In his touching liner notes written in October of 1986, Neil Sedaka tells of how he began writing songs with his friend Howard Greenfield exactly 24 years earlier on October 11, 1962. Sedaka "was a 13-year-old piano student at the Juilliard School and Howie was a 16-year-old poet." The record is pretty much a tribute to Sedaka's co-author of the song "My Friend," the lyricist who contributed to all of their big hits from the 1960s. Greenfield died at the age of 49 on March 4, 1986, two weeks before his 50th birthday, and this set of recordings is dedicated to him. Though My Friend could've been a collection of their greatest moments together, it is instead some of the important material from the second phase of Sedaka's radio career, the five and a half years from 1974-1980 when Toni Tennille helped the world realize Sedaka's Back. There are the collaborations with Phil Cody as well as some of Sedaka's songs written on his own. The result is highly listenable, though somewhat incomplete. As a package, My Friend is an excellent compilation featuring seven of Neil Sedaka's eight hits from the 1970s up to 1980, put together by the singer and reissue master Bill Levenson. The vinyl contains only four songs per side and the final Top 40 record for the Rocket label, "Stepping Out," featuring Elton John on backing vocals, is missing. However, the compilation does include the chart songs Sedaka wrote for the Captain & Tennille, a tune he composed with his daughter, Dara Sedaka, entitled "You're So Good for Me," and the duet with Dara from 1980 -- "Should've Never Let You Go" -- which was his only Top 40 single from his stint with Elektra Records, and the final of his 21 Top 40 hits up to 1980. The handwritten sheet music on the back, the liner notes, and the song sequencing make this a very entertaining and loving tribute. It's a very good companion piece to the original Greatest Hits package on RCA (the Rocket label released a similarly titled compilation in 1977 containing all the hits from the Rocket years), though other collections containing material from both releases are more comprehensive.