Neil Sedaka with Helen Reddy - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-14-1975

Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka died just two days ago as I write this. Specifically, he died on February 27, 2026, at the age of 86. Reports say he was in good health, eating at a restaurant just two days earlier, then had a sudden medical emergency. I wasn't going to post something to mark his death if I didn't have some album worthy of posting. But, as it turns out, I actually have two worthy albums. I've been posting episodes of the "Midnight Special" TV show for months now. I hadn't gotten around to making albums for him. But I quickly did that after I heard about his death. So here's the first one.

Sedaka was a big star in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike most big stars at that time, he not only co-wrote most of his hits, along with songwriting partner Howard Greenfield, he and Greenfield wrote many hits for others. But then musical tastes changed in 1964 with the rise of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and others, and he fell off the charts for a long time. However, he'd never lost his performing talent, or his songwriting talent, and he had a major comeback in the mid-1970s. His song "That's When the Music Takes Me" made the Top Forty U.S. singles chart in 1972. But he really came all the way back in 1974 with the song "Laughter in the Rain," which went all the way to Number One in the U.S. More hits followed from 1975 to 1977, especially "Bad Blood," which was another Number One in 1975, and a slow ballad version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," which hit the Top Ten, also in 1975.

Because of this success, Sedaka was on the Midnight Special quite a lot from late 1974 onwards. In fact, he hosted the show a bunch of times: twice in 1975, once in 1976, and twice in 1977. As I write this in March 2026, high quality YouTube videos of this TV show have only reached the end of 1975, with more being slowly released chronologically. So all I can deal with are his appearances on the show in 1974 and 1975. It turns out there he played some songs twice. So I did a lot of moving around of songs for the two albums I've made to make sure no song appears twice on the same album.

Thus, this album is more Frankensteined together than any Midnight Special album I've posted up until now. It's taken from four different episodes. Tracks 1 through 6 come from the February 14, 1975 episode mentioned in the title. That was a unique episode, with three hosts, each getting exactly one third of the show time. The other two hosts were the Spinners and Todd Rundgren. I've already posted the Rundgren portion, and the Spinner portion will be posted eventually. 

Tracks 7 through 9 are from a July 25, 1975 episode. That included Sedaka singing "Love Will Keep Us Together." He wrote that song with Greenfield, and it was released on a 1973 Sedaka album. It was released as a single and failed to even make the charts. However, in 1975, Captain and Tennille released a version of it as a single in 1975, and it was a massive hit. Not only did it reach Number One in the U.S., it was the best selling song that year! In that same episode, he performed a duet with Helen Reddy, "Don't Let It Mess Your Mind."

Tracks 10 and 11 are from the November 14, 1975 episode. That actually is the date of the second Sedaka album I'll be posting. But I moved those songs here because one is another duet between Sedaka and Reddy, "Sad Eyes," and the other is a song just sung by Reddy, "Emotion." I wanted to put all the Reddy songs on the same album.

That leaves tracks 12 through 17. Those come from a November 29, 1974 episode. Together, they made up a big medley of his best early hits. I broke most of them into their own mp3 files though. 

By the way, note that I've created two "Covered" albums for Sedaka and his main songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield. So if you haven't listened to those yet, I suggest you do. Here are the links:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield_24.html 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 That's When the Music Takes Me [Edit] (Neil Sedaka)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka)
03 The Immigrant (Neil Sedaka)
04 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka)
06 Standing on the Inside (Neil Sedaka)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
08 Don't Let It Mess Your Mind (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
09 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka)
10 Sad Eyes (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
11 Emotion (Helen Reddy)
12 talk (Neil Sedaka)
13 Oh Carol (Neil Sedaka)
14 Stairway to Heaven (Neil Sedaka)
15 Sweet Sixteen (Neil Sedaka)
16 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do - Next Door to an Angel (Neil Sedaka)
17 Calendar Girl (Neil Sedaka)

pixeldrain.com/u/6zAb4GYz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/t19NZPKdAZPuF0p/file

The cover image is from the July 25, 1975 episode, included here. It's a screenshot I took of Sedaka performing a duet with Helen Reddy.