When basso-throated NYC folkie Fred Neil journeyed to Los Angeles in 1966 to record his third album, he had high hopes that a new label (Capitol), new producer (Nick Venet, who’d worked with the Beach Boys) and a host of crack session players would prove the third time’s the charm. Commercially speaking, ’twas not to be, and within a few years a disillusioned Neil would retire from the music business.
Artistically, however, the remastered reissue of 1967’s Fred Neil (Water/EMI) lays the evidence of Neil’s genius squarely on the table. Both the swirling, multi-prismic waltz “The Dolphins” and the gently rolling “Everybody’s Talking” would become oft-covered classics. Tim Buckley, another “difficult” folkie (who ultimately transcended the label), made the former his own, and Harry Nilsson, soon to be given major reissue treatment, turned the latter into a massive hit. “That’s the Bag I’m In” is a wonderful, slippery-as-serpents blues, while eight-minute instrumental “Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga,” featuring droning, Eastern-flavored fretwork, tabla percussion, bouzouki and harp (courtesy of guest Al Wilson from Canned Heat) is nothing short of astounding. Sonically, too, the LP boasts an uncommon warmth and sensual ambiance, a folk-and-jazz tightwire act with nary a misstep.
Writes journalist Bob Mehr, in the 12 pages of impeccably researched liner notes outlining the songwriter’s life and times, “Some 40 years after it was recorded, Neil’s self-titled LP remains the one perfect work in a small and otherwise imperfect catalog.” Indeed, with Fred Neil finally restored to print, perhaps a belated revival on the order of Nick Drake’s Volkswagen-spearheaded resurrection is within the realm of imagination. Memo to advertising agencies: Those final, transcendently elegiac 30 seconds of “The Dolphins” would make even this jaded journalist sit up and cock his consumer’s ear if the track scored a TV ad. Please, though, no seafood restaurant commercials.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2006.
