Fred Neil

Reclusive, mysterious, and extravagantly gifted, Fred Neil was a pivotal figure in the transition from folk-singer to singer/songwriter. Little is known for certain about his early years, though myth places him in Memphis with the Sun gang and in Clovis, New Mexico, with Buddy Holly (who recorded one of his songs). Neil was known to have haunted the halls of the Brill Building in the '50s, where he sold songs to Roy Orbison ("Candy Man"), Jack Scott ("Grizzly Bear"), and others, while recording a succession of obscure pop and rockabilly singles. He discovered Greenwich Village and the burgeoning folk scene, in which he could give full vent to the bluesier side of his personality. His calling card was his extraordinary voice, an impossibly deep and rich baritone Odetta once described as "a healing instrument."

After a 1964 album as part of a folk duo with Vince Martin, Neil bowed on his own the following year with the epochal Bleecker & MacDougal. "The Water Is Wide" demonstrates his mastery of tradition; "Blues on the Ceiling" shows the master bluesman's ability to make something fresh from familiar materials. He transcends genre with the tender ballad "Little Bit of Rain," while "Other Side to This Life" would become a favorite of folk rockers from the Youngbloods to the Jefferson Airplane. With a supporting cast of guitarist Peter Childs, future Lovin' Spoonful founder John Sebastian on harp, and Mountain architect Felix Pappalardi on bass, this is folk that often rocks. (They even throw in "Candy Man," just to make it obvious.) Bleecker & MacDougal is one of the albums that best captures its era, but its greatness is also in the future it predicts.

The Many Sides of Fred Neil presents his three subsequent albums for Capitol and an album's worth of unreleased material, all on two CDs. The 1967 album, called simply Fred Neil, is five-star stuff, surpassing Bleecker & MacDougal. "I've Got a Secret," "That's the Bag I'm In," and "Sweet Cocaine" (the latter two featuring Canned Heat's Alan Wilson on harp) are among his best blues adaptations, but two exquisite songs of longing mark this as a classic: "The Dolphins" ("I've been searching for the dolphins in the sea/and sometimes I wonder, do you ever think of me?") and "Everybody's Talkin'." When the latter was covered by Harry Nilsson and used as the theme for the film Midnight Cowboy, it became a hit and then a standard. Neil actively resisted the fame this brought him; his performing antipathy was such that he had to be begged, cajoled, and even tricked into making records. Sessions documents this antipathy, as well as the drug problem that had always hounded him; the fog lifts only for "Felicity" and a bravura reading of Percy Mayfield's "Please Send Me Someone to Love." Other Side of This Life is a 1971 contract-satisfier, half live and half disappointing duets with the likes of Les McCann and Gram Parsons. Fred Neil never released another record, disappearing into the Florida Keys, where he lived anonymously off songwriting royalties until his death in 2001, an enigma to the end. (BEN EDMONDS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide