Neil Sedaka: Packing Up Is Hard To Do

1. A Stairway To Heaven
As a Brooklyn-born Jewish boy of Spanish descent, Neil Sedaka may have been a typical New Yorker, but he wasn't a typical student at the prestigious Julliard School of Music, especially as he used to cut classes to peddle pop songs to Broadway music publishers. In 1956, Arthur Rubinstein had singled him out as the New York High Schools' most promising concert pianist, but Johnny Ray and Rosemary Clooney had got to him long before that.