Hot August Night

Paul Gambaccini presents the award-winning series that re-visits the occasion where a classic live album was recorded.

In August 1972, Neil Diamond returned to The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles for a series of sell-out concerts. For those in the audience who'd seen him there the previous year, the change was extraordinary. The once subdued star now burst onto the stage in a blaze of smoke and light, sporting his new mane of shaggy hair and dressed to kill by Bill Whitten.

This was going to be an event: the first time a concert by a singer-songwriter was 'staged' and the first time surround-sound was used to envelop the audience in the luscious sound of strings supplementing Neil's rhythm section. Those who were there, backstage, on stage and in the audience, remember the thrill.

Producer: Marya Burgess

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2007.