Tucson vocalist headed to hall of fame

Ron Neuman is about to join some pretty impressive company in the International Rock-A-Billy Hall of Fame: Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Lefty Frizzell, Roy Orbison, Bo Diddley and The Bon-Aires.

“I’m thrilled,” Neuman said early this week, days before a representative from the hall of fame was expected to fly to Tucson from Jackson, Tennessee, to officially install Neuman on Saturday, May 14. “I have been absolutely blessed.”

The induction will come during a benefit concert at Brother John’s Beer, Bourbon & BBQ at 9 p.m. Saturday. The ceremony is here instead of Tennessee because Neuman is not able to fly. He said he will undergo a kidney transplant soon that we keep him grounded.

Neuman is being inducted for the 45 years he spent in music, most of it fronting the second chapter of The Diamonds, a Canadian quartet from the 1950s and ’60s that’s best known for its versions of early pop hits “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” and “Little Darlin’, ” and the original tune “The Stroll.” Neuman joined in 1971 when John Felten, who joined the group in its fifth year in 1958, decided to regroup around a new lead singer.

Neuman, whose career has included singing gospel and country music, said that he and Felten drew up a legal contract giving them the rights to the band’s name. At the time, there were competing incarnations of the group traveling around the world , most of them following The Diamonds’ greatest hits playbook.

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Neuman took over the group when Felten was killed in a plane crash in 1982.

“That was really just devastating,” he said.

That’s when Neuman decided to change the band’s name from The Diamonds to The Diamonds Vocal Group to clear up the name confusion from the other groups touring with the band’s music. They continue to perform the Diamonds pop tunes alongside country and gospel.

Neuman, 69, said the band relocated from the Seattle, Washington, area to Tucson in 1997 — “Quite frankly, we were tired of the rain,” he admitted — and has continued performing a full slate of shows. They will do 80 shows this year and they have 120 on the books in 2017, including festivals and fairs, casinos and theaters, as well as mega-churches.