S.O.D. "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond

2/11/2016     Neil Diamond is piano, guitar and vocals, active from 1962 – present he continues to write new material and maintains an extensive tour schedule.  He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. On the adult contemporary Billboard Charts he is the third most successful artist behind Elton John and one – time duet partner Barbra Streisand.  He wrote and released "Sweet Caroline" in 1969 as a single.  Diamond explained during a 2011 interview on the CBS Early Show that he wrote the song based on an image that stuck in his mind from a magazine cover photo of Caroline Kennedy as a young girl on a horse with her parents in the background.

     The song has become a staple during sporting events and has been played at Fenway Park during the middle of the eighth inning at every game since 2002.  Diamond himself has often performed the song there. More meaningfully the song was performed at sporting events across the country after the Boston Marathon bombings to show solidarity for those affected by the tragedy.  It has been performed at other marathons for this purpose including the Hamburg marathon in Hamburg, Germany on April 21, 2013.  After the week of the bombings, sales of the record went from 2,800 to 19,000 copies in one week.  Diamond now donates all of his royalties from sales of the song to the "One Fund Boston" to help the people most affected by the bombings.