother, Eleanor, was an Ashkenazi Jew of Polish and Russian descent.

He showed musical talent from an early age in his school choral class and went on to become one of America’s most talented and prolific singer-songwriters and pianists.