Neil Sedaka

I was invited to all of the teenage parties, and that was a very big deal in those days, if you can play your own songs or hits of the day.

So it was a two-fold experience.

Actually, a two-fold study of songwriting and going to Juilliard every Saturday.

And then I went to the college, Juilliard College, studied with Adele Marcus.

And when I was 19, I had to make a decision which direction to go.

And...

You know, the money is being from a very poor family.

My father was a taxi driver in Brooklyn for 30 years and worked very hard.

And I think every teenager wanted to be a rock and roll star that, you know, that would be very exciting to any kid ever.

So I did pursue it, but I never dropped the classical music because I still basically love it, and those are my roots.

I was dying to hear how it went.

Well, I was a freshman at Lincoln High School and, as I said, not one of the popular kids.

And I had started writing rock and roll.

It was the beginning of rock and roll.

And I wrote a song called Mr. Moon and sang it at one of the Ballyhoo shows in the auditorium.

And there was to be two performances.

The first performance, the kids started to jump and dance and bump and grind.

And it was a sensation, except when Abraham Lass, the principal, called me into his office and said, you know, Neil, we can't have that kind of behavior.

We'd like you to do something else, another kind of song for the second performance.

And there was a petition signed by the students that they wanted Neil to do Mr. Moon again.