Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer and songwriter, born in Brooklyn, NY.  From the 1960s to the 1980s, Diamond was one of the more successful pop music performers, scoring a number of hits. As critic William Ruhlmann writes, “as of 2001, he claimed worldwide record sales of 115 million copies, and as of 2002 he was ranked third, behind only Elton John and Barbra Streisand, on the list of the most successful adult contemporary artists in the history of the Billboard chart.”[1] As of May 2005 he has sold 120 million records worldwide, including 48 million records in the U.S.[2]  Though his record sales declined somewhat after the 1980s, Diamond continues to tour successfully, and maintains a very loyal following. Diamond’s songs have been recorded by a vast array of performers from many different musical genres.  Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984, and then in 2000 was given its Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award. He will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the early part of 2011.  In 2008 Neil Diamond scored his first ever Billboard number one album with “Home Before Dark”, the album also became his first studio album to get to number one in the UK.