Fred Neil was born Frederick Ralph Morlock Jr. on 16 March 1936, and he started singing when he was in first grade, coached by his mother. Around 1947, when in sixth grade, he started playing guitar, and by the late 1950's he was one of the singer-songwriters who worked out of New York City's Brill Building, a center for music industry offices and professional songwriters. While composing at the Brill Building for other artists, he also recorded six mostly rockabilly-pop singles for different labels as a solo artist, and early rock and roll songs of his were recorded by such artists as Buddy Holly, with 'Come Back Baby' in 1958, and Roy Orbison, with 'Candy Man' in 1961. He later moved on to a more folk-influenced sound, and with his 12-string guitar and spectacularly deep baritone voice, he was considered the King of the MacDougal Street/Greenwich Village folksingers. Neil met Vince Martin in 1962, and they formed a singing partnership, with their first album 'Tear Down The Walls' being released in 1964, and during 1965 and 1966 Neil was joined on many live sets by the Seventh Sons, a trio led by Buzzy Linhart on guitar and vibes. In 1965 he released is second album 'Bleecker & MacDougal' on Elektra Records, and his eponymous release in 1967 was relaunched in 1969 as 'Everybody's Talkin'', following the huge success of Harry Nilsson's version of his song. It was 'Everybody's Talkin'' which brought him to the attention of the public and other musicians, and it wasn't long before they started to explore his back catalogue. 'Bleecker & McDougal' was plundered by bands and singers in 1969 and 1970, although groups such as The Animals and H.P. Lovecraft were ahead of the game and had already covered songs from the album when it was first released. Since then nearly every song on it has been covered, and so here are a choice selection of the many versions of Neil's songs which are out there, with two of his most famous ones added at the end to bulk up the record to a satisfactory 43 minutes. Something that I didn't know until researching this post was that Jefferson Airplane considered Neil a major influence, and he was a frequent visitor to their Haight-Ashbury house in San Francisco. Neil reminded Grace Slick of Winnie the Pooh, with her nickname for him being 'Poohneil', and their song 'The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil' was written for him.
Track listing
01 Bleecker & MacDougal (H.P. Lovecraft 1967)
02 Blues On The Ceiling (The Bintangs 1969)
03 Sweet Mama (Charlie Brown 2020)
04 Little Bit Of Rain (Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys 1967)
05 Country Boy (Tim Krekel 2018)
06 Other Side To This Life (The Animals 1966)
07 Mississippi Train (Roger Bartlett 2018)
08 Travelin' Shoes (Tea And Symphony 1969)
09 Yonder Comes The Blues (Michael Parks 1970)
10 Candy Man (Dale Hawkins 1969)
11 Handful Of Gimme (Vince Martin 2018)
12 The Dolphins (It's A Beautiful Day 1970)
13 That's The Bag I'm In (Buzzy Linhart 1970)
