Neal Casal’s Solo Albums

Field Recordings is a collection of "demos, dirges, out-takes, take-outs, songs proper and song fragments, all recorded in different times in different basements, living rooms, altered states, and state of the art studios, real, imagined, and car tested...." That’s the way Neal described this record in the liner notes and it’s an accurate take on this compilation. ‘Brand New Damage’ and ‘Best To Believe’ are both songs that got left off Fade Away Diamond Time’ but were staples of Neal’s live shows in those early years. ‘Sleeping Under Stone’ is another song written by Barbara Keith that Neal made his own. ‘December’ is a beautiful, lush demo with a string arrangement by Davis Jaynes. The closing hidden track ‘Blood On The Boombox’ begins after 3 minutes of silence and is an inebriated, goofing around, basement cassette recording of Neal’s high school band Exire crushing Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’. Basement dreams, indeed.

In many ways, I would regard this as Neal’s best and most personal solo album, covering the whole variety of styles that he was capable of in his music. The original version of the record was a 23-track double album and the streaming version of the album also includes a bonus ‘second disc’ of 10 demos and live tracks that only came out in Europe through Glitterhouse Records and Fargo Records in France.

Most of this album was recorded in the home studio Neal set up at the farm he and his wife Christy had moved into in Columbia, NJ. The studio was in a building on the property that was once a dog kennel and still smelled like it.

Neal called it Fuzz Folk Studios and he got himself an old 8-track recording rig and really became an excellent recording engineer and producer in that kennel. Volume 1 is bookended by two brief acapella, funny vocal performances by Neal’s dad, Ray. ‘No One Said A Word’ really defines the term “fuzz folk” and ‘Basement Dream’ is one of the best kennel recordings he ever made and features an ethereal organ drone that Neal played himself one night after John Ginty left his Hammond B3 organ at the studio.

Neal met Kenny in 1997 when Kenny was touring with his amazing Raleigh, NC band 6 String Drag. They became instant pals and 6 String Drag were the band at Neal and Christy’s wedding in 1997. Neal and Kenny toured the UK and Europe together in 1999 and recorded an extremely limited-edition EP in the dog kennel in 1998 called Not So Low. By extremely limited, I mean 100 handmade copies, lol.

Later in 1998, they recorded the songs that became Black River Sides at Bernie’s Hillside Tavern in Chester, NJ, one of our favorite spots back in the 90’s. Recorded by Terry Loftus in front of an audience of about 25 people, the record also features John Ginty on organ and is highlighted by Neal’s lost classic song ‘Town Fathers’, which is boosted by Kenny’s rich, baritone harmony on the choruses.

This is the closest to a sequel, sound and style-wise, to Fade Away Diamond Time. It’s again produced by Jim Scott and with the same musical lineup of John Ginty, Angie McKenna, Bob Glaub and Don Heffington. Recorded at a small studio in Burbank, CA called Rotund Rascal in the summer of 1999, this album contains two of Neal’s best ballads, ‘No One Above You’ and ‘Too Much To Ask’ alongside the Stonesy opener ‘Willow Jane’ and the Tim Hardin-inspired folk of ‘Time Down The Wind’. Neal was so psyched when we tracked down the Memphis Horns for an appearance on ‘Willow Jane’ and his layered harmony vocals on ‘Oceanview’ showcase his skill as a vocal arranger and singer. Film maker Ray Foley shot a documentary film about Neal during the making of this album and parts of it can be seen here, particularly the awesome video for the track ‘Eddy & Diamonds’. At some point soon, we will make this film available for streaming.

I was Shannon’s manager from 2000-2003 and we hired Neal, Jeff Hill and Dan Fadel to be her backing band when she toured in support of her debut album in 2002. Neal and Shannon had a shared love for folky singer-songwriter records and decided to make some recordings together.

At this point, Neal had relocated to California and we set up a small studio for him in a tiny unused room at the large Cello Studios complex in Hollywood. Jim Scott was working down the hall and lent them some mics and recording gear and they made this lovely EP.

Shannon’s opening song ‘Pale Moon’ feels like a lost folk gem and this was really the first hint of what an outstanding sideman Neal was as a guitarist and harmony singer on other artist’s songs, which he would go on to use to perfection with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals and the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. Neal’s own two songs and vocal blend with Shannon are beautiful on ‘Fierce Little Bird’ and ‘In My Mind’ and they even managed to recruit Greg Leisz for the instrumental pedal steel track ‘Sunset Flood’ and Benmont Tench for the instrumental piano romp ‘Alachua County Boogie’.

This is a compilation album released by our dear friend Michel Pampelune at Fargo Records in France and features previously released songs from all the earlier albums and one rarity, an unreleased cover of Johnny Thunders’ 1977 song ‘It’s Not Enough’, which also subsequently wound up on 2005’s Return In Kind album of covers.

This album of cover songs from some of Neal’s favorite artists showcases his ability to make other material his own and contains some of his best vocal performances, as he sometimes felt freer to push his voice to translate other songwriter’s words. This is best displayed on a stunning version of Jamaican musician Joe Higgs’ ‘There’s A Reward’. His takes on Doug Sahm’s ‘Be Real’ and Michael Hurley’s ‘The Portland Water’ are also good examples of his varied vocal styles.

At the point he went to record this album, Neal had been playing with Ryan Adams & The Cardinals for a couple years and took advantage of a tour break to camp out at a studio in Connecticut with producer Michael Deming, along with Dan Fadel on drums and Jeff Hill on bass. Deming wrote a dramatic string arrangement for the track ‘Grand Island’ and that song was Neal’s favorite on this album. ‘Freeway To The Canyon’ actually became part of the Ryan Adams & The Cardinals set for a while and there’s various versions of that floating around on YouTube. ‘Traveling After Dark’, ‘Sleeping Pills in Stereo’ and the trippy electric guitar instrumental ‘Saw Stars’ are other highlights here.

All Directions is a companion piece to ‘No Wish To Reminisce’ released by Fargo Records in France. It features live versions and demos of the songs on No Wish, along with a few rarities like Neal’s cover of The Beatles ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ and Terence Trent D’arby’s 80’s smash ‘Wishing Well’, which features Neal’s most soulful, R&B vocal stylings.

For this rootsy (no pun intended) folk album, Neal returned to western New Jersey and Mix-O-Lydian Studios, where he recorded Rain, Wind and Speed 13 years earlier and assembled a great collection of songs. His New Jersey crew of Dan Fadel, John Ginty and Angie McKenna are joined by Jeff Hill and Jon Graboff from the Cardinals, along with overdubs from his California pals Johnathan Rice, Farmer Dave Scher and Darren Rademaker. ‘The Losing End Again’ kicks off the album and it’s mix of folky rock songs like ‘Back To Haunt You’, ‘So Far Astray’ and ‘The Cold & The Darkness’ next to ballads like ‘Cold Waves’ and ‘Chasing Her Ghost’. There’s also versions of some of his lost 90’s demos that hadn’t made previous albums- ‘Turn For The Worse’, ‘Superhighway’, ‘Keep The Peace’ and ‘Pray Me Home’.

Neal made this beautiful album with producer Thom Monahan in 2010 in the time after Ryan Adams & The Cardinals had broken up and before Chris Robinson Brotherhood got started. Again featuring Dan Fadel and Jeff Hill on drums and bass, John Ginty on organ and Jon Graboff on electric and pedal steel guitar, there’s also layered harmony vocals from Amanda Shires, Hannah Cohen and Andy Cabic of Vetiver. The title track is one of his great, later career songs and he regarded ‘White Fence Round House’ as the best song he ever wrote. ‘Bird With No Name’ and ‘Need Shelter’ both showcase his flatpicking and fingerstyle acoustic guitar styles and ‘The Gyrls Of Wynter again harkens back to his love of 60’s folk-rock. ‘Angel And Your Mine’ is another older song that he’d tried to record a few times over the years, but finally nailed the definitive version here.