Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Neil Diamond Gives Up Touring After Parkinson’s Diagnosis

(JTA) — Jewish singer-songwriter Neil Diamond announced he is giving up touring after recently being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

The Australia and New Zealand leg of his 50th Anniversary tour scheduled for March have been cancelled, according to the announcement.

“It is with great reluctance and disappointment that I announce my retirement from concert touring. I have been so honored to bring my shows to the public for the past 50 years,” the artist said in a statement released on his website on Monday.

“I plan to remain active in writing, recording and other projects for a long time to come,” the statement said.

Diamond has had ten No. 1 singles: “Cracklin’ Rosie,” “Song Sung Blue,” “Longfellow Serenade,” “I’ve Been This Way Before,” “If You Know What I Mean,” “Desiree,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” “America,” “Yesterday’s Songs,” and “Heartlight.”

He starred in the 1980 remake of “The Jazz Singer,” which garnered him three Top 10 singles: “Love on the Rocks,” “Hello Again,” and “America.”

Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. He received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and was honored at the Kennedy Center in 2011.

On January 24th, Diamond will celebrate his 77th birthday, and on January 28th, the Recording Academy, at its annual Grammy Award ceremony, will honor him with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.