Although illness prevented a December 2014 concert by Cher from completing a Trifecta to mark the opening of PPL Center that included September 2014 concerts by the Eagles and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and while there have been other notable concerts and events at the new downtown Allentown landmark, the honor to complete the Trifecta at the new arena goes to Neil Diamond, who opens his 2015 world tour at PPL Center with concerts at 8 p.m. Feb. 27 and March 1.

Diamond's night off accommodates the PPL Center's raison d'être, The Phantoms, for their Feb. 28 home-ice game against the Binghamton Senators.

Diamond's tour, which continues through Novemeber, takes him to some 30 cities in North America and 11 cites in Europe. He travels with a crew of about 100. It all starts in Allentown.

Diamond's tour features songs from his lastet album, "Melody Road" (October 2014); recent albums; chart-toppers, including "Solitary Man," "Cherry, Cherry," "Kentucky Woman," "Holly Holy," "Sweet Caroline," "Brother Love," "Cracklin Rosie." "Song Sung Blue," "Longfellow Serenade," "Love On The Rocks," "America," and "The Jazz Singer" soundtrack (1980).

Diamond, 74, has recorded with several highly-regarded producers, including Robbie Robertson (singer-songwriter-musician of The Band), "Beautiful Noise" (1976); Rick Rubin, "12 Songs" (2005), and Don Was and Jacknife Lee, "Melody Road."

In a transcript of a Feb. 4 telephone conference call provided by LiveNation, producer of Diamond's PPL Center concert, Diamond talked about, among other topics, Neil Diamond tribute bands, his Jewish roots and the genesis of "Sweet Caroline."

Tribute bands

Many popular pop and rock entertainers and groups have tribute groups. Peter Blackstock of the Austin American-Statesman asked what Diamond thinks about Neil Diamond tribute bands. Said Diamond:

"Well, I kind of have mixed feelings about it. I like live music and I want to foster that. I tend to be in the corner of anybody who's out there making live music. If they want to use my music, that's great.

"I've seen one or two [Neil Diamond tribute bands] and it's fun, but I'd much rather have people, if they like the songs, interpret them in a way that's unique to themselves and to their own talent than to try to copy something that I've done in the past.

"That's a general piece of advice that I give to people anyway. Don't listen to what the style that somebody's using or something that's unique to them. Find out your own capabilities and interpret it that way. That's my main criticism. I wish they'd, if they like the songs, find their way of doing it and do it that way.

"As far as those bands, generally, great. Thank-you very much. I'm flattered, But for your own good, you should be doing your own thing."

His Jewish roots

It's the 35th anniversary of the release of the remake of the movie, "The Jazz Singer," in which Diamond starred. Alice Schweiger of The Detroit Jewish News asked Diamond if Judaism still plays a role in his life. Said Diamond:

"Yes, of course, it does because I was born and raised as a Jewish person. My parents are Jewish, my uncles and aunts, my grandparents, so many of the kids that I grew up with in Brooklyn, so it's part of me. I would be a different person, I think, and I'm very proud to be Jewish and I'm proud of the accomplishments of the people who are Jewish. It's part of my life. It's part of who I am.

"I've grown up and I've matured and I've met people and become close friends with people from all over the world and all kinds of walks of life and all religions and I've learned there's a common denominator there. I've learned to judge people and to associate with people based on who they are and not so much whether they're Jewish or Italian or just different, black or white.

"I don't judge people anymore by those kinds of broad categories. I judge them by the people that they are and I've learned that I can be close to and love people from all over the world who are very, very different and have had different childhoods than I have. But the common denominator is that. And my religion is something that's secondary in being close to other people.

"You have to understand the person, whether a man or a woman, whether black or white. I do like people and it's got nothing to do with my religion. It's just my nature and how I grew up.

"I am 100 percent Jewish and I love being Jewish and I intend to remain Jewish."

"Sweet Caroline"

"Sweet Caroline" has become an audience sing-along, not only at Diamond concerts, but at Boston Red Sox baseball games. Brian Bingaman of The Reporter, Lansdale, asked Diamond about the genesis of "Sweet Caroline." Said Diamond:

"The song itself has some very, very, I don't know if you'd call it attractive or seductive things in it and, despite its simplicity, it's the kind of thing that's almost undeniable. Also, I believe, there was something very mystical about that song.

"It came about and was written in a very odd way. It came out of a necessity of the moment. It came out at a point in my career when I desperately needed to have a song become a big, pop hit.

"I had changed labels and, in making that change, I wasn't able to continue that string of huge hits that I had when I was with my first label, on Bang. There was an album, or a year and a half or two years, when it was a little scary because I thought my career was over, then, up popped 'Sweet Caroline.'

"I was down recording in Memphis. It was the night before our final session there, and I needed something wonderful, and it came to me. It just fell into my lap, this little, simple song. It was wonderful.

"I thought it was wonderful, then, when I wrote it down. I got into the studio and we laid down a track in American Recording in Memphis, and I still thought it was wonderful. The producer, Tom Catalano, took the track off to New York and had some horns put on it, and they're memorable. I still thought it was wonderful.

"The record company put it out and it worked it and it went to the top, I think, maybe it was a No. 1 record and maybe it was a platinum record. It didn't matter. It inserted itself into the consciousness. Again. I was back. My career was back. And I had only to follow it and following it came 'Holly Holy' and 'Brother Love' and 'Cracklin' Rosie' and 'Song Sung Blue' and a bunch of the new generation of hits. I owe it to that song.

"I think that song was handed to me by some being or, I don't want to sound a little screwy, but some spiritual thing came and said, 'Do this and make this chord change here, even though you've never, ever played that chord before and you don't even know what that chord is called, make that chord change.'

"That's the chord change on the section with the 'hands touching hands.' It was an A6 chord. I remember writing it. I remember playing it. It's stuck in my consciousness and it changed my professional life.

"You have to love a song like that and then, to present it to an audience, and they liked it a lot. And each time I came through that town, they liked it more and, before you know it, they were singing it. I never asked them to sing it. They did it all by themselves, and they were adding their own melody lines and their own counter-lines. It took on its own life and it changed my life.

"Nowadays, it's like a whole thing and everybody knows it and everybody knows the parts. Well, guess what? That came from the audience and I taught them a lot of that stuff when I realized they were doing it. But that's a collaboration between me and my audience and I love it for that reason.

"Why it happened, I don't know. But I know it happened and, by the way, the song was released first 40 years ago and it's still around. It's become a good-luck song for a lot of people and I know it was a good luck song for me. I kind of knew from the beginning. There you go. I didn't plan it. That's just the way it landed and I was there to nurture it because it took a little piece of my heart and gave me courage when I first wrote it. That's one of the most important songs I've ever written.

"It's not an artsy-fartsy song. It's very simple, direct, straight-ahead kind of song. It's been sung by presidents of the United States. It's sung in China at cricket games. It's the unofficial closing song of Oktoberfest in Germany. And guess what? I had nothing to do with any of that. Just people picked up on it and they wanted to do it and they did it their way.

"That's it. Period. Exclamation point. That's it. Thank you very much, God. I'll see you later."