A brief clip of a young Neil Sedaka is among the newly-shared additions to the official YouTube channel of The Ed Sullivan Show. The pop star of the day, later to revive his career in a singer-songwriter style, is seen in his home town of New York performing a medley of two of his most successful singles, “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” and “Calendar Girl.”
The performance was part of the January 27, 1963 edition of the variety series, on which he appeared with Canadian comedy duo Wayne & Shuster, big band singer Janet Blair, and comedian Dave Astor. Sedaka was some weeks away from his 24th birthday at the time, but had already been a star for four years, from his first US Top 20 hit “The Diary” in early 1959.
After making the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time (and No.1 in some European countries) with “Oh! Carol” in 1959, Sedaka had other hits, and a few misses, before “Calendar Girl” hit big in 1961, reaching No.4 in his home country. Late that year, “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen” was released and became another big success, peaking at No.6 and, in the UK, repeating the No.3 peak of “Oh! Carol.”
Sedaka had two more major hits, topping the US chart with “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” and the Top 5 with “Next Door To An Angel,” before his career went into decline. It revived to huge effect in the early 1970s, and he returned to No.1 with both “Laughter In The Rain” in 1974 and the following year’s “Bad Blood,” the latter featuring Elton John, to whose Rocket label he was signed.
Now 84, Sedaka continues to perform and make other appearances, such as on a current schedule of re-runs of his SiriusXM 50s Gold show In The Key of Neil. There are two more repeats of Episode 4: My Masterclass on August 6 and 8 and a new episode is promised for later this month. The series is also available on the SiriusXM App. He has also been broadcasting a number of mini-concerts on his own YouTube channel.
Watch all the latest archival videos from The Ed Sullivan Show on the program’s official YouTube channel.