Calendar Girl – Neil Sedaka (1960)

Description

Additional information about this Neil Sedaka vinyl art.

Neil Sedaka – The Artist

Neil Sedaka (1939 – 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 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 hits “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.

Calendar Girl – The Song

Calander Girl is a song by Neil Sedaka. The music was composed by Sedaka and the lyrics by Howard Greenfield. Released in December 1960 as a single, it was a hit single for Sedaka in both the UK and the US. Sedaka borrowed inspiration from multiple sources for the music, incorporating a shuffle beat after hearing “Personality” by Lloyd Price, a chord progression that was common in the music of Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, along with another progression from the end of Ricky Nelson’s hit record “Travelin’ Man.” Record producer Joe Viglione, writing for AllMusic, describes the song as a G-rated calendar of pin-ups such as Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe, using verbal rather than visual imagery. Each month gives a different reason for the singer’s affection for the titular character, and September—”I light the candles at your sweet sixteen”—was a lyrical motif that Howard Greenfield frequently used at the time, including “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen,” released later the same year. Other months in the song reference Valentine’s Day in February, the Easter Bunny in April, a junior prom in May and June. A Scopitone promotional clip for the song was filmed in color in 1966, several years after the song was a hit (and at a time when Sedaka’s star power had faded). It consists of Neil Sedaka playing the piano and dancing alongside four models (including his wife Leba), on a mock stage made to resemble calendar themes. It was somewhat unusual among American Scopitones in that the film matched the content of the song; Scopitones of the mid-1960s were noted for their disjointedness.

The Woman – The Shape

This record has been modelled into the silhouette of a woman. A calandar A calendar is a system of organising days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physical record (often paper) of such a system. A calendar can also mean a list of planned events, such as a court calendar, or a partly or fully chronological list of documents, such as a calendar of wills.Periods in a calendar (such as years and months) are usually, though not necessarily, synchronised with the cycle of the sun or the moon. The most common type of pre-modern calendar was the lunisolar calendar, a lunar calendar that occasionally adds one intercalary month to remain synchronised with the solar year over the long term.

Need Help?  Contact Us