A Diamond for Christmas

It was a sweltering September day in Los Angeles, and one wondered what was going to wilt first on the sound stage--the hundreds of potted poinsettias or the robed choir members standing under the hot lights.

Neil Diamond took his place among the singers on the tiered, columned set after a few minutes of rest during the fourth long day of shooting HBO’s “Neil Diamond’s Christmas Special.”

One of Diamond’s adjuncts had warned that the singer was out of sorts from all the hurry-up-and-wait involved in the taping. But there was no trace of snitty stardom: Diamond found his mark and gamely endured take after take of the song even as camera angles needed rethinking, lights flared up and an Advent calendar’s worth of other glitches caused delays and retakes.

Between takes, Diamond, his puffy white shirt and green vest taped to a collar of tissue paper to keep his makeup from running, sipped water and jested with the choir members.

Later, in a waiting room, the 51-year-old singer relaxed in a terry cloth robe and talked about the special. An obvious first question was, “How does one ever get in the Christmas mood when it’s 90 degrees outside?”

“It’s surprisingly easy. All you have to do is listen to the music and it puts you right there,” Diamond said. “I loved Christmas music when I was a kid. I’m Jewish, but everyone is exposed to that music. I sang it in Christmas concerts with the choirs and choruses in high school, and loved the repertoire a lot. This is a little bit like going back to high school for me.”

Diamond had some scuffling years after his Brooklyn school days, trying to make it as a songwriter in the early 1960s. “I never imagined anything like this then,” Diamond said, pointing to a TV monitor showing his ornate Christmas special set. “I was just trying to pay the rent.”

His career finally took off in 1966 with “Solitary Man” and since then it’s been a steady stream of gold and platinum records, Grammy awards and record-breaking concerts to audiences of passionately loyal fans. One such concert was captured on a previous HBO special.

Diamond has also taken on such challenging projects as the soundtracks to the film “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and a remake of “The Jazz Singer,” which he also starred in. He is planning another film based on his 1976 album “Beautiful Noise.”

The Christmas special is an outgrowth of his current “The Christmas Album,” recorded at the specific request of the head of his record label. “That was a chance I couldn’t turn down, because I’d always wanted to do one but could never get up the nerve to. The album came out really beautifully and then I wanted to do it visually as well,” he said.

With all the things Diamond has attempted, why would his nerve falter now?

“Well, first of all, nice Jewish boys don’t go around making Christmas albums. But it’s the music that eventually won out. Christmas music is so gorgeous that as a singer you really want to sing it, beyond anything to do with religion. And don’t forget Jesus was a nice Jewish boy once, too.”

For both the album and the special Diamond went back to his favorite Christmas songs.

“I always liked the ‘Little Drummer Boy,’ and my daughter suggested doing it, so I tried to do it my way. I loved Nat King Cole singing ‘The Christmas Song.’ My son Jesse suggested John Lennon’s ‘Happy Christmas (War Is Over).’ But most I picked from my school choral experience, so we’re talking about the really serious songs, ‘Oh Holy Night,’ ‘Silent Night,’ ‘We Three Kings’ and ‘Emmanuel.’ Before you know it you’ve picked the most beautiful songs in the world.”

This marks the first time Diamond has undertaken singing a body of songs he didn’t write himself, and he’s enjoyed the experience enough that he’d like to try it again.

“It’s something I hadn’t thought about until I did this project. If people like it, I’d like to do another. It’s more fun for me to do as a performer and a singer because I don’t have to be self-critical about the song. ‘Silent Night’ is ‘Silent Night’: You either do it well, your way, or you don’t.

“With my own music I’m always super critical of it and that makes it more difficult for me to perform, and to do recording or a TV show like this.”

Something that Diamond said sets his special apart from other holiday shows is that “it’s no guests, no dialogue, just wall-to-wall Christmas music. It has nothing to do with little skits or snappy patter or anything like that. The music is what it’s all about.”

The Christmas album and special follow on the heels of “The Greatest Hits 1966-1992.” That career retrospective has prompted several critics to reassess their views of Diamond, which have largely been critical over the years.

Diamond said, “I’m used to the criticism at this point. I’ve had 25 years of it, because I came in when the Beatles came in, but they were ‘in’ and I was ‘out.’ It’s just now that it’s starting to turn around a little bit. A few writers have been friendly to me and said, ‘Hey, this guy isn’t half bad. Some of his music is good.’ So that’s nice when that happens before you’re dead.”

“Neil Diamond’s Christmas Special” airs Saturday at 10 p.m. on HBO.