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POP ICON NEIL SEDAKA SHOWS UP AT NEIL SEDAKA TRIBUTE SHOW… AND WRITES HIS OWN TRIBUTE TO IT! JIM VAN SLYKE’S SHOW RETURNS FOR ONE NIGHT: JULY FIRSTHow’s this for an endorsement:
“I had the great pleasure of seeing Jim Van Slyke do a revue of my songs. It blew me away. The voice—the stage presence---superb!” --- Neil Sedaka
Imagine coming face to face with your idol – the one whose songs you’ve been absorbed with and have been absorbing for a long time…preparing, performing and polishing. Then, one night you’re doing the show and he just shows up. For Jim Van Slyke, it was Neil Sedaka and it was a (literally) last-minute surprise. On May 31, his dream came true better than he could have dreamed it when the Virginia-based crooner met the longtime star with a rich history of hit records – hitting the charts twice with “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” (first in that “come-a-come-down-dooby-doo-down-down” rock version and later as a ballad).Jim’s impressive and satisfying show – which returns on July 1 ----contains this hit as well as the very early chart-toppers like “Calendar Girl” and the “comeback” numbers like “Laughter in the Rain.” Jim told me that before he would even think about trying to contact Sedaka’s office, he would want to be sure he had the tribute show just right. (I thought it was just about just right when I saw it earlier.) But, thanks to a Google alert (!) Sedaka had set up to be aware of any internet item about him, he already knew about the show and decided to come check it out, simply making a reservation in his own name—for two: Mr. and Mrs. Neil Sedaka.
The venue’s waitress, Kendra, approached Jim before the show and asked if he had seen the reservation list, he relates, and he said he hadn’t. So, she sprang it on him. “I see the big man’s coming.” When Jim looked at the list, saw the name, “and I simply laughed.” He thought a friend had made a reservation in Sedaka’s name as a practical joke, but “I had a slight ill feeling inside my stomach.” Thinking it over, not considering it could be true, “I said aloud, ‘I hope this is someone’s idea of a bad joke!’ I truly went through the list of people in my head I knew were coming and would really do this to freak me out. So, having decided who the two people were and preparing what to say to them after the show, I moved on.” And he told people that he probably wouldn’t want to know if Mr. Sedaka were ever in the house. Or did he? “About 20 minutes before the show Tim [his superb musical director Tim Di Pasqua] asked me if I was serious about not wanting to know if Nell came. Still not taking it seriously I said, ‘Look, if Neil Sedaka by some miracle walks through the door today, SOMEbody better tell me.’ I jokingly said I would get sick on stage if it was a surprise. Well, the miracle occurred and 10 minutes before the show Joey Pier [technical director] came back to tell me Kendra was seating Neil and his wife Leba. I truly couldn’t believe it and can’t even explain how my stomach felt or how to sift out what was going through my mind!” And then he remembered he had a sinus infection and hadn’t brought his camera this night of all nights.
So the show, which has been smartly directed by Brian Lane Green, began. Tim Di Pasqua went to the piano and Jim clutched his heart and his nerve. And the room belonged to Jim and Tim and him….him being Neil Sedaka whose songs the audience gets a chance to really drink in. They were zipping through the hits (including “Bad Blood,” the song Sedaka did with Elton John, and bits of those rewritten for a new children’s album so that “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” becomes “Waking Up Is Hard to Do”!), but it’s the more mature ballads where it becomes glorious.
Jim recalls he was able to get through the show without being obsessed about the star’s presence until the moment came when his musical director leaves the stage and he accompanies himself for the song, appropriately enough, called “Solitaire.” Then it suddenly hit him. “I sat down at the piano to play the intro, started playing and about halfway thru the intro I thought, ‘Oh my God—Neil Sedaka is listening to me play this.’ At that moment, I truly would not have been able to tell you what day of the week it was, let alone what I was supposed to play next. My fingers just played something arpeggiated and pretty and then I said to myself--- I kid you not--- ‘Jim, get to Eb7...Get to Eb7.’ I faked my way to Eb7 and the song began. I sang my heart out. After the show, while telling Neil this very story he said, “Wow. I just loved all the embellishments at the beginning.’ Not only did he make that comment, but he sat down with Jim for half an hour to give praise and comments. He told Jim, ‘You really get me,’ explaining how happy he was with the way his songs and sensibility came through. Emotions ran high and Sedaka’s also very pleased wife, Leba, mentioned she had to pass him tissues during the look back on missing “The Hungry Years.” (And, fortunately, someone did come up with a camera.) After much talk and thanks, including Sedaka saying they must be in touch and that he wanted to send some producers to the show to see it next time around, Jim assumed nothing. Returning to Virginia and reality, it took Jim a while to come down to earth. But Neil Sedaka, getting ready to perform abroad, called him just a couple of days later to follow up and say he had people who wanted to see the show---when could he do it again as soon as possible in New York? So the extra date of July 1 was hastily booked and Jim keeps pinching himself. Perhaps when he’s singing the old ditty about “living right next door to an angel,” he might be thinking he has an angel watching over him. Certainly he has the voice of an angel. Naturally high and pure, radiating sincerity, he is indeed a perfect fit for the Sedaka songs and style. I thought so long ago when he included one Sedaka number, “Should’ve Never Let You Go” in his act. He’s a singer who has grown quite a bit, communicating more directly --- with thoughtful phrasing and a stronger connection with lyrics and audiences --- since I first saw him a few years ago.
Music is in the fiber of Jim Van Slyke’s being—he’s not just a singer, but a man who writes music and lyrics, plays piano, teaches voice, coaches singers, writes arrangements. He’s comfortable behind a piano and behind a microphone. Now, with Neil Sedaka behind HIM, I suspect he has a future that’s as golden as his pure, honeyed voice.
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SEE www.JIMVANSLYKE.com Venue: www.WestBankCafe.com Laurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank, 407 West 42 St. NYC. The show is on July 1. Call 212-695-6909 for reservations.
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