Veteran singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka tells Laura Davis about famous fans, performing with his grandchildren and six decades in showbusiness

IT’S a wonderfully eccentric image – Neil Sedaka, possibly in a pinstriped suit and trilby, strolling in the park with a parrot on his shoulder. Echo, a medium-sized male bird from New Guinea, has been his companion for 17 years, yet has never learned to sing.

“People say ‘oh my God there’s Neil Sedaka with his parrot’,” relates the veteran singer-songwriter.

“He’s not a great talker but he does say ‘hello Echo’. I won’t be bringing him on my tour to England but I have my songs to keep me warm.”

With nearly 1,000 to his name, it would be a long, if enjoyable, night at the Philharmonic Hall next month if Sedaka decided to play them all.

Instead, he promises a solo show of all the old favourites as well as two or three from his latest album, The Music of My Life.

“This time it’s videos with me at the piano and it’s a pure form of the songs, the way I wrote them,” he explains.

“And I tell stories about how or why I wrote them. I think people want to hear more personal things besides just hearing the song played.”

During what he describes as his “lean years”, when the Beatles changed popular music so drastically that it was hard for male solo artists to continue their success, he was a regular visitor to Liverpool.

“I played a small club called the Wooky Hollow,” he recalls in relaxed tones. “ I think there was a bridge you had to walk over to get to the audience.

“It was during the period when I was writing new songs and they only wanted the old songs. It was an experience.”