Shilo - Neil Diamond (1970) 4/6/22

The history of popular music is littered with stories about record company executives who torpedoed an artist's planned release because they thought the record-buying public wouldn't go for it.

In a few cases, they were right...but in literally dozens of cases just in the '70s alone...they were dead wrong.

Today, we're highlighting a song that a record company went out of its way to kill...but when the artist changed labels and started a run of "Great Songs," they jumped on the bandwagon to cash in.

The song was 1970's "Shilo," and the artist was Neil Diamond.

In 1967, Neil recorded "Shilo" for Bang Records, but Bang founder Bert Berns refused release it as a single on the grounds that it wasn't teen-oriented. Seriously. Instead, the song was buried on the album, "Just For You."

At that point, Neil, who wanted to write more autobiographical material, ("Shilo" was about his imaginary childhood friend), had enough and left Bang for Uni Records.

After Neil scored some big hits and "Great Songs" with Uni, including "Sweet Caroline" and "Holly Holy" (both in 1969), good old Bert Berns decided to jump in and release "Shilo" after all--but not until he had it remixed with a new backing track. Not only that, he put together some of Neil's older material and released an ALBUM" called "Shilo.'

In 1970, The single reached #8 on the Easy Listening Chart and #24 on the Hot 100.

So Bang Records had a hit with a "Great Song" by Neil Diamond.

Bert Berns shamelessly vultured his mistake into some "bandwagon" bucks.

And Neil Diamond went on to have a legendary career.

"Shilo" (1970):