Neil Sadaka

The Bang Years 1966-1968 is a compilation album by Neil Diamond of Diamond's 23 songs he recorded for Bang Records in mono. Originally issued in 2011 by Columbia Records, it was reissued in 2014 by Capitol Records after Diamond signed with Capitol taking his Bang catalog with him.

The title of this latest release from bassist Neil Swainson is fitting: HERE FOR A WHILE. Amen to that. At 68, he’s had not just a long career, but a most distinguished and impactful one. In Canada and internationally, a world-class musician.

Rising from humble roots in working-class Brooklyn to global success, Neil Diamond became one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century as well as a dynamic, internationally known touring act and skilled songwriter whose compositions produced numerous hits for himself and others. In a career that began in the early 1960s as a staff songwriter at New York's legendary songwriting institution the Brill Building, he soon transitioned into performing and recording his own songs, finding success among the emerging pop singer/songwriter market with early highlights like "Solitary Man" and "Kentucky Woman." A move to Los Angeles at the end of the '60s coincided with a shift toward more adult-oriented pop and subsequently ushered in Diamond's heyday as a major star. Melodic chart-toppers like "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Song Sung Blue" kept him on top and opened the door for ambitious project material like the Grammy Award-winning Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack and 1976's conceptual Beautiful Noise album.

Merryweather was a late sixties Canadian rock band that relocated to California in the autumn of 1968 .