After several attempts at trying to write a blog about my daily life, I realized I wasn't very interesting. My life consists of school and thats about it, except for music. I have always enjoyed my music, tunes from the 1960s and 1970s mostly, and that is really the only thing I do in my spare time; I research the background history of a song (s) I am currently listening to. So, that is what I will be blogging about for a while, until I get bored with that, or something interesting happens in my dismal life.
Well, for my first post of my second blog, I thought I would pick none other than my favorite song of all time to blog about, "You Don't Bring Me Flower," by Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand.
It all started with a young disc-jocky with a very peculiar sense of obervation. While spinning away the latest singles by Andy Gibb or Wings, Gary Guthrie notised that Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand had both included a version of, "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," on their latest albums, but what was even more interesting, was that they were singing in the same key. The song was written by Neil Diamond and Marilyn and Alan Bergman. Neil obviously chose to record the song he had written, and Marilyn and Alan being close friends to Barbra Streisand, pursuaded her to record it also. Gary Guthrie came up with a brilliant idea, he gave his radio listeners and "exclusive" and played both records at the same time. Soon, callers from all over called in to request another playback. Columbia Records also heard about the ruckus happening, and pursuaded Neil and Barbra to record the song as a duet.
The Columbia Records single number 10,840 debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of October 28, 1978 at number 48. It only took five weeks for the record to reach number one on December 2, 1978. It was the third chart topper for each artist. When the 1980 Grammy nominations were announced, "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Duo. At the awards ceremony, both stars appeared at opposite ends of the stage, unannounced, and sang their hearts out in an electifying performance.
Everyone seemed pleased with the outcome of the record, except the man who had started it all, Gary Guthrie. He filed a five million dollar lawsuit against CBS for breach of contract, stating they haden't lived up to their agreement when he sold them the duet idea. Eventually that was cleared up and the single sold over a million copies and torpedoed platnium status to Neil's, "You Don't Bring Me Flowers, " and Barbra's , "Greatest Hits Vol. 2" albums.
"...used to be don't count anymore, they just lay on the floor 'till you sweep them away.."
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