(Mama) CASH ELLIOT (1941-1974) around 1963 was in The Big Three -the photo on left- with his husband, James Hendricks on guitar -on her right- and the great Tim Rose on banjo. One of their first releases -as Fred Neil's- happened when FM label launched some songs recorded live at The Bitter End. LISA KINDRED -on right picture- would be another early Neil acolyte, having played with him at the Café Wha? and at the Vangard in Ft. Lauderdale (near the Grove). In Cambridge (Boston) she based his career during the second half of 1963 at the Club 47, The Loft and The Turk's Head coffee-houses. Besides, she would cover Candy Man and Neil's adaptation of the traditional The Water Is Wide on her first album I Like It This Way (Vanguard, 1965), and Neil's Wild Child In A World Of Trouble -from Tear Down The Walls- on the sampler New Folks, Vol. 2 (Vanguard, 1964). In 1966 Kindred would record, backed by the Mel Lyman/Jim Kweskin group, an album for Vanguard which finally was released by Reprise as American Avatar in 1969. Bruce Langhorne -himself a Neil late 60's sideman on an unreleased session in 1965 and on 1967 Sessions LP- also played on that unique flowing blues masterpiece by the Lyman ensemble. Lisa -credited as UFOs- would sing along Fred on Badeda, the song from his 1966-eponymous album. Lisa's alive and kicking nowadays, still recording and performing in San Francisco. www.lisakindred.com   

The minute I drove into the Grove from Brickell Avenue, I was hooked. It was so different. You could smell it and feel it. Within a month I had my own place right by the bay, where you could smell the jasmine. (Vince Martin, Coconut Grove In All Its Hippie Glory, Kulchur mag, Miami New Times, 8.6.2000) …The erotic heat and flora and the ocean and that damned bay breeze kept you horny and excited all the time. And the feeling was definitively a separate thing from that of the city and if you are creative you take from the ambience around you and turn it into your work (Vince Martin interviewed by Toni Ruiz, March 2007).

Advised by Martin and seduced by the idea of returning so much near his raising place, and getting away from New York -that Fred would start to hate because the labels, managers and club owners heavy struggle-, he would play in the Grove more or less regularly since 1962 until 1966.

Vince recruited Fred to come to the Grove. By 1962 Fred and Vince were performing as solo acts at The Coffehouse, but would come together - usually late in the evening to jam/improvise together on some of Fred's and ocassionally Vince's standards (for example, Morning Dew was a Vince number, not Freddie). In the beginning it clearly was jamming -no arrangements. The early improvisations included a lot of line and response stuff, not just on the field holler material, but on all kind of material. The first numbers I remember that became polished duos were Weary Blues and Linin' Track. In those early days, Fred would occasionally riff into raga-like stuff, usually as instrumental breaks within a vocal - usually brief. The first full-blown what we would later identify as raga were the extended breaks in Linin' Track. I really believe that he developed his later raga instrumentals from the Linin' beginnings. (Anonymous -aka Oldays-, 9.27.2001, ETF).

- Surely the first joint in the Grove in which Neil would play was The Coffehouse (named really the Bavarian Inn and later the Pine Tree Inn), placed on Douglas Road and owned by Carl and Roger Yale.

Freddy was doing a single at the Coffehouse. He took me out back to the garden where we had a smoke, then we went in to play. I was still nervous to be playing with my hero, and tried to be very subtle. On The Water Is Wide I was playing soft and sweet when I hit a terrible wrong note. Under my breath I whispered 'Oh shit'. Freddy heard me and started laughing so hard he had to quit and went right into Country Boy. (Homer Harp, 9.28.2001, ETF).

Back then, most everybody did a little grass, but Fred was the first heavy druggie on the scene. As counterintuitive as it may sound, and others may contradict me, when Fred was specially stoned and p+erforming solo or just with guitar backup, he could be particularly mesmerizing. He would get into a very introspective (and usually very slow and soft) thing. He was almost performing for himself only, and would improvise, both vocally and instrumentally, in beautiful ways. Conversely, his strongest performances jamming with others were when he seemed to be most straight. At those times he really up and full of musical energy… I do not remember Fred ever doing his pop material in those days. For example, while we all knew he had written Orbison's Candyman, I cannot recall him ever performing it. About the closest he ever got to his pop stuff was his version of Come Back Baby, which was kinda rock, but the way he performed it was blues and jazzy, and mildly reminiscent of Mose Allison, particularly in its offbeat timings and rhythms. (Anonymus -aka Oldays-, 9.27-28.2001, ETF).

- Fred Neil would also play at The Doghouse in Coconut Grove, and at the Catacombs in Fort Lauderdale, both places with Chip Crosby -David elder brother- backing him up on stand-up bass.

On fast beat numbers like Linin' Track, Chip would beat on the strings with a large dowell (Anonymus -aka Oldays-, Sept. 2001, ETF).

- Some gigs at The Catacombs were recorded by ex merchant marine Bobby Ingram, one of the Neil's first acolytes in the Grove and one true pusher of that scene.  

Vince was playing at The Drumbeater's Bar. Right behind him came Fred, and then Lisa Kindred, David Crosby and the rest. Suddenly we had a little scene happening. I had money saved from the Merchant Marine, so a bunch of us opened the first coffehouse in the Grove. (Bobby Ingram, BE).

On the left JACK LINKLETTER PRESENTS A FOLK FESTIVAL, the LP compiling live performings by Les Baxter Balladeers, Jim & Jean, The Yatchsmen, Chloe Marsh and Linkletter himself. On this LP the Crosby brothers backed Les Baxter Balladeers, interpreting, among other numbers, Linin' Track, that is introduced in the liner notes as 'a Negro folk song that inspired young singer song writer Freddy Neil to make this pulsating, syncopated arrangement''. Besides, among the backing line-up credited on this album feature Grovites like Bobby Ingram -Fred's close friend- and Michael Clough. On right a promo pic of Balladeers CHIP CROSBY standing on right on stand-up bass and DAVID CROSBY (1941) sitting below on 12-string guitar. David had also joined Bud & Travis (Edmonson) in concerts. By then, he was almost obsessed with Mel Torme and used to perform Summertime. In the early 1964, after settling down at a yacht in Northern California with Fred's old friend Dino Valenti, Crosby started to perform at The Trobadour -where he would meet Jim McGuinn- and manager Herb Cohen's new joint The Unicorn. Just some weeks prior to joining The Byrds, Crosby would demo Ray Charles' Come Back Baby, traditional Jack O Diamonds, Hoyt Axton's Willie Jean and Valenti's Get Together at the World Pacific Studios in LA, the sessions produced by Jim Dickson and Crosby being backed by guitarist Tommy Tedesco, bassist Ray Pohlman and drummer Earl Palmer -this last one would also back up Judy Henske on High Flying Bird (Elektra, 1963) and Hardin on his 1 LP (Verve, 1966)-, the four songs being released on The Preflyte Sessions (Sundazed, 2001). By the hand of Crosby, The Byrds also recorded I Know My Rider -the traditional that Martin & Neil would record on Tear Down The Walls- in July 1966, that was attempted to be released as single from Fifth Dimension LP (Columbia, 1966), the song not being issued but on the 4-CD box-set The Byrds (Columbia, 1990). David Crosby had met Fred Neil in the Village around 1961 and would follow him to the Grove: He was the one who told me I could find work in the coffee houses that were springing up in Miami, which is what convinced Kevin Ryan and me to get on a Greyhound bus and go there. It was there also that he introduced me to my lifelong friend, Bobby Ingram... All in all he taught me a sizable chunk of what music was about, and even more about why's and wherefore's of being a musician. He was a hero to me. (David Crosby liner notes for The Many Sides Of Fred Neil 2CD, Collector Choice, 1998).

Travis Edmonson's The Drifter would be other of the favourite songs prefered by the circle of folksingers reunited around Fred Neil by then, Edmonson influencing on Martin, Crosby and Terry Callier. Callier and Crosby performed The Drifter when they played as a duo for few months in the Village in 1962, and Vince Martin played it extensively. Crosby learned it directly from Edmonson -whom had backed up live- and taught it to Vince and Terry. Aside The Drifter, the above-named Jack O Diamonds and I Know You Rider were also staples, aside traditionals like The Water Is Wide, Ray Charles' Come Back Baby or Hoyt Axton's Willie Jean -the latter two, as it was told, already recorded by Crosby-, and Come Back Baby by Neil himself for his 1971-released LP Other Side Of This Life. But the traditional Green Rocky Road was maybe the most covered song by that group of singer-songwriters, existing a lot of released versions with very different arrangements -and titles-: Judy Henske called his version Hoka Toka (on her eponymous live-recorded Elektra album from 1963); Len Chandler released it on Hootenanny Live At The Bitter End (FM, 1963) compile; Tim Hardin issued it on his eponymous 1 (Verve/Forecast, 1966); Terry Callier would title it Promenade In Green on The New Folk Sound Of Terry Callier (Prestige, 1968); Casey Anderson recorded it to his More Pretty Girls Than One (ATCO, 1964), and Tim Buckley would insert it on Who Do You Love medley -the tittle being really from the final verses of Green Rocky Road chorus -not from the Bo Diddley song tittled Who Do You Love as instead was credited on Dream Letter. Live In London 1968 (Demon, 1990). Yet, the best version it's the Fred Neil's, enhanced by four beautiful acoustic guitars (Neil, Pete Childs, John T. Forsha and Cyrus Faryar), released on his eponymous album in 1967.

I just went to visit and at that time a gathering place for musicians, writers and instrumentalists, was a place called The Bitter End.The first 4 or 5 people I met were Fred Neil, Dino Valenti, Josh White, Jr. and David Crosby. Just being near them was a great experience. (Terry Callier, www.spannered.org/music/576). Terry [Callier] and I were pals. Yeah, Terry and I sang together. Terry came to New York from Chicago and he and I lived together and sang together for a while, with great pleasure. Very talented guy. Great singer. Jesus, could he sing. (David Crosby, www.ebni.com/byrds). The New Folk Sound Of  TERRY CALLIER -recorded in July 1964 but released by Prestige in 1968, produced by Sam Charters who worked with John Fahey, Pink Anderson and Country Joe & The Fish-, comprises versions of Promenade In Green (Green Rocky Road) and The Drifter, and the recent CD reissue adds Jack O Diamonds, a song that Crosby had already recorded at early 1964, before joining The Byrds, as it was above said. This record displays a spiritual gospel-folk-jazz flavour which to helped by the backing of very rare presence -on a folk recording- of two stand-up bassists (Terbour Attenborough and John Tweedle). Besides, Callier would release in 1973 an I Know My Rider version - that Crosby had also made with The Byrds- as You Goin' Miss Your Candyman on What Colour Is Love (MCA), the song soul-ly re-arranged. In 1997 Callier sang along british electro-folk 90's -kind of- queen, Beth Orton, on her Dolphins cover, released on Best Bit EP by Heavenly Records. Callier's kept on releasing records and playing live regularly since the late 1990's, and on his 2005 CD Lookin' Out (Universal) he's covered Dino Valenti's What About Me (You Gonna Do About Me). As it can be watched Callier has a big musical debt with Neil and his circle of collaborators. On right, like Callier, CASEY ANDERSON was born in Chicago, being one of the first performers that released a Fred Neil version on an album in the 60's, giving title with it to his second one: The Bag I'm In (ATCO, 1962), in which Anderson -backed by ubitiquous guitarist Bruce Langhorne- would perform That's The Bag I'm In, and on Chain Gang song he'd medley Evalina, another negro traditional that Neil would often insert on his performings. Anderson would also version Green Rocky Road on his following album More Pretty Girls Than One (ATCO, 1964) and Looks Like Rain -that Fred would release on Sessions- on The Kind Of Man I Am (Superstar, 1965).

- Neil would inaugurate The Vangard coffeehouse in Fort Lauderdale, with Lisa Kindred on vocals and 12-string guitar and the monologuist/poet/activist Al Mamlet, whom Fred would back up during his readings.

They came into town to open it [the Vangard] up. They also opened our minds. While I hated the urban crap being played by most “folk” singers (scruppy ballads and Tom Dooley renditions), I had been taught blues by a black grandmothly type. Then I heard Fred and discovered that white boys could play the blues. Listening to his playing, his 12 string, Lisa's 12 string (a black Vega if I recall), and listening to Al's monologues on socially unacceptable topics, all helped convert me into a renegade. I went on to play 12 string and give monolgues anywhere that we could pass the hat. (Henry Matthes, 7.25.2001, ETF).

Five Thousand Years Of Folk Music, the only released piece by AL MAMLET, can be found on Bring It On Home - Vol. 1 (Columbia, 1994). The spoken-word track was recorded at Bearsville Studios in  Woodstock (NY), where Mamlet had moved to from the Grove in the 70's, following a similar itinerary to the Fred's, who would move to Woodstock at the late 60's. This compile also includes exclusive songs by other future Fred's Woodstock collaborators and friends as Happy & Artie Traum and Rick Danko.  

- July-August: Fred would play for various weeks at least two engagements in Canada: at the Potpourri (Stanley St.) in Montreal, and at the Purple Onion in Toronto. Since then and until 1966, he'd travel to play in Canada every Summer.

Between sets of his gig at the Purple Onion I asked Fred questions about his picking style and his music. I noticed that he used a flat pick between his thumb ans his index finger, with fingerpicks on the middle and ring fingers of his right hand. He said that he'd done this for so long, it had just naturally evolved over time… I asked how he would describe his music and I could almost see a glint in his eyes. Well, he said, he didn't worry too much what other people thought, especially the recording industry which would prefer that he played something identifiable like blues or folk or something. What he does is mix something bluesy together with something from jazz and any other influence that he feels is right for the song he's writing. (Murray Kronis, Memories Of Fred, fn.com).

I peddled into Montreal and saw a poster saying that Fred Neil would be playing at the Potpurri. I hung around until Fred showed up. He was surprised to see me there. He was staying at the Queens Hotel, so we went back to his place after he checked in with the manager of the Potpurri. As we entered to elevator to go to his floor, a group of guys got on. They started to call out their floors, and as guy do, each one was trying to out do the other in how deep their voices could go. Anyway, Fred and I are standing in the back of the elevator, and Fred, in that beautiful rich voice of his, calls out his floor, “nine, please”. Well, everyone just shut up and turned around and looked at Fred. I just started to crack up. (Anonymous -aka photo122-, 7.16.2001, Fred Neil Yahoogroups web).

Fred and I were in Montreal together. It was July 4…The next day -the fifth- [engagement day] we went to the top of Mt. Royal, the mountain in the middle of the city… We took a path that leads to the Eastside of the mountain. There was a fence there. Fred and I climbed over the fence and was sitting, checking out the view. Our relationship was such that we didn't have to talk, but we knew each other was thinking. There was a bush of berries to Fred's left. He looked at me and I looked at him and we both said, 'why not?'. So we each had three of these berries, not knowing what they were. We figured if they poisonous we'd judt get sick… That night Fred got on stage at the Potpurri and was doing Roll On Rosie combined with Linin' Track. It was his third song. All of sudden Fred went from 78 to 33. I was standing in the wings and said, 'hay Neil'. He popped up and finished the set. What happened was that we got stoned behind the berries. (Anonymous -aka talltree3-, 7.24.2001, ETF).

- December: Engaged at The Gate Of Horn (Chicago) opening for Lenny Bruce. Neil had played previously there by the hand of Bob Gibson (who was habitual at that venue, releasing a very influential album recorded live with Hamilton Camp called Gibson & Camp At The Gate Of Horn, released by Elektra in 1961). During the gig, Lenny Bruce was arrested being accused of obscenity.

Freddie and Lenny were great friends with a mutual respect of each others jazz abilities. (H. Solomon, 8.30.2001, ETF).

He's a good friend of Lenny Bruce's and the downside of these jazz musicians was that they equated commercialism with some kind of selling out. With some kind of denigration of what they did. And so this kind of selling out was something that Fred was afraid of. (John Sebastian, RU1)… I always thought that Fred had been lucked up by hanging out with jazz musicians, and their attitude that anything commercial was a sell-out. In some ways, my forming The Lovin's Spoonful was a reaction to working with Fred and a few other folkies who were afraid that they'd fall into some chasm of compromise if they sold a few records. (John Sebastian, BE).

There was a certain group of people -Freddie, Dino and Karen- who shared a very suspicious view of entire record-making process. Where everybody else, me included, couldn't wait to get into the studio, they wanted no part of it. I always tell the story to this day about Dino stoppingin the middle of a song and leaving the club because he “felt” the damn record company guy in the room. (Richie Havens, BE).

LENNY BRUCE (1925-1966) shows a newspaper during one of his sets. His reluctance to sell himself out and his rebel attitude against the showbussiness would influence many early 60's folk-blues performers as Fred, Valenti, Hardin and Tim Buckley. Bruce befriended Neil and Hardin, the latter even lived at his LA home temporarily, composing finally the passionate Lenny's Tune after his passing, a song that was only released on Tim Hardin 3 Live In Concert  (Verve, 1968). Nico would record it on his debut solo album (as Eulogy To Lenny Bruce) Chelsea Girl  (Polygram, 1967), before Tim Hardin's own version would appear. Nico learnt it when Hardin backed her at the Stanley's bar in the Village in the fall of 1966.

He was kind of revered and highly romanticised. A lot of it was the idea of Freddie. A cross between Lenny Bruce and Mississippi John Hurt is as close as I can get to it. He had the aura. He talked about Lenny Bruce a lot. He related to the notion that Lennie wouldn't sell out -'selling out' was a big thing with Fred- and was therefore victimised by the establishment…The perfect role model for Freddie (Sam Hood -Gaslight manager-, BE).

Fred was a guy who was uncomfortable with success; he'd get to the verge of it and I guess he didn't want the pressure and responsibility of being a star (Don Paulsen, SW).

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- Fred Neil would sing -uncredited- on three songs of Moanin' n' Groanin', a gospel-folk album credited to 'Tip and Tinker with Charles Mal Scott', released by Audio Fidelity label.

Tip was GEORGE TIPTON, one of Fred's first friends in New York -who in 1968 would arrange the strings on Nilson's Everybody's Talkin' version-. JOE TINKER LEWIS and CHARLES SCOTT had sung with The Belafonte Singers, being Broadway regulars. According to Vince Martin, Joe Tinker Lewis -Len Chandler's friend too-, would teach to Fred to play Please Send Me Somebody To Love, which he would record for his Sessions LP (Capitol, 1967).

- One of his performings at the Bitter End would be recorded by the FM label that would release three songs on the sampler album HOOTENANNY LIVE AT THE BITTER END (FMLP-309) -that'd be Fred's debut on LP-, featuring:

1.-Linin' Track (Trad./H. Leadbetter) / (Grizzly Bear (Neil/Ross/Schroeder)

2. The Sky Is Fallin' (Neil)

3. That's The Bag I'm In (Neil)

Fred Neil: vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar

Major Wiley: vocals on Grizzly Bear

Uncredited stand-up bass on the three songs

Uncredited harp on That's The Bag I'm In

Oscar Brand: liner notes and introducer

Frank Gauna: cover design

Mike Scott: sound

Douglas/Kameron/Kay (?): producers

The Sky Is Fallin', one of the songs included on Hootenanny Live At The Bitter End, was never released, except on this record. It's a deeply Josh White-inflected song with his typical high and low vocal sugary phrasings. Oscar Brand -the folksinger who did as the hoster this time- introduced Neil saying to the audience: 'Here's a young man who sings and plays with the technical and skilling virtuosity which few would never hope to obtain… He does it rather easily in a exciting and moving fashion... Wherever you hear this record, you'll find him because he's all around the country performing…Fred Neil..' Then, Fred would start strumming Linin' Track syncopated rhythm and at the same time talking to the audience: '… go ahead…  I heard all Bitter End people have rhythm', [but feeling the poor rhythmic clapping from the audience he would conclude:] '… I don't know… I guess it's a lie…' On every song Fred was backed up by a stand-up bassist, whose name's never been credited. For the early years in Greenwich Village Fred was backed up on bass or guitarron by Felix Pappalardi, especially at Café Wha? and The Bitter End, but it looks that Felix didn't play stand-up, but guitarron either acoustic and electric bass and guitar. Meanwhile Fred also was joined by Chip Crosby on stand-up bass, but the David's brother only played with him in the Grove. Steve De Naut and  Peter Tork (The Monkees) also joined Fred more or less regularly between 1963 and 1965 on bass, but they rarely played stand-up bass. It was Bill Lee the most required stand-up bassist at the early 60's by folk-blues acts on live and studio dates but there's no quote nor detail relating him to Fred, although he did play sometime with friendly collaborators of Fred like Lisa Kindred and Odetta, which it just can be a vague track. For it, the musician on bass on this recording keeps on being a mistery.

After playing Linin' Track, Fred would introduce That's The Bag I'm In as '… another work-song I learnt from Bobby Dylan…', which for sure it wasn't certain, being maybe a cynic reference to the heavy Dylan Boom that was developing during 1963, that besides it was the top year of the 1960's folk revival. That's The Bag I'm In was already a Village staple. For instance, as above it was mentioned, Casey Anderson titled that way his second album, and Richie Havens had covered it in the studio although it wasn't released but on Richie Havens Record (Douglas, 1965) -which by the way, it was issued without Havens permission-. The other folk-singers who'd complete this sampler album were Len Chandler, his friend and sort of Greenwich Village introducer; Jo Mapes -a new Bob Gibson protegeé from Chicago-; and Bob Carey -who had been in The Tarriers, the band in which Vince Martin had been successful having sung Cindy Oh Cindy (top 10 in 1957).

Fred Neil on a back cover pic from Hootenanny Live At The Bitter End (FM, 1963). On right the cover of Seventh Childl (De Wolfe, 1972), the album by MAJOR WILEY, the folksinger who sings along Fred on Linin' Track/Grizzly Bear medley, the first song on this LP. Previously Wiley -a Café Wha? regular performer- had only launched a Fare Thee Well version -Fred's own version would be released on his eponymous 1967 album- on Folk Music Of Washington Square, a 1962 Folkways sampler, his very hazy career marked besides by Right Wrong Or Ready, a song of his own that he never recorded but that Karen Dalton included on his first album in 1969. It seems that Wiley settled in England since the late 60's, being an actor.  

Monday nights at the Bitter End were (I hate to say it) “Hoot Nights”, and as soon as I went there I encountered this long, thin, freckled, deep-eyed man named Fred Neil. He was singing a song called Linin' Track in an impossibly low and resonant voice. I remember thinking how much I wished I had that beautiful deep river of sound coming out of my chest instead of the plaintive little thing I was stuck with. (David Crosby, RU0).

- Fred would keep on playing in the Grove. In some sets at the Coffehouse he'd be backed-up by Ned Carter on lead acoustic guitar.

Carter played very blues-jazz single string acoustic leads on an incredible battered Martin. Fred also frequently performed solo without backup. Of course, there also were ubiquitous jams where everyone who could squeeze on stage, did. A few of the most memorable included a Venezuelan who would provide backup on an actual harp (not harmonica)… The early 60's Grove SOUND was extremely influential… Much of what was called Folk Rock borrowed heavily on sounds, progressions and rhythms that were common to the early Grove sound. In retrospect it grew out of a fortuitous confluence of several threads: it was FOLK, but without the sugary sweet Kingston Trio sound. It was definitively anti-rock, at least the bubblegummy type that was the most popular then…In the Fred-Vince-Miami-coffeehouse scene, rock was anathema and largely an object of derision. Most of early 60's rock (as opossed to R&B) was pretty banal. Electric instruments and drums were taboo. We used to refer to rock types as “bop-a-doos”. Almost equal objects of derision were the then mainstream folkies (Kingston Trio, Highwaymen, Limelighters, etc.) who we referred to as “bop-a-folks” or “folk-a-doos” -we were pretty intolerant bunch-. Everybody then was in search of something acoustic and authentic -non commercial-. That generally translated to traditional folk, resurrected 1930s blues or traditional jazz, and because it was Miami, Latin acoustic... there was a strong respect for and inclusion of influences from progressive jazz. To really understand the early Grove, one must remember that these were not hippies, it was really late Beatnik, like a cross a literate, rebellious aesthete with a South Florida redneck and you've got it… Fred was really the first to write his own stuff and that grabbed everybody... (Anonymous -aka Oldays-, 9-27-2001, ETF).

- At the Unicorn in the Grove, Fred would meet Buzzy Linhart, who instead being an actor -he went to act on a Tenessee Williams play- deciding to start to perform on vibes with Fred and quitting his actor career.

When he opened his mouth and that voice came out, it was so entirely compelling that I knew this was where I had to be. I went up to him and told him that I was a vibes player. He inmediately said 'Well c'mon, bring 'em over'. It went so well that jammed 'til the sun came up. We played the same set three or four times over. (Buzzy Linhart, BE).

There's no pic from the Fred/BUZZY LINHART first meeting at the Unicorn in Coconut Grove. Here it's Linhart playing guitar live either at the Night Owl or at the Café Au Go Go around 1964-65. Buzzy had come to NYC from Coconut Grove to share an appartment in East Village with John Sebastian. Since the beginning he'd play sometimes as soloist, and other times he was backed up by Steve DeNaut on bass and Serge Katzan or Luther Rix on percussion, the resulting ensemble, named The Buzzy Linhart Trio  would join Fred Neil in 1965-66, and after that would become The Seventh Sons. Linhart would cover Fred numbers like That's The Bag I'm In, Dino Valenti's Get Together and Tim Hardin's Reputation. A great former That's The Bag I'm performing can be watched on www.buzzylinhart.com. If Fred was joined by Linhart on vibes since 1963-64 until mid-1966 playing together folk-jazz jammings, years later Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley also would add that instrument to their respective backing line-ups. Recordings like Tim Hardin 3. Live In Concert (Verve, 1968), Hardin being joined by Mike Mainieri, and Happy Sad (Elektra, 1968) and Blue Afternoon (Straight, 1969), Buckley backed by David Friedman, although the future Weather Report player had already played with Buckley throughout 1968, which can be appretiated on Dream Letter. Live In London (Demon, 1990) and The Coppenhagen Tapes (PRL, 2000).

- The Yale brothers -The Coffeehouse owners- would open one more commercial club in Coconut Grove, called The Hootenanny (on SW 8th St. & Red Rd.), in which Fred would play regularly with Vince Martin.

Tear Down The Walls and I Know You Rider, recorded live at The Hootenanny circa 1963-64, can be heard on the official Vince Martin webpage: www.vincemartin.net  

I used to go around the corner and sit outside right behind where the stage was and play along in private with Freddy and Vinny. Finally one night Freddy banged on the wall and said, 'Ok Homer, it sounds good, come on inside and play'. I hadn't realized that they could hear me through the wall. After that I played  almost every night with them, Bobby Ingram, Oz Bach, and anyone else that would let me. (Homer Harp, 9.28.2001, ETF). 

- Fred would start to play too at the Gaslight South, a new Grove coffeehouse, owned by Sam Hood -NYC Gaslight manager-, who left it soon to be managed by Charlie Brown.

CHARLIE BROWN, the Gaslight Café manager in the Grove, since 1964 until 1969, would be another longtime friend of Fred. After the Gaslight closing, he would also reside temporaryly in Woodstock when Fred lived there.

Fred played with Vince [at the Gaslight] when he needed to and when he didn't he just went off by himself. Fred was the best, he didn't need anyone. Sometimes he'd play with other people but he didn't need anybody, he was the master. (Charlie Brown interviewed by Henry Llach, May 2002) … Fred was performing [solo] his third set. He sang The Water Is Wide and when he finished, everyone applauded as usual. He said 'thank you' and began to play again. He started strumming his guitar and what do you know: he played the same song again. So, when he was finished, everyone applauded and Fred said thank you. He then procceeded to play the same song again for the third time. That's how high he was. He had no clue that he was stuck in the repeat mode. (As told by Charlie Brown to Jack Brolly, A Sunny Afternoon In Coconut Grove, 2000, Tim Buckley's Room 109 Forum on delphi.com)

- Fred Neil would compose the song What You Gonna Do with Shel Silverstein and Bob Gibson, being released on the Bob Gibson LP Where I'm Bound (Elektra, 1964).

WHERE I'M BOUND cover, the Elektra album by Bob Gibson that would be the last one before a voluntary and long hiatus in his career. On right, SHEL SILVERSTEIN (1930-1999), Chicago-born too, another friend of Fred, who with -besides Gibson- wrote What You Gonna Do for Gibson 1964 Elektra previouly mentioned album. Silverstein would also write A Boy Named Sue, a song that Johnny Cash made successful, winning a Grammy in 1970.4 A specially gifted musician -who recorded to Elektra and Atlantic-, didn't dedicated his career entirely to music, being cartoonist, poet and screenplayer. Shel would die in Key West in 1999, very near where Fred's passing occurred in 2001 (in Sugarloaf Key). At the very end of his career, Bob Gibson released one album with several Silverstein songs called Makin' A Mess, Bob Gibson Sings Shel Silverstein  (Asylum, 1995).

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- Capitol Records released the single Long Black Veil/Bottom Of The Glass (#5017), credited to The Nashville Street Singers, and produced by future Neil's Capitol-period (1966-1971) producer Nik Venet. This Street Singers band was confused with which Venet himself put together in 1969 at RCA Studios in Nashville including Fred Neil, Vince Martin, Kris Kristofferson, Danny Dill, Mary John Wilkin, John Bucky Wilkin and John Stewart, who also performed Long Black Veil on those sessions. Simon Woodsworth listed the single on the Fred's discography on his 1996 Goldmine article, and after that, the mistake was enhanced by Collector's Choice Records label in 1998 when the single was even comprised on the Capitol-period Fred Neil 2-CD compile of his entire three albums, with bonus tracks The Many Sides Of Fred Neil. So that this must be called a no-fact or a false fact within the Fred Neil chronology.

It was basically a confussion about there being 2 Nashville Street Singers that recorded Long Black Veil and both were definitively produced by Nik Venet. But this was probably an anonymous group of studio musicians that recorded at the end of some session. So when later everyone started talking about recording with Fred and covering Long Black Veil it was assumed that they meant the single…  Venet didn't even remembered the 1963 recording… The compilers didn't even surely acutely heard it (Henry Llach, ETF). 

- The FM label would reissue some songs from the 1963 Hootenanny live LP, re-titling it the sampler as WORLD OF FOLK MUSIC (FM FS-319), including this time only two Fred Neil tracks: the already released Linin' Track version from the 1963 compile, and Raindrops Fallin', that was actually one Yonder Comes The Blues version, a song which would be recorded in the studio the following year and released on Neil's first solo album Bleecker & McDougal (Elektra, 1965).

Allen & Grier and The Big Three -the Cash Elliot, James Hendricks and Tim Rose band- would be added to the FM previously 1963-released compile Hootenanny Live At The Bitter End.

- After their sporadic gigs as duo at the Coffeehouse, The Hootenany and The Gaslight in Coconut Grove, Fred Neil and Vince Martin would be engaged in the Village to play succesivelly at The Gaslight, the Playhouse and The Bitter End.

Vince Martin and Fred Neil together was heavy juju. Those guys had a magic between them that could absolutely enthrall an audience. They used to get one at each end of the club, and play and sing back and forth. Whoever was in between got melted. (Steve Knight -Felix Pappalardi collaborator-, BE).

They sang Neil's Tear Down The Walls like the rebels they were…it was more than a good tune. It was the first protest song I ever heard in the Village, the first to point me in a clear direction. The lyrics challenged everyone to reach beyond the barriers of their perceived limitations and the prejudice of others. I could not get enough of these two guys. They were my musical gurus in my early days in the Village. (Richie Havens, RH).

… The last night of their appearance at the Playhouse, before taking off home again to Florida, they'd been the talk of the street for months … Fred and Vince stomped into I Know You Rider, Felix boomed into the bassline and John made himself a home for his harp… the voices launched into the song, seemed to sense their own power, and soared like twin rockets. The song exploded into something else, and nobody knew how high it was going to send everybody this time, least of all, Vince and Fred. It grew higher and freer, new things being born out of pure excitement, and when it crashed a close on Fred's patented subterranean rumble, the whole room was stunned into a moment's silence. Then it came apart, Felix let out yell of delighted astonishment; people jumped their feet and cheered and whistled, and Fred stared at Vince, and Vince stared at Fred, and all they could do was grim. They quieted the room with a soft one, and then swung into Tear Down The Walls…The sort of thing can never happen often, or easily. You have to have the proper combination. In this case it comes from the highly explosive fusion of two soloist, who have made their respectives wasy throughout the most of their careers developing their own personal styles as unmistakable individuals…For the year, the good ones [singers] have asked me, 'Have you heard Fred Neil?' Rumor had it that he had abondoned a considerable following of devotees to follow his own tastes and his heart to the Truth in Blues and Folk. We're lucky, because he brings one of the most memorable instruments I've ever heard along with him. A warm, virile baritone…apt at any time to sidle off into a unique, ultra-bass register…In combination these two voices have to be the richest that ever blended to make folkmusic as a team. (Skip Weshner, Tear Down The Walls LP, original liner notes, Elektra 1964).

Fred Neil rehearsing with Vince Martin, probably -according to Martin- at Matt Umanov's folk shop on Bleecker St. around 1963. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives.

- Vince Martin would introduce to Fred John Sebastian, an Elektra Records studio musician, who by then would play harp with the Even Dozen Jug Band.

I met John on MacDougal Street walking with a belt full of harps and stopped him and told him who I was and asked him to play with us that night at the Gaslight where Fred and I were working with Mississippi John Hurt. (Vince Martin interviewed by Toni Ruiz, March 2007). He said 'Wow! Can I come down and play?' he showed up that night and blew us off the stage! (Vince Martin, SW).

- Although Sebastian's told that he met Vince in a Judy Collins recording session, the presence of the harpist -and sometimes guitar player- would be essential part in the Martin & Neil's sound since then. But still another musician would lack in the crew: Felix Pappalardi.

The other person that I met that evening, actually, was Felix Pappalardi. He was doing five or six different gigs all in the neighborhood, and one would happen on one night. This is wide-ranging musician, too. He was a trumpet player and had a baroque brass ensemble. And so, he'd play in baroque brass ensemble. He would come and play this sort of of folk-blues with Martin and Neil. Then he'd tun run over to the Café [the Fenjoon] that was all middle eastern, and play with an oud player in weird time signatures. He was a really a musician to admire…I almost was like his apprentice for a while. Because even though Felix didn't do solo shows himself, he was accompanying so many people, and our instruments went well together. The harmonica and the guitar could kind of sandwich a folk performer in a very flattering way. And it turned out that Paul Rothchild also heard this, and we began to get work in a very flattering way. And it turned out that Paul Rothchild also heard this, and we began to get work as a kind of a team that would kinda out that Paul on something that was basically a folk arrangement. (Sebastian, RU1) … Felix Pappalardi and I were moving towards and R&B area more than the other artists. We were anwious to contribute to the context of this whole new group of young white blues artists like Fred Neil, John Hammond Jr. and Timmy Hardin. (Sebastian, RW).

FELIX PAPPALARDI (1939-1983) and JOHN SEBASTIAN worked as studio musicians and live sidemen during the mid 60's as very few in the Village folk-blues scene. Tim Hardin 1 and 2 (Verve/Forecast, 1966-67), and Tom Rush's Take A Little Walk With Me (Elektra, 1966) are touched by the same stunningly catchy white-blues imagery than the two first Fred Neil albums. By 1961 Pappalardi was playing with Lou Gossett Jr. -the famous late actor- at the Café Wha?, releasing after that one single as soloist titled Love Happy (Columbia, 1963). The future producer of Cream had already backed up Fred around 1961-63 at The Bitter End, and he would leave his track on Richie & Mimi Fariña and Tim Rose recordings. Felix would produce Young Bloods (Mercury, 1965), the second album by Jesse Coling Young in which Sebastian played harp. Since 1964 Pappalardi -who also played guitar- would join oud player Hamza El Din, and keybordist Steve Knight on live sets at the Fenjoon, an Irish pub in the Village dedicated to Middle Eastern-inflected acts. Steve Knight, years later, would team up with Felix for founding Mountain, one of the first hard-rock bands. Pappalardi, along Bill Lee, Russ Savakus, Harvey Brooks and Jimmy Bond were possibly the most required and skilled bassists of that era. By his hand, Sebastian started playing with The Even Dozen Jug Band -the Elektra answer to Vanguard Records' Jim Kweskin Jug Band-, whose large crew included Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Steffan Grossman and Joshua Rifkin-, releasing one only eponymous album in 1964, just before disbanding in Summer. Prior to found The Lovin' Spoonful with Canadian Zal Yanovsky -ex Cash Elliot's The Mugwups-, Sebastian would work with Mississippi John Hurt, Bob Dylan, John Hammond, Jr., Judy Collins and Tom Rush, among others. He would be one of the more faithful Fred Neil compaigners, playing harp and guitar on Fred's two first albums, and keeping on backing him up live, mostly at the Nite Owl and the Café Au Go Go in the mid-60's and throughout the 70's too. Since the 70's until the 90's he'd perform as soloist and sideman in almost all the Rolling Coconut Grove Revue concerts supporting The Dolphin Project.  

- The Martin & Neil duo would play live with Sebastian on harp and Pappalardi on bass or guitarron -a kind of 6-string Mexican acoustic  bass-, the rest of the engaged shows in the Village. Surely advised by Sebastian, Paul Rothchild would show up at the Gaslight to hear the -now  enhanced- duo in order to an eventual release for Elektra Records.

PAUL A. ROTHCHILD comments about his relation to Fred -published on Elektra Records owner Jac Holzman's Follow The Music and excerpted below-  weren't that nice, yet he knew to impregn Neil recordings with his sober folk production. He was signed by Elektra after working at Prestige Records. The Even Dozen Jug Band album and Tear Down The Walls -the Martin & Neil duo only album- would the first recordings that he produced to the label in 1964. Soon Rothchild would become the most notable Elektra producer when the butterfly label leaped into folk-rock and blues-rock, recording albums by Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Love, Tim Buckley and The Doors.

Paul Rotchchild happened in and asked us we'd like to do an album. Fred was much more truculent than me: 'No, no, no, you don't need to do this, you don't need to do that', and I said, ' happened in and asked us we'd like to do an album. Fred was much more truculent than me: 'No, no, no, you don't need to do this, you don't need to do that', and I said, 'Yes, you do, we need the money!' This was 1964 and I had just gotten married for the first time. [Curiously Fred's just divorced in June] (Vince Martin, SW) … We were working at the Gaslight with Mississippi John Hurt and one Rothchild asked outside and offered us five hundred dollars apiece to record. Fred didn't want to do it. Fred had royalties coming in from Candy Man, but I needed the money...He had royalties from Candy Man, he had royalties coming in from this and that…He was very cagey about his money, but he was not a stupid man  (Vince Martin interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003, fn.com).

The most of the royalties which Martin refers were provided to Fred because in 1964 Candyman would reach the top 10 (#6) in U.K., covered by BRIAN POOLE & THE TREMELOES.

- Elektra would sign finally Martin & Neil duo. The sessions for recording the album took place at Mastertone Studios (NYC), being released from them -around mid-1964- the single Tear Down The Walls (Neil)/I Know You Rider (Trad.) (EK-45008) and the first and only album by the duo, TEAR DOWN THE WALLS (EKL-724 mono; EKS-7248 stereo):

1.  I Know You Rider (Trad.)
2.  Red Flowers (Neil)
3.  Tear Down The Walls (Neil)
4.  Weary Blues (Trad./Hank Williams)
5.  Toy Balloon (Martin)
6.  Baby (Neil)
7.  Morning Dew (Bonnie Dobson)
8.  I'm A Drifter (Travis Edmonson)
9.  Linin' Track (Trad./Huddie Leadbetter)
10.  Wild Child In A World Of Trouble (Neil)
11.  Dade County Jail (Neil)
12.  I Got 'Em (Neil)
13.  Lonesome Valley (Trad.)

Fred Neil: vocals and 12 string acoustic guitar

Vince Martin: vocals and 12 string acoustic guitar

Felix Pappalardi: guitarron, harp on 12

John Sebastian: harp on 1, 3, 6, 10, guitar on 12

Jac Holzman: production supervisor

Paul Rothchild: recording director (producer)

William S. Harvey: cover design and photo

Skip Weshner: liner notes

Weary Blues and Linin' Track had been Neil's repertoire staples since the early 60's, the second one even had been previously released on the FM Hootenany Live At The Bitter End sampler. Musical-wise the latter and Baby -specially this one with Sebastian exhausted on harp- contains excursions into raga strumming and hints of improvisation. To another favourite, Weary Blues -a trad. That Hank Williams adapted-Neil adds its idiosyincratic slow-blues-esque tone -with Martin singing the first verses and on the chorus- that would become one of his trademarks. Martin would fight to get Morning Dew in the album, which he got, very helped by that atonishing bright and full acoustic guitar production at its beginning, due to Rothchild. Vince signed one track out of thirteen, Toy Balloon, a very intimate song on his childness, with some harmonic Fred's guitar parts throughout, but The Drifter was also performed by Martin solo on vocals. On the two selected songs for the single (I Know You Rider and Tear Down The Walls) the powerful and moving Neil & Martin vocals feature all along on the verses and on the chorus. Lonesome Valley production results so simple as beautiful with a wonderful guitar solo in the middle played by Martin. Red Flowers, one Fred old tune, it looks like the most country oriented track because the western-movie ballad reminding vocal phrasings. I Got 'Em seems a kind of advance of the dynamics of Neil's next album. Lyrical-wise, according to Martin, he would help Fred to write some parts of the title track and Dade County Jail. Tear Down The Walls and Dade County Jail indicate certain socio-politic awareness while Wild Child In A World Of Trouble -with Fred singing solo- might be one of his first downers, a fable on loneliness in the big city that would influence on every fan who could hear it by then, the song being covered by Lisa Kindred on a Vanguard sampler in 1965.

In those days we're talking two-track, and that's how come the music sounded so good… We started at four o'clock in the afternoon and Sebastian and Felix would be there and they would say 'Where's Fred?' We had to pay for the time while I'd go back to the Hotel Earle, drag him out the bed, put a cigarette in his mouth, put him in the shower and at  o'clock we'd get started. That was the way it was; he just really was a truculent human being. (Vince Martin, SW) … If it weren't for me that record would not have been made… The album was not easy thing to do. Fred was very difficult to deal with. I love him as a friend and he was a great singer and it all pales when you listen to the music, but I was instrumental in having that record made… [If Fred wasn't at the studio] Holzman would come me and hassle me. I was there. I had to do nothing to do with Fred being late, but that was the way it was for those sessions. We worked long and hard on that record. (Vince Martin interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003, fn.com). 

The sessions for Tear Down The Walls were very mercurial. I could sense that Fred was fighting an agenda that really wasn't in the room. A “perceived” agenda. I think he was very afraid of certain turns of arrengement. The minute you began to lock something, he'd be struggling to change it. (John Sebastian, BE) … Paul would bring us in, and make these Elektra albums that were the materal that we'd been playing at the Playhouse. But Fred was at that time a very difficult guy to pin down. If you wanted to work out an arrengement, you had to play it a bunch of times. And that was where it would be very hard to nail Fred down. Because he was a 'oh, we'll just feel it and it'll work out' kind of a guy. (Sebastian, RU1) 

One day Vinnie called and said, 'Hey we just got a demo disc of our album. Can we come over to play it?' We were the only ones that had a halfway decent stereo system. They come over with the first pressing of Tear Down The Walls and it was phenomenal. But Fred couldn't take it and walked. There was something about the way his voice sounded on record that he couldn't stand to listen to. (Bob Satz -Fred's friend-, BE).

For my sings I had to produce him. He was a brilliant songwriter and a total scumbag. The forerunner of the unreliable performer, the original rock flake. We'd book recording sessions and he'd show up or not show up. (Paul Rothchild, JH).

... For me anyway it was best separate the music from the guy. Though I loved what he did, I did not like Fred Neil as a person. He was a weasel in his bussiness dealings, didn't keep his promises. We gave him continual advances. He'd come in to the office and get an advance, and then come in the next day and deny we'd given it to him. The usual drug stuff. After a while you'd just had enough. Paul Rothchild would come in to my office and sit on the couch with his head in his hands. 'Why am I doing this?' I'd tell him it was because the music's worthwhile, and 20 years from now he'd happy he did it. (Jac Holzman, BE).

Freddie Neil was a junkie, unfortunately, but still those Freddie Neil records were incredible. (Arthur Gorson -Phil Ochs first manager and producer-, JH).

- Through Sebastian, Fred would meet Pete Childs, a guitar player who came from Cambridge (Boston) to share appartment with Sebastian. Since then until the late 70's, Pete would play acoutic, steel, slide and electric guitar and dobro backing Fred, on four out of Fred's five official albums and on many of his concerts.

Pete Childs had played guitar with Upper Knoblick 1,000, a band from the Cambridge scene. He'd attempt a soloist career at the late 65 and early 66, playing live backed by Fred on an East Coast mini-tour. He would also do studio guitar work in 1965 on Jesse Colin Young album Young Bloods (Mercury), working sporadicly with other projects like Rambling Jack Elliott's Young Brigham in 1969-.

After 35 years listening to Fred, Pete isn't only a key component of the sound, but that there tunes like Sweet Mama that I can't imagine without him (Anonymous -aka St.Pete-, ETF)

I remember sitting on the floor of the MacDougal St. apartment with Fred in the wee hours, playing along with the predominant note of the New York night, with our guitar tuned closely enough to that note and to each other that a beat frequency would be created, and that beat was what we were concentrating on (although anyone else who may have been in the room was unlikely to be aware of it). This is the kind of musical subtlety that Fred was capable of. (Pete Childs, Memories, fn.com)

- Since Fall 1964, Fred's performings would start to reduce the Village public environments to the Night Owl and the Café au Go Go,   disappearing from sight off NYC, for going down to Coconut Grove -just as he told on some his songs-. Aside sporadic gigs in the Grove, and in Montreal and Toronto in Summer, he'd play rarely in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and unannounced gigs in the Southeast when he was enroute to NY from the Grove or viceversa. His friend Herb Metoyer (whose song Fools Are Long Time Coming, Neil would cover on 1967 Sessions LP), told that Fred would call him for opening in one Atlanta (Georgia) gig around 1965-66.

Freddy used to hang out at my apartment on 11th Street. He and I got along great. He used to like to hide out from all the young folksingers who sucked up to him. Sometimes he'd hang out there for days and nobody knew where he was. We did a lot of speed in those days, and smoked massive quantities of hash. (Steve DeNaut interviewed by Toni Ruiz, fn.com).

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- Early 1965: The second album of the duo Martin & Neil was being  recorded live at The Bitter End, with Sebastian on harp, Pappalardi on guitarron and the Bitter End Singers, when suddenly after a pair of songs Fred stand up and left the stage.

Fred broke a string and walked offstage because he didn't 12 strings. Felix Pappalardi went backstage and picked up Freddy and tells him if he ever did that again he was going to kick he has. Fred disapeared into the Village, vanished, couldn't find him. I had to finish up the week with the Bitter End Singers and John and Felix… (Vince Martin interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003, fn.com).

He wasn't like Tim Hardin or Vince Martin, who'd go into the audience and confront inattentive people. If a crowd wasn't listening and all else failed, he had a little trick where he would pop that high E-string on his guitar with a metal fingerpick. Then he'd say 'Oh my god. I'm sorry but I broke a string. We'll be right back' and he was gone. (Buzzy Linhart, BE).

He hated being on-stage, hated it. Whereas people would applaud at the end of a song he'd mumble, 'fuck you very much' under his breath. He hated being there, and resented having to do it make a living. (Mary Watson Griffith -sister in law-, BE).

The Guinness Book hadn't been written yet but Fred Neil and Timmy Hardin were having a competition to see who could do the least and still be kept on (Joe Butler -Lovin's Spoonful drummer-, SW).

Here's a guy who wrote Candy Man, which Roy Orbison had a hit with, and the day he finished writing it he went to the Brill Building and sold it to about twenty different publishers for fifty bucks each. This is not a nice man. Here's a guy who would go to Izzy Young and say, 'Izzy, I've got a gig tonight and I don't have a guitar'. Izzy would say, 'Freddie, you owe me for about twenty guitars, but I love you, here's another twelve-string.' And Fred would go to the club fucked up, he was always fucked up -I've watched this on about ten occasions- couldn't get the guitar in tune, pick it up and smash it to smithreens on the stage. A guitar he didn't own. (Paul Rothchild, JH).

I beg to differ with Mr. Rothchild. What he describbed never happened. Not that I wouldn't have loaned Fred a guitar would have, and may have done so on one or two ocassions but I definitively would remember the scenario Paul describes. If it happened which it didn't. (Izzy Young -Folklore Center's owner-, BE).

Paul was frustrated and would say these things partially because he saw how close we were to something huge. I mean, Fred could have been the baby Elvis of that folk-blues scene if he'd so chosen. He certainly had the talent, and in his eyes, to a betrayal of it. It was the love of what we were hearing, and the desire to make it as great as you could hear that it could be. (John Sebastian, BE).

- In some sets at the Night Owl Fred Neil would be backed up on harp or guitar by Sebastian, Pete Childs on guitar, and either Pete Tork -later one of the Monkees-, or Steve DeNaut -future Seventh Sons member- on bass.

Between 1964 and 1966, the Night Owl and Café Au Go Go regulars acts were aside Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Richie Havens, Jesse Coling Young -who later would found The Youngbloods- and Buzzy Linhart, besides brand new british invasion, soul-rock, garage-punk, country-rock and folk-rock oriented acts like Electric Flag, The Blues Project -the band of Harvery Brooks and Al Kooper-, The Lovin' Spoonful -the recently founded band by Sebastian-, The Magicians, The Strangers and The Blue Magoos. PETER TORK -on far left pic- could back up Fred on bass, guitar or banjo at those venues but also at some small clubs like The Basement or the ID, and maybe also at Gerde's, around 1963-64 before going to the West Coast to be a Monkee. STEPHEN STILLS met Fred at the Café Au Go Go in 1964 when he  was involved in the Au Go Go Singers with Richie Furay. His admiration for Fred would be literally showed on Buffalo Springfield Again (ATCO, 1967), on whose back cover Fred Neil name was signed, among other influential artists like Bob Gibson. Besides, Crosby, Stills & Nash were about to call theirselves Sons Of Neil just until Fred made them reject the idea. JESSE COLIN YOUNG Young Bloods (Mercury, 1965) was heavily influenced by Fred Neil. It couldn't be other way since that the album was produced by Felix Pappalardi and Young himself was joined by Fred's habitual sidemen Sebastian on harp and Pete Childs on guitar on some songs. Country-rock pioneers International Submarine Band was the first band founded by another Fred's new fellow named GRAM PARSONS, who met his long-time collaborator Bob Buchanan thanks to Fred and had been a fan of him very early, demo-ing Candy Man, Other Side Of This Life and That's The Bag I'm In around 1964-65, the tape being finally released as Another Side Of This Life. The Lost Recordings  by Sundazed Records in 2001. Parsons hung out and played informally with Fred when he visited Los Angeles between 1967 and 1968 and a collab on piano and vocals feautures on You Don't Miss Your Water, the William Bell version on Fred's Other Side Of This Life album in 1971. Parsons -who as Fred had been raised in Florida- had already recorded that song during his brief stint in The Byrds on Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (Columbia, 1968), although the song was only issued on the 4-CD boxset The Byrds in 1990, which also comprised one cover of Tim Hardin's Reputation -which featured too on the above mentioned Lost Recordings on an acoustic take-, both songs probably learnt during his days at the Night Owl.

[The Night Owl] was a very unique room, a long and narrow storefront. The stage faced straight at a wall in the center with one church pew at the foot (the “crocht watchers bench”), an aisle, and then another pew against the wall. All the other seating was to the left and right of the stage, giving a side view. The PA was very trebly and faced to the sides. The music crashed into the wall, and died, leaving the vocals very bare to the bulk of the crowd to each side. You had better sing on key or else it was a disaster. Good harmony went a long way at the Night Owl. (Peter Sando -Nite Owl former habitual-, 1997, www.petersando.com).

Fred used to come to my place in the early 60's. He'd be in white pants, top-siders and a - jacket, in the middle of winter. He'd come from work, carrying a guitar, as he  'round the corner at the Café Wha?  (Joe Marra -Nite Owl manager-, SW).

I played backup guitar for him at the Nite Owl in 1965-66, then my band, the Strangers -later called the 5th Avenue Band- (Woody Kamm, 1-29-2001, ADF) ... When we started the bill was Freddy, the Spoonful and us. We replaced Timmy and when Freddy left Buzzy and the Seventh Sons replaced him. When we started there I would sit thru Freddy's sets every nite and once in a while towards the end if he was in a good mood, he let me come up and sit in. And, man, I waited every nite 'cause it was really a treat for me. I was 17-18 years old and watching these older guys real close… learning chords and learning cool. (Woody Kamm, ETF).

- April: Neil would play at the Café Au Go Go in Greenwich Village (152 Bleecker St.), in one special gig supporting Lenny Bruce. The bill included comedian Mort Sahl, and Fred's friends like Richie Havens, Tim Hardin and bassists Harvey Brooks and Felix Pappalardi. Bob Dylan, Paul Newman and Liz Taylor were special guests. According to Howard Solomon -who was the club owner- the songs performed by Fred -that were recorded-  were:

Weary Blues

Other Side Of This Life

Rosie

That's The Bag I'm In

The Water Is Wide

A Little Bit Of Rain

The last two songs were uploaded by H. Solomon on his Café Au Go Go webpage around 2002, until he had to retire the songs off the net, given the state's rights to the songs.

HOWARD SOLOMON was involved in some Lenny Bruce court cases, since that he was the owner of the Café au Go Go, where Bruce'd been accused of obscenity in 1964. Although some years later -after Lenny's passing in 1966- both of them would be declared not guilty. Solomon would manage Fred Neil between late 60's and early 70's. He would accumulate around two hours (12 reels) of Fred Neil recordings live at his club between 1964 and 1969.   

The Café Au Go Go was a basement cabaret that was part of the 3 buildings at the corner of Bleecker and Thompson streets across from the Village Gate and the Bitter End next to the Bleecker St. Cinema. It had my Garrick Theatre and The Bag I'm Inn café upstairs and in the 5 floors above were several workshops and theatres where new talents honed their crafts and learned the biz… Totally it was about 50,000 square feet and for a period of 1963 to 1969 it played and developed and recorded and filmed a legion of young talent of the Village…Nichols and May, Louise Lasser, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, George Carlin, Adam Keefe were some of the contingent who performed there and at the Third Ear… Improvisation was a mainstay… My fondest memories are the times working with Richie Havens who was Fred's good friend and shot 48 interviews for him at the Penta Hotel (NYC) for the World Futurists who all considered the aspects for the earth in 2040…(Howard Solomon, Jul 2001, ETF) … Fred was staying at my apartment at the John Adam on 12th and 6th and would walk to Bleeker and MacDougal known just where he'd go. To the Tin Angel over the Bitter End for coffee and hang then across to the Au Go Go for the gig or jam with Harvey, Felix, Sebastian, Kooper, Jimi Hendrix, and sometimes Tim Hardin and Karen Dalton. Nobody knew what they were doing or why but just played day and night…I remember Freddie willing to play with anyone till all hours of the night into morning… (H. Solomon, Sept 2001, ETF).

Howard basically taped Fred at his club in NYC, tapes that were never meant for release and that Fred would never have allowed to be released if he were alive. Turning on a tape recorder while someone is singing in your club, and producing an album of musical material are two different things (Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com).

- Fred Neil would be called to record at Mastertone Studios his first solo album around February/March 1965, being released by Elektra Records in May the LP BLEECKER & MACDOUGAL (EKL-293 mono; EKS-7293 stereo):

1.  Bleecker & MacDougal (Neil)
2.  Blues On The Ceiling (Neil)
3.  Sweet Mama (Neil)
4.  Little Bit Of Rain (Neil)
5.  Country Boy (Neil)
6.  Other Side Of This Life (Neil)
7.  Mississippi Train (Neil)
8.  Travelin' Shoes (Neil)
9.  The Water Is Wide (Trad./Arr: Neil)
10.  Yonder Comes The Blues (Neil)
11.  Candy Man (Ross/Neil)
12.  Handful Of Gimme (Neil)
13.  Gone Again (Neil)

Fred Neil: vocals and acoustic 12 string guitar

Pete Childs: acoustic guitar on 1, 2, 6, 8, 10, 12; electric guitar on 4, 5, 7, 9, 11; dobro on 3, 13

Felix Pappalardi: bass

John Sebastian: harp on 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13

Douglas 'Chip' Hatelid: (overdubbed) bass

Paul Rotchcild: producer

Jac Holzman: production supervisor

William S. Harvey: cover design

Mort Schuman: cover photo

Bob Gibson: advise and assistance

Skip Weshner: liner notes

It's almost not worth to tell that Bleecker & McDougal results the ultimate and classic Fred Neil album from his Greenwich Village days. Starting with Bleecker & MacDougal, the song that advances his getaway from New York streets and stressing, this one and the most of the tracks keep on fast tempos, Country Boy, Mississippi Train and Candy Man displaying an exciting rock'n'roll impulse, due to Fred's rhythm guitar and Childs gloving licks, that don't even seem to need drums. Ragtime stylings -influenced by Karen Dalton- is traced on Yonder Comes The Blues while Handful Of Gimme is one of those kind of Josh White-ish songs with catchy stop-and-start chorus in which Fred's nasal tone reign. But the truest blues approach  might be Blues On The Ceiling, a Village staple that deeps in solitude without loosing the irony. The song had been already recorded by Tim Hardin on his first demos -produced  by Erik Jacobsen in 1964 for Columbia although it was released many years later on This Is Tim Hardin-. Hardin added lyrics of his own and slow-ed down the song until getting to do it almost of his own. But Bleecker & McDougal is also the album that presents us A Little Bit Of Rain, one of his more covered songs, that would become one of his favourite ones on live concerts. Little Bit Of Rain and The Water Is Wide chord progressions are those from among which Fred would enjoy so much playing, with that unique sort of balladry fulfilling quiet timing through the very soft playing -as he'd also do on The Dolphins and Faretheewell in the following album-. The Other Side Of This Life, another very versioned and staple, is another of his folk-blues original creations. On it, Fred equals artistic pilgrimage with an already assumpted unable mind to settle down anywhere. Bleecker & MacDougal, Travelin' Shoes and Gone Again also refer to the same theme.   

On the left, THIS IS TIM HARDIN (Columbia, 1967), the album that contains the Blues On The Ceiling version by the maverick friend of Fred, recorded prior to Fred would do it. Hardin vocal phrasing looks like Fred's but his musical background was different, considering he liked more the genuine rhythm & blues from the Chess label mid-50's releasings than rural gone to urban individuals like Leadbelly or Josh White. CHIP DOUGLAS Hatelid -on left on right picture above- didn't recall having played on Bleecker & MacDougal  when he was interviewed by Simon Woodsworth for Goldmine magazine article on Fred published in 1996, the author concluding that Douglas would have overdubbed his bass parts throughout the album. Douglas had played bass with The Modern Folk Quartet -the band in which another future Fred sideman, Cyrus Faryar, played guitar-. While producing The Monkees, Douglas played bass with the ephemeral The [ex Byrd] Gene Clark Group in 1967, who with he features in the photo.

Two pics from a kind of photo session featuring Fred Neil at BLEECKER & MCDOUGAL corner. Presumedly all the pics were taken by Mort Shuman, since that he signed which features on Bleecker & McDougal sleeve. Photos: Michael Ochs Archives.

We developed these ways of working around Fred. We would be trying to get a take, and as we're hitting the home strecht you could feel Fred start to veer from the course. Sometime Paul would just cut and say, 'I'm sorry, I have a technical problem in here'. I knew damn well that he had no problem. He just knew he couldn't say, 'Please do another take'. The musicians also evolved a technique where, if we stablished a tempo and started to get Fred into it, we'd play the song several times through, all in the same take. If he decided to go off on one of his raga excursions we'd go right with him. What we were really trying to do -and this was part of Paul's strategy- was come back down to a nice solid head, a point of beginning-again, because we knew we could slice the strongest three or four minutes out of the extended take. (John Sebastian, BE)

Whatever we were calling it definitely had the qualities of rock'n'roll. But the styles were always just this side of rock'n'roll. He was a great thythm guitarsit, but he had very little inclination to use an electric. I think that was a wise choice, because the 12-string had a certain kind of a propulsion you probably couldn't get out of an electric instrument. He had no objection to anybody playing an electric accompanying him but there are certainly both acoustic and electric guitarists accompanying him in the various recordings. (Sebastian, RU1)

… I actually have a tape of Fred and me practicing for that album [Bleecker & McDougal] and then spent a fair amount of time in the Grove… (Pete Childs, Memories Of Fred, fn.com).

- In between early and mid-1966 Fred recorded December's Dream, a song that Pete Childs had taught him. Childs had learnt it from his author, John Braheny, a friend from Boston, partner of the Upper Knoblick 10,000 band. To arrange the song Elektra Records contracted Jack Nitzsche, playing on these sessions Al Kooper on piano, Bruce Langhorne on guitar (and/or as second arranger), and Childs himself on guitar, and Fred on second guitar, with Pappalardi on bass and an unknow drummer completing the personnel, being produced the recording session by Paul Rothchild. Perhaps the song was attempted for being launched as single for Elektra, after the awaken hopes provided by Bleecker & McDougal album. Because unknown reasons this magnificent cover wasn't released then but in 1998 as bonus track on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil (Collector's Choice label).

Fred would come back to record this song at least twice more: in 1977 and 1978, when he would record twice -with different musicians and at diverse studios- an entire album of covers that would never be released-.  

There are at least two mid-60's photographs -one features on the article The Great Undiscovered Greenwich Village Folk Legend (Simon Woodswoth, Goldmine, April 1996), another on I Don't Hear A Word They're Saying… (Ben Edmonds, Mojo, February 2000), on both which can be recognized beside Fred, Bruce Langhorne, Jack Nitzsche, Al Kooper, Felix Pappalardi and Paul Rotchchild. Other two pics from the same sessions show Fred solo -both respectively also published by the same mags, the second one of these two on the Fred Neil obituary in September 2001 Mojo issue-. All of them could be from, either unreleased sessions for Elektra Records, or from Bleecker & MacDougal sessions. Who subscribe this chronology believes in the first chance, since that there's no any evidence of arrangement (thinking of Nitzsche) on Bleecker & Macdougal, nor keyboards (Kooper) on any of the songs. Besides, in B & M all the guitars were played by Fred and Childs -maybe even John Sebastian on some song-, which means that there were enough guitarists (thinking about Langhorne) to play the whole album. Aside that if Langhorne would have played, he would have to been credited since that he had been it on dozens of different label recordings during the 60's, not being engaged to anyone exclusively.

The singer-songwriter Bob Lind -who knew Fred during one session with Jack Nitzsche- told Henry Llach that these “misterious sessions” had happened when Fred had just left Elektra and he was looking for a label to record The Dolphins -a song that he'd just to write-. Although, as it was above mentioned, since that Paul Rotchchild shows up on the Mojo pic, the photographed sessions were anycase for Elektra, probably during the last days of Fred's tenure at the label. Who subscribes this kind of chronology, after relating facts, dates and line-ups, suspects that those pics were taken during the recording sessions of DECEMBER'S DREAM, the song that featured finally as bonus track by the first ever official release on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil. It's believed so since that Mickey Kapp -Capitol executive at the late 60's in charge for Neil's former forthcoming recording Other Side Of This Life- wrote to Henry Llach about his meeting with Fred in mid-1969, noting: 'others [tracks] came from Elektra thus the thanks to Jac Holzman'. Which means that when Kapp collected the stuff for the B-side of Other Side Of This Life (Capitol, 1971) there still were songs that had remained unreleased from the Elektra days, that somebody brought to the Capitol vaults. Surely it's more or less the same stuff -unreleased recordings between 1965 and 1970 from Elektra and Capitol recording sessions- that was used in 1998 by Collector's Choice compilers for selecting the bonus tracks for The Many Sides Of Fred Neil CD. So it could be that December's Dream were one of the unreleased Elektra tracks -as Mickey Kapp said- that was among the unissued stuff at the Capitol vaults.

Hearing December's Dream, everybody would assure that the production treatment might fit the regular Nitzsche's work as arranger, because it sounds like the most pop song of Fred's released catalogue, saving his first period at the Brill Building. The presence of Pete Childs on B & M and his friendship with John Braheny -December's Dream songwriter- might give us another clue. Pete Childs taught to Fred December's Dream by then (1965-66), according to Braheny. Among the instruments that we can hear on DECEMBER'S DREAM there are at least one big face-up piano that well could be played by Al Kooper, and the great acoustic guitar arrangement that sounds all over the song which could be played by Bruce Langhorne -or Neil himself-, being played bass by Felix Pappalardi since that he also features on both pics. In despite of this theory, H. Solomon wrote someday on Everybody's Talkin' Forum that the backup band involved on December Dream was the Nashville band who'd play with Neil and Martin in March 1969 during some sessions at RCA Studios produced by Nik Venet. Although among the recorded track-list provided by Solomon himself December Dream doesn't feature and besides the very arranged take of the song doesn't make think of those musicians who with Fred and Vince were improvising during the most of the recorded songs.

- Fred would start to visit the Miami Seaquarium, where he would be fascinated by the dolphin Kathy (aka Flipper on the eponymous tv serie and movie). Sometime before, he'd met dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry at the Gaslight South in Coconut Grove.

Two pics of RIC (former O'FELDMAN) O'BARRY while working for the dolphins captivity industry at the infamous Miami Seaquarium. Quitted that sad background, O'Barry would become a revolutionary dolphins releaser. Thanks to him, Fred could start to know and love these beautiful mammals, which he would dedicate to since then so much time playing for them and bringing people to play for too, Fred being a true pioneer in communicating with them through music, as O'Barry himself has recognized.

Fred was good friends with my kid brother Terry at the time. Fred started coming around to the Seaquarium where I was training dolphins for the Flipper TV series. He was interested in dolphins and diving. At that time, I had five dolphins to care for. Whenever I had to go to the Bahamas to do the underwater filming, I would leave Fred babysitting some of the dolphins that I left behind. Fred, Bob Ingram and Bob's lovely mermaid girl friend at the time, Gay Idema, now his wife Gay Ingram, would all spend time with the dolphins while I was gone. Fred had the patience of a saint, which made him the perfect dolphin babysitter. I remember watching Fred with his head under the water with bubbles coming out all around, trying to sing to the dolphins underwater. He would come by all the time and would bring his friends to play music for the dolphins... I remember Joni Mitchelli, Gerry Mulligan, Rambling Jack Eliott, even Timothy Leary and several other far out people. I was always getting in trouble because of this. I was working for MGM, NBC and the Miami Seaquarium and though I had lots of privacy. This was the early sixties, and long hair was starting, and people were wondering what all these long hairs were doing, tripping around the grounds. Felix Pappalardi, Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty from the Mamas and the Papas, David Crosby, all these people were coming around with Fred to hanging out and playing music to the dolphins.. Those were great times. I knew Fred more as a diver and someone who was interested in dolphins than a musician. He seemed more interested in what I  was doing than in what he himself was doing at the time. Fred would come in there for days and play his 12 string his guitar. The dolphins would come up and tap the guitar when he played certain chords…..Fred always said it was the tone that attracted them, I don't know what anything of it meant but that's what he would do. He wanted to communicate with the dolphins with musicr… Dr. John Lilly had done research into communicating with dolphins but nobody had tried with music before. Fred pioneered that work with the dolphins and with Hugo, the killer whale at the Miami Seaquarium. (Ric O'Barry interviewed by Henry Llach, fn.com, 2003).

Because these visits to the Miami Seaquarium David Crosby would write -credited also to Chris Hillman and Roger McGuinn- Dolphin's Smile, a song that was released on Notorious Byrds Brothers (Columbia, 1968). By his hand, Stan Getz -whom Fred also knew since the Village days- recorded an entire live set in San Francisco that'd be released as The Dolphins (Concord, 1981) including the eponymous song and some pics of him with dolphins on the cover -which is showed below-.

I visited him once in Florida and Mr Neil treated me with great love and hospitality. He took me over and introduced me to his favourite dolphin, the actress that played the part of Flipper in the TV show. Her real name was Cathy, and the story going around was that Cathy had fallen in love with Fred. I'm no judge of dolphin love, but she certainly seemed to have a great affection for him. (Ramblin' Jack Elliott, BE).

- November 24-27: Neil would play at the Café au Go Go during an engagement -a “blues bag”, as Solomon called the bills including blues acts at the Au Go Go- along Big Joe Williams, Son House, Bukka White, Skip James, Eric Andersen, Geoff Muldaur, The Blues Project, The Seventh Sons, Al Kooper, David Blue and John Hammond, Jr.

Fred Neil in the first half of 1966 playing his former raga stanzas. Backing on drums -although not featuring on the pic- was Luther Rix, one of the percussionist from The Buzzy Linhart ensemble.

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- Since 1964 it seeem that Fred had already moved to Coconut Grove (at Hardie Avenue) with his new wife, but he would keep on coming back to NY to play, being backed up then by different, many times spontaneous musicians -for instance, Woody Kamm from The Strangers, the house-band at the Night Owl in Summer 1965-, but mostly by The Buzzy Linhart Trio (Linhart, DeNaut and Katzan or Luther Rix). They played at least at the Nite Owl, the Café au Go Go and at the Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey -the photo below was taken by Hit Parader editor from this show-.

This is one of the few pics featuring FRED NEIL WITH THE BUZZY LINHART TRIO taken at Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey by Don Paulsen (Hit Parader editor). From left to right: Steve DeNaut on bass, Luther Rix on drums, Fred Neil on 12-string and vocals and Buzzy Linhart on vibes-. When Fred Neil came to town, as he did every so often, it was a big deal. All of the folksingers wanted to see him. He asked me to play bass for him, and I was really excited… I met Fred at the Gaslight. I'd heard about him for years, and we hit it off. When the Buzz Linhart Trio (later the Seventh Sons) played with him, we always did his tunes. We didn't do our own. He was the leader, and we followed his lead. We experimented with Raga style, with Fred on the 12-string, and had a ball with it. We used to just have jam-sessions up in Serge's (our drummer) loft… After a few times at the Night Owl, we became Freddy Neil and the Buzzy Linhart Trio. Then the Buzz Linhart Trio became the Seventh Sons. Fred was great to play with… We didn't record because we didn't play together that long. He was always going back to Florida. He'd come up, play a few gigs, and then disappear again. (Steve DeNaut interviewed by Toni Ruiz, fn.com, 2001).

Fred was doing everything I admired about music. It was an early attempt at fusion, which was a combination of raga-rock, folk music, rock'n'roll and country music. He had a trio with Buzzy Linhart, SteveDeNaut and Serge Katzan, and they played incredible music...The owner of the Night Owl, Joe Marra, became their unofficial manager and when they played an outdoor concert he bought all matching shirts to esr onstage. (Don Paulsen -Hit Parader magazine co-editor, SW). I wandered into the Night Owl and was just blown away. Fred comes out with this trio backing him, and launched all these different changes of music. It was a combination of folk and blues and rock with jazz and country and even some raga-like drones going on. This incredible tapestry of so many different musical forms, 'Tear Down The Walls' was more than a song title to him. (Don Paulsen, BE). 

- March: Fred would play at the Club 47 in Cambridge (Boston) on March 14-16. On the same month, 18-19, he'd perform at the King's Rook in Ipswich (Cape Cod). Also by then he joined Pete Childs when the latter was playing gigs as soloist around Boston area, most often at the King's Rook in Ipswich. (Thanks Ben Edmonds for this dates).

- On the gigs at the Nite Owl and at the Café Au Go Go, Fred Neil would sometimes be backed up by John Sebastian, Harvey Brooks and Pete Childs, Fred himself backing up Tim Hardin sometimes or viceversa.

One of the best musical things I've ever seen in my life … at the Night Owl Café, Tim Hardin would play there quite often. And he'd be playing electric guitar, and he'd probably stoned out of his mind. He'd go all night wihout even opening his eyes. Him on electric guitar, and behind him would be Freddie Neil on backup guitar, Peter Childs playing like a dobro or something exotic, John Sebastian on harmonica. And they would just go all over the place. They would do a Bo Diddley song, do one of his songs, do one of Dylan's songs, and Hardin never even opened his eyes. You just sat there and you'd be going Christ, this is everrything I love about music. It was like the best singing in the world, the best playing. And Sebastian was a masterful harmonica player. And they were just jamming. They had no idea where it was going to go next… That's what the Village was like. You never knew what you were going to run into. (Michael Ochs -top rock archivist and Phil's brother-, interviewed by Richie Unterberger. This quote feautes  resumed Ochs quote csn be read on RU1, and another almost identic on JH).

According Buzzy Linhart, there were many jam sessions at the Serge Katzan's loft, in which would be attended, aside sometime “official” Seventh Sons members as Max Ochs on guitar, James Rock on bass and Frank Evantoff on flute, other musicians very close to the band like the above mentioned guitarist Ned Carter, who backed Neil and Lisa Kindred in the Grove, Barry Goldberg, Dylan piano sideman at the infamous Newport '65 concert, and Lee Cabtree, The Fugs arranger and keyboardist, and also musicians who really need no introduction as Donovan, his sitar-ist sideman and co-writer Shawn Phillips, Jerry Garcia, David Crosby, David Blue, Mississippi John Hurt and Gram Parsons. According to the recently late Steve DeNaut, the recordings of these long jams still exist (reel-to-reel), being possesed by Serge Katzan's daughter. Buzzy Linhart official webpage includes some info about these improvisations, assuring that Buzzy himself still keeps stuff from that period and there's possibility to be released properly. It's not sure Fred played on these recorded jams but his very close relation to DeNaut -who tells supra that in fact Fred jammed at Katzan's with them- and Linhart in the mid-60's, and his inclination to play more in the room than in the studio give us a hopeful proof of it.

ESP-Disk released in 1968 the only album by The Seventh Sons, titled Raga -recorded really in 1964 at flute player Frank Evantoff's loft in Baltimore-. Evantoff would quit at the mid 60's. The album was reissued on CD by Italian bootleg label Get Back -without permission of BuzzArt Records that owns all the rights to this recording- as 4AM At Frank's, the record containing one only track called Raga which on the vynyl version extended throughout both sides. The most Seventh Sons regular line-up -between 1966 and 1968- was integrated by Linhart, DeNaut, Katzan and Ochs -on guitar-, and in despite of several offers to record from Capitol and Elektra -which for they recorded demos-, the Sons disbanded in the summer of 1968, after a successful gig at the Fillmore East (NYC) opening for Grateful Dead. At the end of that year Linhart would start his career as soloist, recording his first album in England, in which he comprised a long instrumental version of the traditional Sing Joy, maybe the Seventh Sons staple. www.buzzylinhart.com 

The cover of RAGA, the only released album by THE SEVENTH SONS. From left to right: Buzzy Linhart, percussionist and drummer Serge Katzan and bassist James Rock. On right one Café Au Go Go bill from around late 1966 or early 1967, when The Buzzy Linhart Trio was already named as The Seventh Sons.

It never ceases to amaze me how available Freddie really was… One celebrity after another in the music world hung with him exchanged tunes. Almost always John Sebastain would come to town and Pete Childs would show along Vince Martin and Richie Havens and a laid back jam would happen at Fred's poolside [in Coconut Grove]. (Solomon, Nov. 2001, ETF).

- June or July: Fred Neil was interviewed by Don Paulsen, Hit Parader co-editor and photographer. It had to be on June or July given that Paulsen wrote that Fred's just gone to Canada to play -which he used to do always in Summer-. By then, according to Paulsen he's just played with The Buzzy Linhart Trio in NY, surely by the last time.

More a monologue than an actual interview -the one and only that Fred would give throughout his life-, Fred would chat about folk and pop music, songwriting, blending styles, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, The Byrds, friends like Bob Gibson, Karen Dalton and Len Chandler and acts who with he'd cross paths at Canada coffeehouses and whom he stated to admire: RAMBLING JACK ELLIOTT -on right above- and bluesman LONNIE JOHNSON -on left-, Fred concluding the interview with his pioneer vision of Folk Music:

In my opinion, most of blues or folk music are one. There's a lot of jazz in folk music too... and viceversa. The only thing that's stopping folk and country music from growing today is that they're not combined. All forms of music should build much wider range. But one thing that's slowing the growing of the music is the people themselves that I mean prejudice. Once this gets straightened out, I think the music will be much further into something new really great.

(The whole interview can be read on www.fredneil.com)

- June 3-18: Fred Neil would play a two-week engagement at the Café au Go Go backed by a band including Harvey Brooks, Al Kooper, John Sebastian, Felix Pappalardi, Dino Valenti and Karen Dalton. According to Solomon, during this very rare Valenti re-appearance in the East Coast, Bobby Colomby (years later with Blood, Sweat And Tears) played drums. Other acts on the bill were Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Albert King, Bo Diddley and B.B. King. It was maybe the last Fred engagement in the Village, before signing with Capitol Records and pass more time in Los Angeles and definitively in Coconut Grove than in NYC, where he wouldn't return back.

Jimi Hendrix celebrated his 25th birthday by plugging in with Bloomfield and Butterfield and jamming till dawn with Freddie and Dino Valenti. Heaven couldn't have been more sublime for a young music addict. What was so interesting was that Fred Neil seems to relish and enjoy every moment of that time, perhaps because he could play his best game with the best of the best. (H. Solomon, 10.8.2001, ETF).

- July: Fred would play in Canada for the last time in his life, probably at the Purple Onion and the Potpurri, as he'd made since 1962.

- Since Summer 1966 until early 1968, Fred kept to stay in Los Angeles. Never to live definitively there, Neil would reside mostly at the Tropicana Hotel -while he was recording his first Capitol album, around October-, and also at Herb Cohen's -his new manager-, at Denny Doherty's (a friend since the Village days who by then already formed part of The Mamas & The Papas) or at his friend Bobbie Newman's (whom had met in the Village, where she worked at almost each coffeehouse).  

Susan Hardin [Tim Hardin's wife] related this memory of Fred, when she was pregnant with Damion in LA, Fred would come over and made her breakfast and kept her company while he was there recording. (H. Solomon, 12.24.2002, ETF).

TIM HARDIN in 1966 Newport Folk Festival with bassist Harvey Brooks behind him. Although at the studio recording sessions Fred had worked firstly with Felix Pappalardi -really on guitarrón, not bass- during the Elektra days, and after that Jimmy Bond would join him on stand-up bass during Capitol recording period, HARVEY BROOKS joined Fred since mid-60's at the Café Au Go Go great meetings and after that almost on each live set until mid-70's. Brooks would play bass on Historical Records like Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited or Miles Davis' Bitches Brew, backing also Fred's fellas like Richie Havens, Phil Ochs and Karen Dalton, aside dozens of other 60's acts, above all, The Electric Flag, his own band with magnificent blues-rock guitarist Mike Bloomfield. A proof of Neil and Hardin seemed natures it was the many musicians which with both of them played: aside Brooks himself, Sebastian, Pappalardi, Buzzy and guitarist Monte Dunn, among some other. Besides, both of them, Fred and Tim lived in Woodstock at the end of the 60's, and one of their very best friends and admired artist was Karen Dalton. Left photo: Robert Corwin/Right photo: Michael Ochs Archives.

When I was in California, Lisa Kindred and I spent almost every waking minute with Fred at the Tropicana Hotel, while he was recording the Dolphin album. I knew Nik Venet. Lisa and I babysat Freddy. He was using a lot of reds (seconal) and it was our job to make sure he stayed alive, and made it to the sessions, so I was at most of them. I drove Fred to and from his sessions... When I went to San Francisco, I was living in Sebastopole and Freddy would call me to come and get him, and he would spend days at my house hiding out from the pressures in the city. He would just hang out with the horses and dogs. I was working in a kennel down the lane from Charlie Schults's house, called the “coffee grounds”. I lived in a motel in an apple orchard, and the people who owned it had horses and a plane. About every other week he'd call me to come to get him and he would stay 'till it was time for him to be back playing wherever his gig was... (Bobbi Newman, ETF)

- Having finished his deal with Elektra Records, thanks to his new manager Herb Cohen Fred Neil would sign with Capitol Records around Summer 1966. With this change of label Fred would begin a new period in his career.

HERB COHEN was the perfect manager for him, because Fred could be mellow and withdrawn. He needed a larger-than life character like Herb to speak up for him (Judy Henske, liner notes,Tear Down The Walls/Bleecker & MacDougal Rhino CD reissue, 2004). Herb Cohen had opened Cosmo Alley and The Unicorn, the first coffehouses in Los Angeles dedicated to folk, jazz and comedian acts at the early 60's, animating the by then still freezed LA music scene. At the Unicorn David Crosby, Judy Henske and Lenny Bruce were regular acts. Cohen even managed sometime Lenny Bruce when performing in the West Coast, and by 1966 his clients were Frank Zappa's The Mothers Of Invention, Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, Wild Man Fischer, Judy Henske, Linda Rondstadt & the Stone Poneys and Tim Buckley. In March 1969 he would co-found with Zappa the Straight and Bizarre record labels to be distributed by Reprise and Warner. Tim Buckley would record for Straight Blue Afternoon and Starsailor, Cohen allowing to Buckley to produce both masterworks in despite of disliking Buckley's avant gardist friends and influence. Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, the 1969 masterwork by Don Van Vliet also was released by Straight in 1969. According to Howard Solomon, Third Story Music -the Cohen/Neil song publisher company- owns the rights to 29 compositions of a catalogue of 115 registered Neil's songs-.

TIM BUCKLEY (1947-1975) was maybe the most Neil-fuelled singer-songwriter all-time, a kind of artistic heir, who considered to Fred his hero, covering continously The Dolphins in his concerts since 1966 until his passing 1975. He'd even attended the session in which Neil recorded the song. Major examples of this cover -maybe the most fair and adjusted Fred Neil version- it can be heard either on Dream Letter. Live In London 1968 (Demon, 1990) on his acoustic version, or watched on My Fleeting House (DVD, Manifesto, 2007), on electric 12-string guitar. Buckley released his version officially on Sefronia  (Discreet/Warner, 1974). He would also cover Country Boy, Green Rocky Road and Merry Go Round during his superb live folk-jazz phase (1967-68).

…I think you'd might like to play a song called The Dolphins, and that's by Fred Nei,l who's a good friend of mine… I think it's a very good song. It took me a long time to learn how to sing it because he's one of the greatest singers… that I know of anyway. And finally I called him up and asked him to come see me play and if it would be right if I recorded this song. And he gave me the go-ahead and that's why we did The Dolphins. (Tim Buckley interviewed for Rockspeak radio program in UK, 1974, when he was presenting his album Sefronia).

We met him at Herb Cohen's house. He bunked there when he was in town. I just “heard” him, mostly. He stayed in the guest room and strummed his guitar...incredible voice. It shook the pictures on the walls. (Mary Guibert -Tim   Buckley's first wive- interviewed by Jack Brolly: http://www.timbuckleyandfriends.com/MaryGuibert.html).

Tim and I went to one of Fred's recording sessions, where he was working out Dolphins, and from that day on, Tim became obsessed with him. This shows up in his writing on Goodbye And Hello, his singing on Happy Sad, and lasted till the end. (Larry Beckett -Tim's friend and lyrics co-writer, as interviewed by Jack Brolly, Ap. 2000) … He glamorized Neil and Hardin, who were heroin users, but I don't think Tim was doing heroin until the very end, as far as I know (Larry Beckett interviewed for Perfect Sound online magazine, Dec. 2003).

Me and Tim hung around in Greenwich Village during the 1960s. Tim was completely immersed in the music 24 hours a day. He ate, drank and breathed music. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Tim worked on chord progressions and melody lines in his dreams, he was that committed to the art form. (Fred Neil, Tim Buckley. The High Flyer by Martin Aston, Mojo, July 1995 http://www.timbuckley.net/articles/tbhigh.htm)

It has been said that Tim hung out with Fred Neil during this period, and afterwards, in the period between Tim Buckley and Goodbye and Hello, and that Fred turned Tim on to heroin. During the first period, I never saw Fred. During the second period, Fred showed up at a I Au Go Go show. As far as I know, they did not “hang out” together during either period, and I know Tim was definitely not into heroin… It seems to me that the Buckley/Neil relationship has been exaggerated. Yes, Fred was at Herb's house when Tim and Mary stayed there in the early days, and Tim loved Fred's voice and songs. Later, at Big Pink in Venice, we often listened to Fred's albums, and Fred's music could be considered an influence during those early folk and folk-rock days. Also, Tim dearly loved the “Dolphins” song, and sang it throughout his career… As far as I know, Tim did not “hang out” with Fred in the Village, as has been rumored, and again as far as I know, they didn't spend time together in the later days. I suspect -but cannot say for sure- -that Tim's comment on the Starwood tape [that it contains the interview above excerpted] was not meant literally, but figuratively, in terms of the deep emotions expressed in “Dolphins” and other songs -a musical friend, a soul brother, as it were. (Lee Underwood, Buckley's electric guitar sideman, interviewed by Jack Brolly, 2000) … Fred improvised vocally and had his musicians improvise, too. They had themes and broad structures, but there was a spontaneous flow there that broght life and vitality to the music, above and beyond preconceived melodies or generic styles. The emotional power and intimacy of Fred's own performances blew me away, of course, especially his lonely, alienated qualities, that sorrow-laced texture of his, that cry of the heart which rings true to this very day… His songs and his singing rang with reality and truth and honesty. We played his music over and over again. It was Fred's music, and his approach to music, that became the first meaningful emotional experiences for me in the emergent pop fields of the day (other than Tim's). I think that was the case with Tim, too. We were learning a lot from Fred in terms of emotional presence. I've seen  others sing that piece. In my opinion, except for Fred and Tim, not one of them has fulfilled its demands. (Lee Underwood -kind of obituary dedicated to Fred Neil, Room 109 -Tim Buckley forum on delphi.com-, 8.7.2001).

Producer NIK VENET (1936-1998) would be in charge by Capitol of the Fred Neil recordings. Several biographical concidences existed between Fred and Venet: both of them were born the same 1936 year; Venet worked for jukeboxes operators -like Fred's father-, and was engaged to the Brill Building, dealing with Bobby Darin -in the pic on left,  who with Fred played on Dream Lover recording session-, being very possible that  they met then. At the early 60's, after working at World Pacific label with Chet Baker and Lord Buckley -not releted to Tim-, Venet would produce the first Beach Boys albums besides Lou Rawls, Glenn Campbell, King Curtis, Jimmie Haskell, The Hondells, among many other Capitol-based acts. Since 1966 he would occupy his Capitol scout time producing new folk-rock talents like the Stone Poneys and Mad River. Not casually Venet would produce in 1969 for Capitol Records the respective first albums of Fred's close friends Vince Martin and Karen Dalton.

- In the fall of 1966 Fred Neil would come in the Capitol studios in Hollywood (California) to record his second solo album that'd be titled FRED NEIL. As an advance of his forthcoming eponymus album, Capitol Records would release the single The Dolphins/Ba-De-Da (5786).

1.The Dolphins (Neil)

2. I've Got A Secret (Didn't We Shake Up Sugaree) (Elizabeth Cotten/arr.:Neil)

1.  That's The Bag I'm In (Neil)
   1.  Badeda (Neil)
   2.  Faretheewell (Fred's Tune) (Trad./arr.: Neil)
   3.  Everybody's Talkin' (Neil)
   4.  Everything Happens (?)
   5.  Sweet Cocaine (Trad./arr.: Neil)
   6.  Green Rocky Road (Trad./arr.: Neil)

10. Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga (Neil/Childs/Forsha/Wilson/Mundi)

Fred Neil: vocals, acoustic and electric 12-string guitar

John T. Forsha: acoustic and electric 12-string guitar

Pete Childs: lead acoustic guitar, rhythm acoustic and electric guitar

Cyrus Faryar: rhythm acoustic guitar, bouzouki on 1

Jimmy Bond: stand-up bass

Billy Mundi: drums on 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10,

bass drums, cymbals, tambourine

Rusty Faryar: finger cymbals

Al Wilson: harp on 3, 4, 8, 10

UFOs (Lisa Kindred): vocals on 4

Nik Venet: producer

Norma Sharp: production coordinator

John Kraus & Pete Abbott: engineers

Jim Marshall: cover photo (the child in the cover of the album was Roycee, daughter of Michelle Dulmarge, a friend of Neil and Sebastian).

Surely the most balanced album of Fred Neil, this eponymous masterwork is from its beginning to the end a delightful listening and usually the prefered LP among fans and reviewers. It's the only Fred Neil album in which electric guitars were used. Without knowing very well why, the reverberated electric guitar that opens The Dolphins and the entire LP reminds of the sensation of an infinitely peaceful landscape. Casualty or not, his friend Hoyt Axton wrote a song called Saturday Child at the early 60's that could influence Fred when composing The Dolphin lyrics, given that the latter sings at the beginning of the last serie of verses “sometimes I think about saturday's child… “ The same calmy sensation we can feel when hearing The Dolphins gives off when listening to traditional Faretheewell, which had been covered by Bob Gibson and Josh White. So, the only true new numbers on this album are The Dolphins, Badeda and Everybody's Talkin' because all the others are traditionals (Faretheewell, Cocaine, Green Rocky Road) or covers (Sugaree by Libba Cotten and Everything Happens, that we'd like to know who wrote it), aside Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga, the brilliant improvisation that ends the album, one true gem of rollercoaster stampedes created by Neil himself, Childs, Wilson, Faryar and Mundi. By its hand, That's The Bag I'm In, actually an old song of his repertoire, had already recorded in 1963 on a live version on Hootenany Live At The Bitter End in 1963, and also on the 1960 9-track demo for Aaron Schoreder's January Music.

From left to right, some musicians involved in the recording of Fred Neil eponymous album. The drummer BILLY MUNDI, who had debuted backing up Tim Buckley on his eponymous album -produced by P. Rothchild-, playing after that with The Mothers Of Invention and Rhinoceros. Aside this Neil recording, he also participated with him on other one celebrated around 1969 in which it was recorded at least the Sweet Mama version featured on The Many Sides as bonus track. If his playing throughout the Dolphins album is soberly superb, on Cynicrustpetefredjohnraga, Mundi on finger cymbals demonstrates not being any percussionist, fitting his rhythm to the other musicians but embellishing the pulse at the same time. Harpist AL WILSON (photo: John Cooke) kept since the early 60's -along blues fanatics Dick Waterman, John Fahey and Henry Vestine- searching for surviving rural bluesmen from the 1930's. They finally found out Bukka White, Son House and Skip James making them returning to record. Wilson, habitual in the Berkeley and Cambridge folk scenes, had just played on the majestic Vol. 4. St. Bernardino Birthday Party And Other Excursions, the fourth John Fahey LP (Takoma, 1966). He'd pass in 1970. Booked for substituing John Sebastian -the splendid previouos Fred's mouth harp player-, with Wilson the change wasn't noted. The 12-string guitarist JOHN T. FORSHA, who had already backed up Judy Henske on his two first Elektra albums, he would also play on Tim Buckley's Goodbye And Hello (Elektra, 1967), after being a member of The New Christy Minstrells, the band in which future Byrd Gene Clark, and Fred's friends from the Village -already moved to the West Coast- Art Podel, Paul Potash and Barry McGuire also were part sometime. Multi-instrumentist CYRUS FARYAR -far right on the cover of his Islands LP (Elektra, 1971)- had opened the first coffeehouse in Hawaii (Greensleeves) where he came from, he had played with The Whiskey Hill Singers -with ex Kingston Trio Dave Guard and Judy Henske-, and The Modern Folk Quartet, working later with heterogeneous acts like the Moog creator Paul Beaver, The Firesign Theatre and Linda Rondstadt.     

I'm a believer in the Mercury Theatre, Orson Welles, and I just wanted all the people to interchange… How's the songs coming? And he: 'They're pretty good'. So I'd fly down Coconut Grove, rent a car and drive down his house. I'd stay at his house for three nights and occasionally he would me a song or two. We'd go out on with Vince Martin and by the time of three days were up I'd hear three or the main tunes that we were going to go back to LA and tell him there was   coming up if he wanted it and I'd have to fly out here and I would put him up. (Nik Venet, SW) … I'm a believer in the Mercury Theatre, Orson Welles, and I just wanted all the people to interchange… I would gather his friends. Peter Childs and Cyrus Faryar. The person he didn't know at the time, who he met thrugh me, was Jimmy Bond. He asked me for a bass player and I told him I was going to bring my special person, Jimmy Bond, who played acoustic upright. Jimmy was an artist. (Nik Venet, SW).

Getting Fred to even let you in on what songs he was going to record was damn near impossible. We went in and started putting down whatever he had. That was the way it was. We might have known a couple of titles ahead of time. We certainly didn't know Everybody's Talkin', because he didn't know it. We needed another song, and he said he might have one more. Matter of fact, I think he completed it in the toilet of the Capitol Records studio. As you can tel by the lyric, all he wanted to do was finish the album and go back to Florida. He was never really in LA. He was in his hotel room at the Tropicana, he was in Capitol Studios, and he was in the car that took him from the point A to point B and back again. That was all he would do. (Herb Cohen, BE)

The sessions were very low-key, not heavily produced. Nik's ability was to make a comfortable situation and not interject a whole 'hey, we're paying for studio time' kind of thing. It was a matter of getting people together who would have an affinity for each other musically, who would have no personal or profesional hangups in the way, to have a good time. Freddie would run a song down, people would find a place to sit in the music, and it was very relaxed…And the song was in complete support of Freddie and his voice (Cyrus Faryar, RU1)

Even when we got funky, there was never a feeling in the studio of heavy electricity. Our amp volumes were way down. There was no heavy edge to anything in the room. You had a feeling, often, that there was a little too much guitar, when you get me and Cyrus and Pete and Freddie going all at once. Nik never really stepped in and said 'don't do that'. He got what he wanted. The results were quite tidy, and we hadn't a clue how he was going to arrive at that. (John T. Forsha, RU1)

We just walked into the booth. It was a huge room in darkness. And way off there, with like just a tiny light, was Fred and Cyrus Faryar and the rest of the guys doing a version of The Dolphins completely unlike what wound up on the album. Then he would stop and change it and do something, again, reconceive it. The sense of Fred's magnificent voice and total authenticity and commitment to creativity… If Tim didn't have it already, he got it that afternoon. The album that came out of it, Fred Neil, he and I and all of our friends think of as like one of the four or five albums of the sixties. I don't care what-all lists or sales charts anybody wants to throw up. To me, it's lke the Kind Of Blue of the 60s. Kind of Blue is a disc that you can listen to over and over, and you never get tired of it. It's eternally fresh. And so is that Fred Neil album. (Larry Beckett -Tim Buckley lyrics collaborator-, interviewed by Richie Unterberger, March 2001).

JUDY HENSKE -on left- released the single Dolphins In The Sea before Fred Neil would launch on the same format his own version of The Dolphins. In her A Little Bit Of Rain… A Little Bit Of Sunshine album (Mercury, 1965), produced by Fred's sometime collaborator Jack Nitzsche, she covered Little Bit Of Rain and Other Side Of This Life. During his LA days, Fred was very close to her. After being retired more than 30 years, Judy's reappeared during the last years releasing two new records and running her own webpage: www.judyhenske.com. JEFFERSON AIRPLANE -one of whose members, Paul Kantner, was a huge admirer and friend of Fred and Dino Valenti- released two songs explicitly tributed to Neil. If The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil, composed by Kantner starts After Bathing At Baxters (RCA, 1967), The House At Pooneil Corners, written by Kantner and Marty Balin, endsCrown Of Creation (RCA, 1968). The Airplanes covered repeatedly on live sets Little Bit Of Rain and one Other Side Of This Life concert version was finally comprised on Bless It Pointed Little Head (RCA, 1969). Other West Coast psychedelic band that covered Fred's songs was HP Lovecraft.

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- February: Capitol would release Fred Neil (Capitol ST 2665).

- Capitol would release a second single from Fred Neil album: The Dolphins/I've Got A Secret.

- August 8: Neil played at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley (San Francisco), opening for Dave Van Ronk and Mimi Fariña.

The August 1967 BERKELEY COMMUNITY THEATRE GIG poster, maybe the only one featuring Fred Neil that still circulates among collectors.

Remember  San  Francisco?  Remember how after the gig,  he took us  all to  China Town and spent every dime on dinner?” “Yeah and at the end of the set he turned to the bass player and told him:”
” Get the bread Jay and don't take a check.”
” Remember? The mic was open and the audience loved it” “What a night, The Summer of Love and he was opening for Dave Van Ronk.
Ralph Gleason wondered in his review why the star was the opening act.
Remember?”  He opened so he could get the hell out early. I why. He hated
getting up on stage. But once He started playing you could set your
watch to the groove. Right? (Bobby Ingram, Memories, fn.com).

- October, 6-15: Fred Neil would record his second album for Capitol at the Studio B at Capitol Records (Hollywood, California). The back cover of the record -released in December- shows up the take number below every title song augmenting the improvisational folk-jazz-blues air that characterizes the album: 

1.  Felicity -Take 5 (Neil)
2.  Please, Send Me Somebody To Love -Take 2 (Percy Mayfield)
3.  Merry Go Round -Take 1 (Neil/Langston Hugues/Huddie Leadbetter)
4.  Look Over Yonder -Take 1 (Neil/Leadbetter)
5.  Fools Are A Long Time Comin' -Take 1 (Herb Metoyer)
6.  Looks Like Rain -Take 1/Take 2 (Trad./arr.:Neil)
7.  Rosie -Take 1 (Trad./arr.:Leadbetter/Neil)

Fred Neil: vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar

Pete Childs: acoustic guitar, dobro on 1, 5

Cyrus Faryar: acoustic guitar; vocals on 7

Bruce Langhorne: acoustic guitar

Eric Glenn Hord: acoustic guitar

Jimmy Bond: stand-up bass

Nik Venet: producer

Uncredited piano on Fools Are A Long Time Coming

Uncredited drawings and design on the sleeve

Uncredited more-than-40 photographs on the back cover

Pete Johnson: liner notes

The reberveted electric guitars disappear in Sessions. But here we have the presence of five, just acoustic, on some track. Often under-rated by its presumed druggy self-indulgence, Sessions really encloses the most passionate Neil tribute to black people and music. To the Blues, Gospel and Jazz music. As John Sebastian told Richie Unterberger Fred had a special relation to black musicians that others never had, and besides many black friends: George Tipton, Len Chandler, Maya Angelou, Richie Havens, Major Wiley, Josh White, Sr. and Jr., Terry Callier, Herb Metoyer, Joe Tinker Lewis, Bruce Langhorne, Jimmy Bond, Odetta,  Les McCann... Saving Felicity -the last ever released great song from Fred's own pen-, all the other six numers were either Negro traditionals or composed by black performers. About the last mentioned, Please Send Me Somebody To Love -a Percy Mayfield song that'd been taught to Fred by Joe Tinker Lewis from Tip, Tinker and Scott three album in which Fred sang in 1963- is performed in his most ever soul-blues fashion, backed by an omnipresent Jimmy Bond. Fools Are A Long Time Coming -in the original version by Herb Metoyer really titled Fools Are A Long Line Coming-, is translated from a gospel-blues form into an up-tempo country song in its first part, prior to an instrumental exploration in which at the end we can hear strange and sparse -uncredited- piano chords. Metoyer had released in 1966 one gospel-blues album called Something New released by Verve/Folkways.

On the left, HERB METOYER's Something New (Verve/Folkways, 1966) sleeve, an album in which Metoyer didn't include his own version of Fools Are Long Line Coming. LANGSTON HUGUES -on right- uses to be named by poetry scholars as one of the best XX Century North American poets. He was involved in the 30's in the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement (related to the Communist Party) evolved from the Café Society in NY, meeting Billie Holiday and Herb Meropol, who sang and wrote respectively Strange Fruit. Some Hugues verses were taken by Fred Neil to start and end Merry Go Round, almost a collage-song exercise -something that he'd often do- uniting one Hugues poem with Leadbelly lyrics from Black Girl (aka In The Pines).

As Bond's deeply powerful stand-up bass on Please Send Me Somebody To Love, Pete Childs' excursionist dobro on Fools Are A Long Time Coming is another instrumental highlight on Sessions. The political evidences from the lyrics of the latter never were more explicited: there's no safe place in a country gone war again. The verse 'And I believe this world will never change' from Fools… had already been borrowed to The Dolphins lyrics. Besides, the Afro-American influence on Sessions is topped by Leadbelly. Leadbetter's verses or choruses are inserted on three different songs. Aside Rosie -a traditional that Leadbetter popularized, which, among conversations in the studio, ends the LP-, Go Down Ol' Hannah parts are introduced on Look Over Yonder, while Black Girl -aka In The Pines- chorus finds out its place in Merry Go Round, the first and last verses of this one being taken from the Langston Hughes poem Colored Child At Carnival: “Where is the Jim Crow section/ On this merry-go-round/(…) But there ain't no back/ To a merry-go-round!/ Where's the horse/ For a kid that's black?” Fred changed words (kid for boy, for instance) and cut off some verses, but the lyrics proofs that Neil in Sessions wasn't joking, not even ironizing, but comprehending social motifs into the lyrics at the same time he improvised with the band on blues structures and increasingly starker tones.

Harvey Brooks, PHIL OCHS and Len Chandler -back in glasses-. Ochs and Chandler would influence, aside Nik Venet, on Fred Neil socio-politic awareness that rises from Sessions.  

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives.

Probably the political influence on Fred's music was provided -at least partially- by Nik Venet, who had been very active supporting the Civil Rights Movement and the Native Indian cause. Besides, as Herb Metoyer tells in his Memories of Fred (on fn.com), Phil Ochs -whom Fred already knew since the Village days-, became one of his closer friends in LA. It'd be worth to claim that Ochs always was more than a liberal -as he sang on one of his songs-, which surely ampled Fred's songcraft perspectives. Musical-wise Merry Go Round is improvised using his seventh chords arsenal, the acoustic guitar backing -surely Langhorne and Faryar- always pending for going up the aural climax. As the following track, Looks Over Yonder, darker yet if it were possible, sounding like a giant bleeding scar ('Mama, mama, ain't you sorry that you born me?'), Merry Go Round is a true alive, vivid recording. The downtempo atmospherics and come-and-go sailing-like rhythm reached by Neil and the acoustic guitar-orchestra on Look Over Yonder would be borrowed by Tim Buckley to give bottom-form to an improvised and favourite live number around 1969-70 called Driftin' -released on Lorca (Elektra, 1970) and on the posthomous Live At The Troubadour (Edsel, 1991)-. Looks Like Rain -a chain gang blues traditional- contains verses from Prettiest Train (That I've Ever Seen) -another chain gang song-, that would be recorded with Stephen Stills on co-vocals a few years later and released on the studio B-side of Other Side Of This Life (Capitol, 1971).

The new sidemen featuring on Sessions were ERIC GLEN HORD (aka Dr. Hord), on the left picture, he had backed up Ian & Sylvia, Judy Henske and Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and played privately with David Crosby, kind of introducing to him to eastern guitar. BRUCE LANGHORNE -on right on acoustic guitar, Fred behind him playing tambourine during October 1967 Sessions-, was the most required guitar player in the 60's folk-blues and folk-rock recordings and live concerts, working with Odetta, Casey Anderson, Peter Walker, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Hoyt Axton, John Sebastian, Lisa Kindred, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Richie & Mimi Fariña, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Hugh Masekela, Babatunde Olatunji and a very long etc. Langhorne had met Fred in the Grove playing a gig with Odetta and by mid-late 1965 he worked with Fred on some unreleased sessions, probably on the first recording of December Dream. According to Langhorne, Fred was able to integrate his guitar, his voice and his stage presence into a compelling performance. It is difficult to separate out and evaluate separate elements. Let's leave it that he was a great songwriter, a fantastic singer and a wonderful guitarist (Bruce Langhorne interviewed by Toni Ruiz, fn.com). Eric Hord Photo: John Cooke.

Two bonus tracks that were released on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil compile in 1998 were taken from these recordings. The traditional Trouble In Mind -that includes three acoustic guitars-, because its cleaner sound, it was surely recorded along the more song-oriented Sessions tracks: the first two tracks of the album -taken finally for the single-. Meanwhile, How Long Blues/Drown In Tears looks closer to Merry Go Round and the subsequent improvised numbers, with that weird echo that characterized tracks like the mentioned Leadbelly/Langston Hugues rendition. On this take we can hear even a bit of feedback scaped from the amplified acoustic guitars. Given the nature of the recording and the Venet's policy on the back cover of the album signing the take number below every song, there must have at least alternate takes and improv attempts that haven't been still released. For instance, Richie Unterberger wrote on the liner notes of The Many Sides that a more focused take of Look Over Yonder does exist.

I've never made a record with Fred. I've recorded Fred Neil but we didn't do records. I guess that Sessions was a section where I should be commended for I didn't do , not what I did. Because in case it was keeping everything out of way of the music. I kept two machines running so I would never run out of they would overlap each other. I used three engineers and recorded directly on stereo. None of these songs are remixed; everything you hear on the album it's as it happened in the studio… I tried to  studio close to being like his room at home; we had couches, food, and we had friends. Joni Mitchell  come in and I'd make her sit in the   because she had never been to his house. See, if she went in there as a guest, she would alter the setting.  (Nik Venet, SW)

It was the third night [October 8, 1967] of what had been continous, with breaks for food and a little sleep, and word had gotten around the city that something special was happening. Approaching the doors to the huge first flor studio I could see a sea of heads inside. The place looked enormous, it seemed like if they were several hundred people there. The room was almost dark except for a pool of light in the center. Fred Neil was sitting in a straight backed armless chair with mikes in front and was bent over his instrument with all the people standing and watching in rapt absolute silence. Freddy's mellow voice was casting a spell over all those there and it seemed over the city of Los Angeles as well. Looking around I saw other musicians, actors, exotic “birds of the night”, music lovers, fans, industry pros, ordinary people from every spectrum of the “60's world”. (Peter Walker -Raga and Flamenco guitar player and Fred's friend-, interviewed by Toni Ruiz, Nov. 2004, fn.com).

After recording the album I started handing out acetates. I ran into David Crosby at the Troubadour and he thought it was embarrassing what I'd done… I was really starting to doubt my ability with what hell I was doing. About a month later, I ran into David again and he apologized and he said that it was probably the most honest thing that he'd heard in his entire life. (Nik Venet, SW)

Felicity is about an English woman, Felicity Johnson. She was an English folk singer who came over to Bleecker & MacDougal in those days and she was just a lovely peaches and cream-complexioned woman who sang beautifully. She was very much on the scene on those few years and was certainly a pal of Fred's and occasionally a romantic interest. Fred had a remarkable ability to keep girlfriends as friends (Sebastian, SW).

Nik Venet knew how to handle Fred; he lit a whole bundle of incense, turned the studio lights down low, started the tape, and sat back. Very informal, you might say. Fred didn't like formality (Not to say it could get loose, but there is a guitar track that Fred swore I played but I'm sure it was Bruce Langhorne). (Pete Childs, Memories Of Fred, fn.com).

Some uncredited photographs from SESSIONS back cover. Above right with Nik Venet at the Capitol B studio booth during the October 1967 recordings. Below, with Cyrus Faryar during a  West Coast live set from around early-mid 1967.

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- Capitol launched the only single from Sessions: Felicity (Neil)/ Please Send Me Somebody To Love (Percy Mayfield) (Capitol # 2091).

- With ocassion of Fred's re-appearance recording again for Capitol, the Elektra british division released two songs from Bleecker & McDougal album on a single: Candy Man (Neil)/The Water Is Wide (Trad./Arr.: Neil) (EKSN 45036).

- Having released two Capitol albums recorded in the studio, Nik Venet would project a new one to be recorded live through the States with local musicians who were friends of Fred. According to Nik Venet -as told Simon Woodsworth on his Goldmine account-, the first recording of this project was at the Tin Angel -in the Village- with John Sebastian on harp, surely around the spring of 1968. The wonderful idea was to keep on recording Fred live at other classic venues like The Troubadour (Los Angeles) and The Hungry i (San Francisco), although since that Howard Solomon'd start running Fred's management, the project changed towards a different type of recording than what Venet and Fred had agreed, being the final result the Other Side Of This Life album.  

- Fred Neil and Vince Martin would appear again as duo at the Gaslight Coffeehouse in Coconut Grove in the last gig celebrated at this venue which it closed their gates that same night.

The Gaslight Coffehouse closed one night in 1968 about 1:30 and there were a number of us Grovies that had hung around for the third set, since it was Fred Neil and Vince Martin performing together…After the music ended, we all went outside and stood around, talking. It was a cool South Florida night, with the tantalizing fragance of jasmine in the air. There was almost no traffic at night in the Grove in those days, so some of us started throwing a Frisbee out in the street under the light. In them days, dear heart, even the traffic light went off duty at midnight, blinking yellow until dawn. (Charlie Brown, Inside Coconut Grove, www.pinecrest.8m.com/aug2-00/article-insidecgro.htm)

- Capitol would release another single from Fred Neil: Everybody's Talkin' (Neil)/That's The Bag I'm In (Neil) (Capitol 2256).

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- January, 28-30: Trying to keep him on recording habitually, invited by Nik Venet, Fred Neil would attend a three-day Vince Martin recording session -probably at Record Plant Studios in NYC-, playing and singing on some songs with Vince Martin. Attempted for beginning to record Vince's first forthcoming solo album, all the material was produced by Nik Venet, with Howard Solomon as executive producer. The line-up of musicians isn't known, aside Neil and Martin on vocals and 12-string acoustic guitars, being recorded the following tracks:

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams)

Don't Let The Jasmine Catch You (Martin)

No Answer (Martin)

Summerwind (Martin)

Doves Of Peace (?)

Cocaine (Trad.)

Snow Shadows (Martin)

Baby's Got A New Face On (?)

Florida Warm Song # 1 (Martin)

Get Together (Dino Valenti)-

Yonder Comes The Sun (Martin)

Vince Dream # 26 (Martin)

Fred could have contributed on Doves Of Peace -the only recorded version of a staple of both on live concerts together and as soloists-, No Answer, Baby's Got A New Face On, Cocaine and Get Together. The latter was popularized by the Youngbloods on a top-ten single that same year. According to Jesse Colin Young, Buzzy Linhart had taught it at the Nite Owl days. All the other songs were demos or raw versions of songs that were going to feature in Vince Martin's Jasmine album, to be released some months later (along the results of other sessions that would be recorded in March that same year at RCA Studios in Nashville). While Vince Martin has claimed that he hasn't never to do with Bagimin Music -the Solomon/Neil publisher-, Solomon said that these recordings were produced by that company.

Nik wanted me to do an album, and he wanted to get Fred on tape with me, so it was in fact an attempt to get Fred on tape, we were supossed to do the record together, but I did not end up singing on that record accidentally. That's something I also want to clarify, those were sessions always meant to be for my album. (Vince Martin interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003) … Nik Venet got me the record in '69, okay, but I think, with all due respect and no sour grapes at all, what he really wanted was to draw Freddy out because Freddy at the time was being very reluctant. (Vince Martin, SW).

- Around this time, Cash Box -a bussiness newspaper- announced: Café Au Go Go owner Howard Solomon has reactivated his Au Go Go management wing with the signing of contemporary writer/singers Fred Neil and Vince Martin (…) Neil is primarily known for his songs, which include the off-cut The Other Side Of This Life, The Dolphins and Echoes (Everybody's Talkin'), the latter a recent hit in a Nilsson version. Current plans call for Neil to begin recording at a constructed studio in Coconut Grove, his residence for the last year. ”

- March, 13-15: The second part of the recordings started at the Record Plant Studios (NYC) in January continued at RCA Studios in Nashville (Teneessee) with some musicians of the band who in February had backed Bob Dylan on Nashville Skyline. The songs finally recorded on these sessions were:

[Tracks for Vince Martin LP If Jasmine Don't Get You,

The Bay Breeze Will -in which Fred Neil didn't play:]

I Can't Scape From You (Martin)

Yonder Comes The Sun (Martin)

Jasmine Part 2 (Martin)

Danville Girl (Tim Hardin)

Snow Shadows 2 (Martin)

Summerwind (Martin)

Running Into The Sun (Martin)

Catch Me I'm Falling (Martin)

Vince Martin: 12-string acoustic guitar and vocals

Fred Carter: acoustic guitar

Lloyd Green Murray: pedal steel guitar

Murray Harman, Jr.: drums

Charlie McCoy: acoustic guitar

Norbert Putnam: bass

Henry Strzelecki: bass

John 'Bucky' Wilkin: acoustic guitar

Kenny Butrey: drums

Nik Venet: producer

Most of the studio musicians who played on the Nashville RCA studios sessions backing Vince Martin,  formed AREA CODE 615, a band founded that same year, releasing two albums in 1969 and 1970 respectively. Above it's the eponymous first album cover. Undoubtly they were the sidemen stars in Nashville throughout late 60's and the 70's backing acts so much different like Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Tim Rose and Pearls Before Swine (Tom Rapp).

[Rest of the recorded tracks:]

Will The Circle Be Unbroken (Trad.)

Say That's All Over Tennessee

Other Side Of This Life (Neil)

Ba-de-da (Neil)

Long Black Veil (Trad.)

Mississippi Train (Neil)

Vince Martin: vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar

Fred Neil: vocals 12-string acoustic guitar

Mary John Wilkin: vocals

Kris Kristoferson: vocals, acoustic guitar

Danny Dill: vocals, acoustic guitar

John 'Bucky' Wilkin: vocals, acoustic guitar

Kenny Buttrey: drums on Badeda

Nik Venet: producer

As above it was mentioned, the first part of the sessions in Nashville were recorded to finish the Vince Martin album If Jasmine Don't Get You, The Bay Breeze Will, released by Capitol Records (# 231) -reissued on CD by british label Rev-Ola in 2006-. But the second part of the recordings comprised attempts and/or jams by Neil & Martin, with Mary John Wilkin, Danny Dill, John 'Bucky' Wilkin -who also played on the Vince album- and Kris Kristofferson, all of them regular stars in the Nashville scene, and surely John Stewart on some of the tracks. We don't know if among the backing band involved in Vince's album there was someone who also played on the second part of the sessions. More than probably it had to be one of the bass players, Putnam or Strzelecki.

Venet thought he might include some of this stuff on the live/jam planned LP. For instance, the Badeda version recorded in Nashville was the one released on the B-side of Fred's next LP Other Side Of This Life (Capitol, 1971), with Kenny Buttrey on drums. The version of Other Side Of This Life that featured as last bonus track on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil (CC, 1998) could also be recorded during these sessions, because the country stylings that gives off the slide guitar -maybe by Lloyd Murray- and dobro (this time not played by Pete Childs), aside Neil's own 12-string acoustic guitar.

During the same period and with the same personnel -including Venet producing-  John Stewart's California Bloodlines was also recorded. It's been said that these Martin & Neil recordings took really place in between breaks of the ex-Kingston Trio member sessions.

Nashville Skyline and California Bloodlines, the albums that were recorded at Nashville RCA Studios, with the same personnel, before and after -respectively-  the Vince Martin masterpiece If Jasmine Don't Get You The Bay Breeze Will.

I remember Freddie sitting in the control room and breaking my chops because he hated  the  scat  singing  on  Jasmine  and  gone fishin!  In looking  back John Stewart,Fred and me were some kind of master plan Venet had that I wasn't even aware of (Nik came to my room at the whatever motel and demanded the publishing on Summerwind,which he loved, or the album would languish-well he didn't and it did-and that's all it takes for a life to turn or a fortune to be made or lost-a three am conversation in a Nashville room. (Vince Martin, ETF) … Long Black Veil really didn't turn out good, it was too loose, that's why it was never used. Fred's voice and John Stewart's voice really didn't mesh well. (Vince Martin interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003)

Actually all the songs were done under a contract with Capitol/Bagimin for Vince Martin, with Fred Neil and John Stewart as guest artists, along with the Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline back up band. 25 recorded songs in total on a budget of $25,000 which actually created 2 (Two) released major label albums for Capitol Records which upon release created a Popular Songwriters Advance from BMI for Vince Martin.  Recording promotion costs were charged to advances and to my knowledge have not shown recoupment todate. (Solomon, ETF).

- April/May: Before closing the Café au Go Go (in June 1969), Solomon would team up varied excellent line-ups for backing up Fred on live recordings in order to save some of them for an eventual Capitol release.

According to Solomon, on these informal gigs Fred was backed up by Dino Valenti, Karen Dalton, Stephen Stills, John Sebastian, Felix Pappalardi, Monte Dunn (lead guitar), Harvey Brooks (bass), Al Kooper (bass, piano and guitar) and Daniel Natoga (percussion), being invited too Tim Hardin, Bob Gibson, Shel Silverstein, Hamilton Camp, Ed McCurdy and Dave Van Ronk. Prettiest Train, the duo with Stephen Stills that featured on Other Side Of This Life B-side (Capitol, 1971) could be recorded on these live sessions, the percussion part maybe played by Daniel Natoga. Ride Stormy Weather, performed along Dino Valenti on vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar, that was released as bonus track on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil compile (Collector's Choice, 1998), could have the same origin too. According to Solomon, Karen Dalton joined Fred on vocals on an Everybody's Talkin' version.

- Having divorced from his second wive, Fred Neil would move to Woodstock (New York) with his new sweetheart, who with he would live at the Woodstock Motel while it was being built their cabin log house nearby, in which he'd live for the following two years.

By then, Bob Dylan, The Band, Tim Hardin and Karen Dalton were also residing in the Woodstock area, besides Van Morrison, Maria Muldaur, Peter Walker, Happy And Artie Traum, Paul Butterfield and many figures who had moved there for the late 60's. Woodstock wasn't really a scene, but a resting and gathering country place -like Boulder in Colorado, where Hardin and Dalton would pass long periods of de-hab time-, where playing from time to time just for amusement.

He move up there because everyone up there in Woodstock loved him, I mean THEY LOVED HIM! Everyone was in total awe of him. He lived in a cabin next to Big Pink, he had something like five acres there. I moved up there with him soon afterwards. (Bob Brosnan interviewed by Henry Llach, fn.com).

- In Woodstock some sessions were recorded not only at Fred's home -which happened regularly-, but at Bearsville Studios. In there -Bob Brosnan remembered that- at least one session had place along Sebastian and Paul Butterfield. Another -this time unlocated- session with Karen Dalton, Tim Hardin and Monte Dunn was recalled by Peter Walker (go to the interview by Toni Ruiz, fn.com). 

We did a few sessions at Bearsville Studios. I remember one time it was Fred on guitar, John Sebastian on harp and guitar and Paul Butterfield on harp. Fred and Butterfield got into a fight, Fred thought that Butterfield was not playing like he should and they started to argue and fight. The best music I ever heard was the music at Fred's place with Rick Danko, Artie Traum and Fred… The Band wrote Stage Fright about Freddy… that's what the guys in the Band told me; he got in with those guys as soon as he got up to Woodstock. The guys in the Band loved Freddy. (Bob Brosnan interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com, 2003).

- It's possible that the concert that was released on the Other Side Of This Life A-side, to be launched by Capitol in February 1971, was recorded around this time at the Purple Elephant café in Woodstock.

There's a detail which can be noted during the live recording, when Fred starts playing the famous Everybody's Talkin' chords, anybody from the audience claps, although during the beginning of other songs some clappings can be heard. So, anybody doesn't seem to have listened too much the song before in despite of having been released previously on Fred Neil album early 1967, but not being one of the former most listened numbers from it. So the gig was celebrated probably before the Midnight Cowboy release and the subsequent worlwide success of the Nilsson version.

- May 25: Midnight Cowboy, a United Artists production, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, was released in NYC, being premiered on July in LA. After the success of Harry Nilsson's Everybody's Talkin' cover -taken from his album Aerial Ballet (RCA, 1968) and as single (RCA, 1969)- featured on Midnight Cowboy soundtrack, Capitol would re-launch the original Fred Neil version -that had already been issued on 45 rpm in 1968 with That's The Bag I'm In as flipside-: Everybody's Talkin (Neil)/Badeda (Neil) (Capitol 2604). According to Venet, Neil was about to be asked in order to re-recording the song on a more uptempo version to feature on the film.

The song was too slow for the picture and they had asked me to re-record it and pick up the tempo. I went home to call Fred in Coconut Grove, then I said to myself, 'Now hold on!' (laughs) I have never disputed his sense of time because it was part of the way he did the song, so if I call this man and tell him we're going to change the tempo for this movie there goes the integrity and I'm back in the bullshit of 'Let's dress this person up a certain way so they are acceptable at this certain place'. So I never made the call. I called the studio and told them 'Look, you had better get someone else'. It was a lot of money I turned down and if I had it to do over again I would do the same thing (Nik Venet, SW). Above, on the left the MIDNIGHT COWBOY poster ad; on center Nilsson's AERIAL BALLET cover album, in which he'd covered Everybody's Talkin'; on right a rare 45” -released by Criterion- comprising different Everybody's Talkin' versions. Aside Fred's original, covers by Nilsson, Spanky & Our Gang, West and Johnny Rivers.

Fred sold his rights to Everybody's Talkin' to Cohen for an advance to buy his home [in Woodstock]. He had ½ publishing share which Third Story took with his own money. They have realized more than a million return over the term and Fred effectively wound up with a pittance after collections through sub-publishing agreements on the translations throughout Europe. If it weren't for BMI paying his writer share he would have given up one of the great copyrights of all time. His accountants and attornies and management did nothing to rectify this grievous error only collected their fees upon fees to even this date. (H. Solomon, ETF)

- June:  According to Solomon, he and Fred agreed to buy a property for building a recording studio in Coconut Grove. Finally Capitol didn't support the project and instead sent down to the Grove the Capitol executive Mickey Kapp who brought an Ampex recording hand-equipment as kind of present. Fred's friend Bob Brosnan would be in charge of the equipment during the following years, recording several tapes of Fred informal and improvised sessions.

When I sold the Au Go Go Fred had me go down to the Grove with him and buy a property to begin a recording studio. One place he had me put an offer on was on Main Highway of about 7,500 square feet Tudor English style on ¾ acres walled in with gated entry for $100,000. We passed when Capitol wouldn't come to the plate and sent us the 4-track as a temporary gesture. (H. Solomon, ETF)

Howard Solomon and I agreed I'd go to Coconut Grove and try to convince Fred to record. I went down, had a major trouble finding his house…Spent a day or so with Fred with him playing the 12string and he agreed to go sailing but not to record. Since most every music fan thought Fred to be dead, I decided that the picture on the sailboat showing him alive would be the cover of an album, if we ever got one, hence the title of the album. Went back to LA and sent Fred a 4-track ½ Ampex performance but I just don't remember any more about it. (Mickey Kapp interviewed by Henry Llach, Jan. 2003, ETF).

He then made me his sound engineer, just a title only. We had an Ampex machine at Fred's house, and he'd have me run it. I ended up working with Fred!… I think the guy from Capitol (Mickey Kapp) sent it [the Ampex recording machine] down, so we could record down here [in Coconut Grove]. We set it up at Fred's place in Hardee, and recorded some of Fred's friends. I think later we moved it… One time I recorded Fred, Pete Childs and Jerry Jeff. Jerry Jeff told Fred that Fred's music had changed, then Jerry Jeff tried to have Peter go to Vassar to do a gig, but Pete wouldn't go. It was a fun night, it ended when they all passed out. Those were the days when we treated our bodies as if they were amusement parks. (Bob Brosnan interviewed by H. Llach, 2003, fn.com).

- August: Fred Neil was invited to play in the Woodstock Festival but he would refuse to do it.

The whole concept started at my home in the Grove with Michael [Lang], Artie Kornfeld, Peter Goodrich and Fred Neil. Michael ran with it to Woodstock and the rest is history. We got stuck at the Old Mill Stream Motel with the main house and the two ajoining cabins with we turned into a recording studio and wound up listening to the Lenny Bruce Live at Café Au Go Go tapes when the helicopter came to pick up Fred said pass as he took a deep hit and smiled saying “too big a crowd” (H. Solomon, ETF).

- Fred Neil would record some tracks with Nik Venet and Howard Solomon as producers -probably at The Record Plant Studios-, resulting from the sessions at least five finished songs:

Felicity (Neil)

Ya Don't Miss Your Water (William Bell)

Prettiest Train (Trad.)

Sweet Mama (Neil)

Come Back Baby (Ray Charles)

Fred Neil: 12-string acoustic guitar and vocals

Dino Valenti?: 12-string acoustic guitar

Bruce Langhorne: acoustic guitar (and percussion?)

Jimmy Bond: stand-up bass

Harvey Brooks: bass

Less McCann: piano

Billy Mundi: drums

Nik Venet: producer

John Wilson: engineer

Howard Solomon: executive producer

The most proper info that can be taken from these sessions is that Sweet Mama version (originally released on Bleecker & MacDougal but completely different this time on a very slow tempo) would be the version included as bonus track on The Many Sides Of Fred Neil (Collector's Choice, 1998), considering the notable presence of Less McCann piano and the large band that can be heard through the song. If Les McCann played on Sweet Mama on this session, it's more than probable that Ray Charles' Come Back Baby -other song released on the Other Side Of This Life studio B-side-, a favourite since early 60's among the Fred Neil circle, also were recorded then.

DINO VALENTI presence in this session looks at first sight like an enigma, since that it's un-probable that he'd go to NY just for joining Fred on 12-string guitar. Possibly Valenti was invited to the sessions because by January 1969 he'd still be presenting his soloist eponymous album in the East Coast, besides that by then he'd release the only LP that recorded as The Outlaws with Gary Duncan, another Quicksilver Messenger Service member. So that he'd play some gig supporting these LPs, and -according to H. Solomon- would join Fred live at the Café Au Go Go, one song from those concerts, Ride Stormey Weather being released as bonus track on the 1998 compileThe Many Sides Of Fred Neil.

About Prettiest Train, it also was a staple for these years -as it was Ya Don't Miss Your Water-, having been recorded also with Stephen Stills on vocals on one Au Go Go session and placed on Other Side Of This Life B-side (Capitol, 1971). Although this time Stephen Stills wasn't among the listed personnel -provided by Solomon on ETF-, it could be a mistake, and having been recorded -the finally released take featuring on Other Side Of This Life- during these sessions, maybe with Bruce Langhorne backing on percussion. Langhorne -aka Mister Tambourine Man- was really an expertised percussionist playing different instruments on, for instance, albums by Babatunde Olatunji and Peter Walker, although Billy Mundi could as well have joined on that part.

The take of Felicity could be the included one finally on Other Side Of This Life B-side, although also this one could be equally recorded during Sessions, because then -October 1967- Fred recorded at least four more takes since that the released Sessions first track of the album was signed under the title as take 5 on the back cover of the album.

IT'S SO HARD TO TELL YOU WHO'S GOING TO LOVE YOU THE BEST, the first Karen Dalton album -the title taken from traditional 1930's piano blues number In The Evening, popularized by Le Roy Carr-, it was produced by Nik Venet during one Fred Neil session at The Record Plant Studios in NYC. This record's been reissued on CD twice, the first time by Megaphone in 1999, and the second by the same label in 2006, this time comprising a 20 minute-lenghted DVD, Karen performing God Bless The Child and It Hurts Me Too -undated and unlocated at some coffehouse-, A Little Bit Of Rain at the stairs of her Boulder cabin probably with Dan Hankin on guitar, and Blues Chase Up A Rabitt. On the album, Karen, who played only her acoustic 12-string guitar -in despite of featuring also on banjo on the sleeve-, was joined by Dan Hankin, Tim Hardin's sideman and Boulder colleague of both, and the ubitiquous Harvey Brooks on bass. A Little Bit Of Rain aside, Karen also covered Blues On The Ceiling, that starts the B-side -as also Little Bit Of Rain begins the A-side-, Tim Hardin's While You're On Your Way, that Karen'd re-title How Did The Feeling Feel To You, and Wrong Or Ready, an obscure number by Café Wha? compaigner Major Wiley, besides six blues standards, covers and/or traditionals, Gary Chester on percussion and Kim King on electric guitar being overdubbed on some of them. Karen Dalton ('Sweet Mother K.D.') was first mentioned to me by Fred Neil during a Los Angeles recording session in 1967, and again in 1968, and was finally brought to me by Fred, who I feel discovered Karen and probably is responsible for anything this album may start in the next few years for Karen Dalton. (Nik Venet, It's So Hard To Tell You Who's Going To Love You Best, liner notes, Capitol, 1969).

- While living in Woodstock Fred Neil would play informally spontaneous and unannounced recitals at the Joyous Lake, the Purple Elephant or at the Café Expresso in Woodstock. He usually was joined by Monte Dunn on guitar, Rick Danko (The Band) on bass and other, many times amateur musicians. At the Expresso Fred was joined on bass by one Don Cuervo.

I spent time up there with Fred. Those were great times. Fred liked to sit and get a little high and watch the snow fall. He would take a piece of tape and put a peanut on the back and tape it the window and then sit back and watch the squirrels come and try to get. The squirrel would try and try to get and fred would just laugh and laugh. He loved it. He would give the squirrels a bunch of peanuts later but he made them try to get the taped one first.
we would go down to Joyous Lake and sit back and play with Danko, and Fred's friends would come around and we'd drink bloody maries. That was the kind of thing Fred enjoyed, playing with his friends. He liked playing with his friends when he wanted not when others wanted him to- He left Woodstock when he got divorced and lost the cabin in the divorce. (Charlie Brown interviewed by H. Llach, May 2002).

We in Woodstock had the whole town from the Expresso to the Joyous Lake where we'd play and hangout. What a totally amazing time. I'd bring Danko up on stage and Freddie would be on the side of the stage just letting Rick be to be. Nice music and great food was all that necessary to live well. (H. Solomon, 6.15.2001, ETF)… My best memories were presenting Danko and a host of others at the Joyous sometimes with so many players which the stage couldn't hold that they played from the audience, including Freddie on finger snaps foot stomps and Basso backup vocals, with uncle Albert smiling from ear to ear with Dylan along with him tappin' n clappin' (H. Solomon, 12-6-2002, ETF)… Woodstock for a time was very stimulating what with the great players who enjoyed the artform in an atmosphere of lush with nature… Fred tried on several outings but until Midnight Cowboy he remained in the background not wanting to perform without revenue. He did want to produce and develop product and would have been good. When the income stream started flowing from the movie and Nilsson hit BMI revenues took a spectacular jump and he had to legally extract it and get himself out of suspenssion with Capitol, which he eventually did. The years took a toll and a bike accident to his shoulder changed his playing and timing… (H. Solomon, 7.29.2001, ETF).... Winter snowy days in Woodstock in front of the crackling fire at the cabin we built overlooking Indian Head mountain (our publishing company) were memorable. Walking in the snow to Big Pink to hang with Danko and sometimes play with the Band or hang with Joe Walsh who lived close by with his band recording in the living room studio. Saugerties just 12 miles down the road from Woodstock made getting to the cafes (Joyous Lake, Expresso, Purple Elephant) made hanging out easy and pleasurable… We leased a closer into town converted Barn on Old Mill Stream where we recorded several evenings by the fireplace at the wall of the waterfall overlooking the stream and pasture on Old Rock City Road. Where Fred was there was music wheter he played or not, but always listening and making it happen for the many who enjoyed the experience of playing just to play. (Solomon, 9.26.2002, ETF). 

- October 12: Fred played at the Fillmore East (NY) on a concert presented as by Fred Neil & Friends, being unknown the line-up and the songs he performed in this rare event -his last ever gig in New York as soloist-.

- A new Everybody's Talkin' release as single with Ba-De-Da in its flipside, the eponymus LP being reissued and re-titled with the same song title Everybody's Talkin' (Capitol SM-294).

Everybody's Talkin' cover would be the same than Fred Neil's. On right the single including the song.

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- Due to Nilsson Everybody's Talkin' successful version, Fred Neil would have a late recognition that Elektra also would utilize, re-launching the 1965 album Bleecker & Macdougal as A Little Bit Of Rain (Elektra EKS 74073) with new sleeve and artwork.

A LITTLE BIT OF RAIN  cover -the Bleecker & MacDougal reissue-, whose sleeve -featuring some anodyne drawings emulating Sessions much more sober style- would be undoubtly the ugliest one among the Fred Neil catalogue.

- With Ric O'Barry, Fred Neil would found The Dolphin Research Project, an organisation dedicated (according to Fred himself) to stopping the capture, trafficking and exploitation of dolphins worldwide. www.dolphinproject.org

I started a group called Protect the Dolphin Inc, but it didn't have anything to do with the dolphin captivity issue. It was founded to do something about all the dolphins getting killed in the tuna nets. Later, I was arrested in Bimini, Bahamas for trying to free a captive dolphin, and that's when it started, Earth Day 1970. We actually called it the World Dolphin Foundation, that was the corporation, and the Dolphin Project was the first project we did under the World Dolphin Foundation. (Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, )

- July: Fred Neil would join Stephen Stills live -on his first solo gig- at the Madison Square Garden in New York, Fred singing on The Dolphins.

The Dolphin song was sung at Madison Square Garden with Stephen Stills to 25,000 by Fred Neil and the ovation was thunderous and the audience and Steven were moved to tears… Oh God how  I treasured those moments on stage at the Garden seeing Freddie posses the hall. (Solomon, Jul. 2001, ETF)

Stephen Stills, noted for his work with Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, gave his first “solo” performance here Friday evening before 21,000 people. The evening was divided into three sections. First, Mr. Stills played electric guitar and was backed by a rock quartet on such songs as the old Springfield tune “Rock and Roll Woman.” Second, there was an acoustic set beginning with Mr Stills, actually appearing solo, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, but later joined by people such as Graham Nash and Fred Neil. The group played Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's “Love the One You're With,” Mr Neil's “The Dolphin,” and others. (Mike Jahn, New York Times, Aug. 1, 1970).

.- November: Capitol Records UK division released Other Side Of This Life first pressing.

A very rare shot of Fred Neil performing live included on Other Side Of This Life Album Capitol UK issue.

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- February: Fred Neil would finish his engagement with Capitol Records, releasing his last official album, OTHER SIDE OF THIS LIFE (SM 657):

1.  The Other Side Of This Life (Neil)
2.  Roll On Rosie (Trad/Huddie Leadbetter)
3.  The Dolphins (Neil)
4.  That's The Bag I'm In (Neil)
5.  Sweet Cocaine (Trad.)
6.  Everybody's Talkin' (Neil)
7.  Come Back Baby (Ray Charles)
8.  Ba-De-Da (Neil)
9.  Prettiest Train (Trad./Arr.:Neil)
10.  Ya Don't Miss Your Water (William Bell)
11.  Felicity (Neil)

1-5: Live At The Purple Elephant (Woodstock, NY).

Date unknown (surely around spring 1969)

Fred Neil: vocals and acoustic 12-string guitar

Monte Dunn: acoustic guitar

Howard L. Solomon: producer

Bob Gibson: mixing assistant

6-11: In the studio, unknown exact dates

and recording locations, between 1969 and 1970.

7: with Les McCann on piano

8: w/ Vince Martin on vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar, Kenny Buttrey on drums, bass by N. Putnam or H. Strzelecki

9: w/ with Stephen Stills on vocals (and acoustic guitar?), B. Mundi, B. Langhorne or D. Natoga on percussion, Langhorne on guitar?, Harvey Brooks on bass

10: w/ Gram Parsons on vocals and piano

Nik Venet: producer

John Wilson: engineer

Mickey Kapp: executive producer and cover photo

Howard L. Solomon: executive producer

According to Solomon, the rest of his tapes, recorded at the Purple Elephant  (Woodstock) and at the Café au Go Go would include songs like Riot In Cell Block # 9, Weary Blues, Second Hand Information, Evil Woman, Black Woman, Worried Blues, This Troubled World, How Long, It Ain't Neccesaryly So, Mercy, Buddy Can You Spare A Dime.

The live side of Other Side Of This Life was produced for Capitol at the behest of Micky Kapp to satisfy Fred's suspension requirement and release him from three years remainder of his contract. The purpose was to get him the funds required to pay his debts. It was done before an audience of stellar music industry (Albert Grossman, The Band, Mike Lang and dozens of players on 24-track on two Ampex remote A & B decks truck mounted with video feed by Hanley Sound. (Solomon, july 2001, ETF).

According to Simon Woodsworth, Capitol vaults included 144 tapes of Fred material, comprising at least 18 unreleased songs.

- June: Stephen Stills 2 was issued by Atlantic Records, Fred Neil singing harmony vocals on two tracks: Change Partners and Ecology Song. Other musicians who played on these songs were old friend David Crosby -Stills' partner on C,S,N & Y- on vocals, Paul Harris on keyboards, Jerry García on pedal steel guitar -only on Change Partners-, Dallas Taylor on drums and Fuzzy Samuel on bass. Fred was credited as Fearless Freddy on this album and as Freddie Neil on the compile Four-Way Street (Atlantic, 1977), that included Change Partners.

- Fred Neil would write short but emotive liner notes on Karen Dalton's second album In My Own Time (Just Sunshine/Paramount), produced by Harvey Brooks. On her second and last album, Karen covered another Tim Hardin's tune and one Dino Valenti unreleased number called Something On My Mind.

Karen has been my favourite female vocalist as well as a heavy influence on my own style of singing since the early sixties. I first picked up on her one night in the Village at the Cock & Bull. Her voice grabbed me inmediately. She did Blues On The Ceiling (which is my song) with so much feeling that if she told me she had written it herself I would have believed her. After the set Dino Valenti took me up to Karen's place. Later that night we jammed. Karen was like a letter from home. Her voice is so unique, to describe it would take a poet. All I can say is she sure can sing the shit out of the blues (Fred Neil liner notes on the back cover of In My Own Time).

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- July, 18: Benefit for the World Dolphin Foundation at the Jai Alai Fronton (Miami), being the performers Fred Neil -who was backed up by John Sebastian-, Bobby Ingram & Micky Scott, Phil Everly, John Sebastian, and Manassas (Stephen Stills band with Chris Hillman and Fuzzy Samuel).

It was fantastic. Sebastian of course played some harp solos. Stills and Manassas did their entire album live. (Epomer 1818, ET)

The first Dolphin Project show was my first show working for Fred, and he told me to get the tape of the show, he made me promise I'd get it, and when I got it he tore it up! I couldn't believe he did that, I thought he was going to give it to someone he wanted to give it to and he just did that!!…  Fred really was into the whole dolphin thing, he would play to them all the time, swim with them. Sustained chords, those were the chords the Dolphins liked best. Fred would play to them all the time. I remember at one show they did Goodnite Irene, everyone standing there not knowing what to do for an encore and Fred started singing Goodnight Irene. (Bob Brosnan interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com, 2003)

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- July, 13: Another benefit show at the Playhouse in Coconut Grove, supporting the Dolphin Project, with Rick Danko backing Fred on guitar.

Different moments of the 1973 Coconut Grove Playhouse benefit show. On far left with Rick Danko on guitar.

- According to Howard Solomon, Fred would record at Bayshore Studios (Miami) one recording session with an acoustic piano player and Harvey Brooks on bass.

In his Goldmine mag article Simon Woodsworth wrote that John Cippollina, one of the guitar players in Quicksilver Messenger Service -the Dino Valenti's band-, remembered to have played on a Fred Neil sesssion around this period.

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- July 11: Attempting again for an eventual release, this time for Mike Lang's -his new manager- Just Sunshine label, Fred would travel to Montreux (Swistzerland) for playing in The Montreux Festival. It would be the only gig in Europe throughout his career.  

According to a lawyer very close to the state, Fred Neil at Montreux Casino Concert was taped, being transferred to DVD and expecting for a proper official next release when all the involved parts reach to agree. The track-list was :

1.  The Dolphins (Neil)
2.  That's The Bag I'm In (Neil)
3.  Little Bit Of Rain (Neil)
4.  The Other Side Of This Life (Neil)
5.  Nashville Cats (John Sebastian)
6.  Stories We Could Tell (John Sebastian)
7.  December's Dream (John Braheny)
8.  Everybody's Talkin' (Neil)
9.  Candy Man (Beverly Ross/Neil)

Fred Neil: vocals and acoustic 12-string guitar

Pete Childs: acoustic guitar

John Sebastian: harp

Harvey Brooks: bass

Mike Lang: executive producer

Fred Neil at the Montreux Casino, Montreux (Switzerland), July 11, 1975. Photos: Andrew Putler.

That year also played in Montreux, among many others, John Martyn, Bert Jansch, Tom Paxton, Etta James, Paul Butterfield -both the two last mentioned acts the same day than Fred-, Albert King, Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald, Milt Jackson, Archie Shepp Quintet, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Maria Muldaur, Bill Evans & Eddie Gomez, and Charles Mingus. 

Fred didn't want anything to do with him [Mike Lang] at that point, they never talked. At first they got along fine, but as time went Fred wouldn't talk to him. I think that I introduced Michael to Fred. Lang was from New York and came down to the Grove for a few years where he opened the first head shop. Later on,  I was partners with Michael and a lawyer named Barry Turan. We started a company called Joint Productions. We produced the Miami Pop Festival in Gulfstream Park, back in the late sixties… Fred really had no need for a manager at that point, he wasn't working, he wasn't going to work, at least that's how I remember it. Earlier on he had Howard Solomon as a manager, then he had Michael Lang and then he had Albert Grossman. I don't think that Albert took 25 percent of Fred's royalties. There was no business to manage, he was retired, living on royalties, but he thought he needed a manager to do his taxes for him I guess, that's why he had Howard and Michael and later Grossman.

MIKE LANG was in charge of Fred Neil's management for the first half of the 70's, his work overlapping Howard Solomon's, who had run Fred dealings since the late 60's. ALBERT GROSSMAN would be Fred Neil's manager at the late 70's but by then, as Ric O'Barry claims, since that Fred wasn't already working, Grossman only dedicated his job to pay bills.

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- Fred Neil would reappear live at the Coconut Grove Playhouse during two benefit concerts for the Dolphin Project, backed by John Sebastian on harp, Pete Childs on acoustic guitar and Buzzy Linhart on vibes.

Vince Martin, Allen Cohen, Hank Truby, and Gay and Bob Ingram,Steven Stills, David Crosby and especially Fred were all a big help in getting the Dolphin Project Rolling Coconut Revue… He really didn't want to perform. He would tell me 'ok, Sebastian is doing it, so now I don't have to perform', and I would tell him that the only reason that John Sebastian was doing is that you are doing it, and he would go ok, , and he'd do it. It was not easy for him to go out there and sit on the stool, he wouldn't even go to the grocery store at this point, so you can imagine trying to sit on a stool, in the spotlight, in front of strangers, it was very difficult for him. You know “….people stopping, staring, I can't see their face, only the shadow of their eyes…” that was not contrived, that was true, that was how Fred felt. But we were so broke at the time that we needed the money to feed the dolphins and he did the shows. (Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, 2002).

- August 2: Fred would perform in other Rolling Coconut Revue Grove concert billed as Save The Whales, being the other performers John Sebastian, Vince Martin, Bobby Ingram and Tim Schmidt -who backed Vince during his set-. Pete Childs on guitar and Sebastian on harp backed up Fred, while Fred himself joined Sebastian for closing the show.  

- November 20: Neil would sing on the Whale Day Celebration at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento (California), joining Joni Mitchell on The Dolphins, probably both backed by Jaco Pastorius on bass and Bobby Hall on percussion.

Only five days after the Sacramento date, The Band's The Last Waltz was celebrated, the Canadian group farewell concert that would feature on the same title movie directed by Martin Scorcesse. Fred was more than probably invited to perform although, as usual, he would refuse to do it in despite that some very good friends of him (Joni Mitchell, Rick Danko) were going to be on-stage. It's been told by Fred's 70's hand-engineer, Bob Brosnan (fn.com, articles, interview) that The Band admired Fred Neil so much that they thought of him when titled his third album STAGE FRIGHT (1970), which it's reasonable because the LP was recorded justly when Fred lived in Woodstock and played with Rick Danko at the Joyous Lake and the Expresso and, at Fred's cabin. Also it's been said that the album title refers to Bobby Charles, another marvellous, very shy Woodstock-based singer-songwriter but reading the Stage Fright lyrics, written by singer and guitarist Robbie Robertson, there are references that might have to do with Fred's character, career and retirement: Now deep in the heart of a lonely kid who suffered so much for what he did/ They gave this ploughboy his fortune and fame/Since that day he ain't been the same/ See the man with the stage fright just standin' up there to give it all his might/ And he got caught in the spotlight/But when we get to the end he want to start all over again (…) Now if he says that he's afraid/ Take him at his word/ And for the price that the poor boy has paid/ he gets to sing just like a bird, oh, ooh, ooh, ooh…

The Band's STAGE FRIGHT cover (Capitol, 1970).

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- April: Fred would play in Tokyo (Japan) on a new Dolphin Project Rolling Coconut Revue concert titled Japan Celebrates The Whale And Dolphin, the extended bill comprising a long list of performers like Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, John Sebastian and Vince Martin. Fred performing was backed up by Harvey Brooks on bass. John Sebastian has assured that all the concerts were recorded, and besides it exist a mediocre sound-quality bootleg of the Fred's set including:

Everybody's Talkin' (Neil)

Rosie (Trad./Leadbetter)

Blues On The Ceiling (Neil)

I Gotta Get My Baby Back (Floyd Tillman) -with Vince Martin-

Other Side Of This Life (Neil)

The Dolphins (Neil)

Fred was with Fuzzy [Samuel, bassist with C,S,N & Y and Fred's friend at the 70's] before the show and lost his pass and had to talk his way into the garden. He was very proud of that, I heard that story of Fred. (Denis Farley, ETF)

- October-December: After Mike Lang dealing with Columbia Records, Fred Neil would record at Bayshore Studios (Miami) a 10-track new album, the songs being produced by Fred, Ric O'Barry, Pete Childs and Harvey Brooks for Neil/Lang Productions:

Bottom Dollar (Danny Finley)

Walk On Water (Billy Roberts)

Jasmine Town (Bobby Ingram)

She's Got All The Whiskey (Bobby Charles)

Lady Lady (Pete Childs)

I Must Be In Good Place Now (Bobby Charles)

Everyday (Bobby Charles)

Tenessee Blues (Bobby Charles)

December's Dream (John Braheny)

Bycicle Path (instrumental)

Fred Neil: 12-string guitar, vocals and producer

Pete Childs: acoustic guitar, producer on Lady Lady

Harvey Brooks: bass and guitarron, producer on December's Dream

Ric O'Barry: co-producer on Lady Lady and Bycicle Path

Bill Zsymsik & Buddy Thornton: engineers

Mike Lang & Ric O'Barry: executive producers

Some of the songwriters whose songs Fred Neil covered on the unreleased two albums that he'd record between 1977 and 1978. From left to right: JOHN BRAHENY, who played with Pete Childs in Upper Knoblick 10,000, the band from Cambridge before attempting a soloist career, was the author of December Dream -also covered by Linda Rondstadt & The Stone Poneys-, which was covered by Fred many times between 1965 and 1978, firstly around late 1965, surely also at the late 60's and twice respectively in 1977 and 1978, besides live at the July 1975 Montreux Casino show. Hey Joe's author, the misterious Washingtonian BILLY ROBERTS composed Walk On Water, another selected song by Fred for these recordings. BOBBY CHARLES eponymous album, included Tennessee Blues and I Must Be In A Good Place Now, both of two versioned by Fred then. Two more Charles songs were used for these Columbia sessions: Everyday and She's Got All The Whiskey. Danny Finley, aka PANAMA RED, a mate of Fred from the Grove, wrote Bottom Dollar; another Fred's friend BOBBY INGRAM, composed Jasmine Town, the song referring to the Grove attractive environment -like Jasmine album by his friend Vince Martin-. Ingram was one of the closest Grove friends of Fred.

Michael Lang had gotten a budget of 250,000 dollars from Elliot Goldenstein but they never finished the album and I wound up with the tapes and the masters. Ric O'Barry has the stereo mixed and they have never been released. (Howard Solomon, SW) … The Columbia project was scrapped after $200,000 was spent on a trip to Japan to play on the beach and what not…but Ric managed to salvage what was left and record at Bayshore Studios Coconut Grove and album which was never was released. I have the tapes and I think Columbia should have a first right of refusal in that they funded the episode. Imagine that Grossman/Lang gave Fred a 1% royalty rate on wholesale and a small publishing participation…so Fred took a pass (H.Solomon, Jul. 2001, ETF) 

I want to make it clear that no money from the CBS advance that Michael Lang got for Fred's album ever went to finance the Japan Mission as reported by one of Fred's former managers [referring to H. Solomon]. What happened was this: Michael got Fred a deal with CBS based on his high visibility as he was doing the Dolphin Project shows in Coconut Grove, California and Tokyo. The advance, if I remember correctly, was $120,000, and Michael would take some of the advance and send some of it to Fred until there was only $20,000 left and no album. Then CBS threatened to sue Lang/Neil Productions.  I was then asked by Fred and Michael  to help put an album together. I just produced the biggest music event in the history of Japan, and I guess they thought I could pull this record production off. I signed a contract with Lang/Neil Productions as executive producer,  basically I did it to help Fred and Michael who were under the gun. First thing that I did was hire the proper musicians. We brought in Pete Childs and Harvey Brooks. Fred, Peter and Harvey were the real musical producers, I simply put all of the people and elements together and got out of their way and let the musicians do what they do best… All of them [the songs] were real credible Fred Neil tunes, even though he didn't write them. The songs represented where he was at during this time of his life. The songs were carefully chosen by Fred, Peter and myself …the Bayshore sessions have a very folksy feel that I like. The songs are excellent. Walk on Water, Tennessee Blues could be a hit, and Fred did a great version of December Dream, even better than the original recording. All the tunes stand up on their own, they are a great listen. (Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, 200 ).

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- July: Asked by CBS executives, Fred would re-record in East Orange (New Jersey) the same songs -saving the instrumental Bycicle Path- recorded at Bayshore Studios in Fall 1977, Fred being joined by NY-based studio band Stuff and friends like Kevin Hurley and Slick Aguilar:

Bottom Dollar (Danny Finley)

Walk On Water (Billy Roberts)

Jasmine Town (Bobby Ingram)

She's Got All The Whiskey (Bobby Charles)

Lady Lady (Pete Childs)

I Must Be In Good Place Now (Bobby Charles)

Everyday (Bobby Charles)

Tenessee Blues (Bobby Charles)

December's Dream (John Braheny)

Fred Neil: vocals, 12-string acoustic guitar, producer

Kevin Hurley ?

Slick Aguilar ?

Richard Tee: piano

Cornell Dupree: guitar

Eric Gale: electric guitar

Gordon Edwards: bass

Steve Gadd or Steve Parker: drums

Ric O'Barry: producer

Mike Lang & Ric O'Barry: executive producers

From left to right, Cornell Dupree, Steve Gadd and Richard Tee, musicians from STUFF, the studio band who backed up Fred Neil -aside other musicians friends of Fred- when he re-recorded “the versions album” in East Orange (New Jersey), that Fred had already taped -acoustic- at Bayshore Studios (Miami) in fall 1977 with longtime compaigners Ric O'Barry (producing), Harvey Brooks and Pete Childs. Although, Columbia executives neither liked this second version, sending the tapes to the vaults -in which nowadays still vanish-.

He eventually enjoyed the experience [recording the album previously at Bayshore Studios but] when it was all over, Michael called from New York and said that Colombia wanted us to re-record the whole thing with Stuff in East Orange, New Jersey… Fred and I flew up to East Orange and cut the whole album in two days, we got them down in one or two takes. Fred was really uptight about going up there, but he'd met Stuff in Japan, they made him feel comfortable, so that made him relax…I went to CBS in NYC and played them the tapes, I remember I sat in the waiting room next to Paul Simon who got in before us, he didn't stay very long. Finally Mike Lang and I got in and played them the tapes. There were no smiling faces afterwards. I don't think they like the fact that they paid for a Fred Neil album, but instead, they got, Bobby Charles, Bob Ingram, Peter Childs, Panama Red, Billy Roberts and John Braheny. It's a good album, Fred liked it, Peter liked it Harvey and everyone else involved liked it. Bottom line, CBS owns the rights to the album and CBS owns the tapes and if they choose to release they will. Fred and Michael honored their contract, I turned the tapes over to the people who paid for the project and I moved on. In a perfect world, everyone would get a chance to hear this unusual and lovely album, but unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world…The Stuff tapes are great! They have a jazz feel to them. Keep in mind, we are talking about the same band that used by John Lennon, Paul Simon, Joe Cocker, James Taylor. Fred and Stuff will knock your socks off. Unfortunately, the suits at the record company who are sitting on this work of art simply don't get it.(Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, 2003)

- During the late 70's many friends still kept on hanging out at Fred's place in Coconut Grove, although his retirement from the bussiness already was a fact.

Fuzzy Samuel would take me over there and we sit around and talk about Fred's next recording project or song. Sometimes he'd play. There's was always a guitar and a tape player handy, and usually someone to play and sing if Fred wasn't in the mood. (Denis Farley, 8.31.1997, Bob Dylan Who's Who webpage)

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- Sound engineer Bob Brosnan got engagements to play at some Coconut Grove clubs, asking Fred -who years before had taught him to play guitar- to join him. Finally Neil and Brosnan would play as duo some unannounced gigs in the Keys (Florida) and also in Woodstock (NY), instead the Grove.

He came down to the Keys when I was doing a gig down there. What happened was that he wanted to record something, I really can't remember what the song was but he knew I had a great sax player and a great trumpet player, and he went down there, The Lime Tree Lounge. We played a few times up in Woodstock… [It happened] sometime in the mid 80s, he told me not to tell the band who he was but right off he starts playing and tells the band they play in B flat' or something and the guys in the band came to me and asked me who this guy was; I took them outside and told them and they settled down. It took them 2 or 3 tries to get the song down but when they did it was beautiful, I don't remember what the song was but I just remember it was great. Then he did a couple of sets, that was right around the time I lost track of Freddy. He had some personal problems and he left; he would get angry at everyone, he got tired of Miami, and just left one day. (Bob Brosnan interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com).

Fred had a friend in the Grove, Bob, who is still around who Fred taught to play the guitar. After he got good at it he got a gig in the Keys, but when the time came for him to do it, he got cold feet and went to see fred to tell him he didn't think he could do. So fred, said 'aahhhhhhh', ok lets go. And Fred did the gig with him unannounced down in the Keys for several weeks. That was Fred. (Chalie Brown interviewed by H. Llach, May 2002).

- Another amateur encounter happened when Fred helped Ray Carter -one of his best friends since the early years in the Grove- to record demos joining him on vocals.

Fred probably spent more time hanging out with Ray than with anyone else. Some have called them the “two little ol' ladies”. Since Freddy never drove, they'd hop into Ray's old pickup and run errands or cruise over to the “Hut” for pitchers in the afternoon. Ray was around the Grove since the early days. I always thought of him as a Dean Moriarty. When everyone else was wearing sandals and riding bycicles, Ray had engineer boots and rode a totally chromed Matchless motorcycle. He was a Korean veteran and one of the best transmission mechanics in the country. In the 80's he started writing sons. With Freddy's help he put some of his mother's poetry to music. We even got Burl Ives interested in one. Ray started getting hard of hearing (a result of artillery at Chosen). He made demos of a lot of his songs at home on a boombox with Fred's help. On several of these you can hear that honey baritone on back. Ray lived with me in Austin for a year, then left one day to visit his mother in Wyoming. The last I heard from him was just after he got to Wyoming. That was 1986, a few weeks before Freddy came West. He was surprised and dissapointed that Ray had left, and we always wondered what happened to him… I do have some cassettes made in the mid 80's of Ray Carter's songs. Freddy sang back-up on a couple. Ric or Charlie Brown probably have stuff…  (Homer Harp 22,12,2001, ADF)

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- Fred would play an unannounced gig with Buzzy Linhart on vibes at Howard Solomon's café in Coconut Grove.

In 1986, just before I left Coconut Grove, I was doing some small outdoor concerts. I brought in Buzzy Linhart, who I hadn't seen in years and years. So just out of the blue I called Freddy. I had not spoken to Fred in I don't know how long; we had a big falling out because I released the Woodstock thing. Anyway, I called him and said 'Freddy, Buzzy Linhart is here and he's going on tonight and I want you here', and he says, 'Okay, I'll be there'. Lo and behold, I hadn't spoken to him in how long and he shows up and he played outdoors all night in the balmy Coconut Grove breeze. It started out with 20 or 30 people in attendance but by word of mouth, by the time the night was over, 200 people came. I wish I had had remote equipment to record that evening. (H. Solomon, SW).

A pic from one of the Fred's last sets featured on the 1998 compile The Many Sides Of Fred Neil (Collector's Choice, 1998).

- The label See For Miles (#77), specialized in reissuing rock, folk and pop buried treasures, released The Very Best Of Fred Neil comprising the eponymous album and four songs from Sessions.

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- Fred would travel to different places through North America during the late 80's and the early 90's. He was living in a small village in Mexico with his friend Homer Harp for many weeks.

After Mexico we hung out in my little town (Bastrop) outside Austin for about a month. Then Freddy bought the camper to go cruising and I moved to Miami. He joked we were like exchange students. We jammed at Jerry Jeff's house several times. I don't remember if Jerry Jeff taped any of it. Freddy stayed around Texas and visited Jerry Jeff after I left and I wouldn't be surprised if they put something down. (Homer Harp, 12,21,2001, ADF)

- Since mid-80's Fred would pass so much time at his friend, the singer-songwriter -Mr. Bojangles song author- Jerry Jeff Walker's home in Texas, where both of them would play together privately. On one of his last albums Walker would dedicate his song To The Artist to Fred.

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- Since the early 80's Fred's retirement would be definitive, even from his family and most of his longtime friends. Only Ric O'Barry knew where he lived.

I had made up my mind that if any of his kids asked me where he was that I'd tell, even if it cost me my friendship with Fred. I wasn't going to seek them out but if they had asked me, I would have told them, but nobody asked me. A couple of the kids are still upset with me for not telling them, but that was the way Fred wanted it. It made me very uncomfortable being the only one that knew he was down there in the Florida Keys, and having to tell people that I didn't know where he was, but that's what he wanted. No question about it, had I told anyone where he was he would have disappeared and that bothered me also. Damn if you do, and damn if you don't. When Fred started needing medical attention for skin cancer, it was around 1998, he made it very clear to me that if I revealed to anyone where he lived, he would simply leave, and then no one would know where he was or how he was doing. I didn't feel I really had a choice but to respect his decision, no matter how much I disagreed with it. (Ric O'Barry interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com).

I lost track of Fred. I thought he was with Jerry Jeff, I what I heard, then I heard he was in Cuba, but I really lost track of him.
He had some personal issues that made him retreat from everyone. But Fred was a sweetheart, he really was a great guy. We all lived off Fred at one point or another. You couldn't buy Fred a beer! He had to be the one buying it! (Bob Brosnan interviewed by H. Llach, fn.com).

What happened is simply this: Fred does not want to perform. Also, he had a lot of difficulty with his management, Howard Solomon and then Michael Lang; they were looking to exploit him rather than to further career. (Joe Marra, SW).

The last known photo of Fred Neil, taken by Ric O'Barry during a Dolphin Project campaign. It features on The Dolphin Project section dedicated to its co-founder.

- 80's-90's cult singer-songwriter Ben Vaughn proposed Fred to record an album for Nonesuch Explorer (Elektra), but Fred would decline the invitation, advising Vaughn to call Karen Dalton. Although, Karen had already passed away in Woodstock in 1993.

- Fred Neil would be interviewed by music journalist and writer David Hadju in order to contribute to Positively 4th Street. The Life And Times Of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Richie & Mimi Fariña  (Bloomsbury, London, 2001), a book about the relation between his early Village  friend Richie Fariña (1937-1966), Mimi Fariña, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. It's presumed that Neil answered through his manager Robert Steinberg, which he would do since early 80's until his passing in 2001.  The two only excerpts credited to Fred included in the book can be read on http://www.home.zonnet.nl/jim2873/fredneil/hajdu.html  

It's presumed that Neil answered through his legal account Robert Steinberg, which he would do to all the requests directed to Fred since the 80's until his passing in 2001.  

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- July: Bucketfull Of Brains fanzine (#43) would publish a pretty obscure article on Fred Neil. Since that a copy of it was almost impossible to get, there's any info about the author nor about its content.

- Japanese label Vivid would re-release on CD Everybody's Talkin' (the Fred Neil reissue). It'd be the first ever CD release from Fred Neil catalogue.

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- One Fred Neil quote would feature on Tim Buckley. The High Flyer, an article written by Martin Aston and published on July 1995 issue of Mojo, the music magazine. It's presumed that Fred would answer the kind of interview about Buckley through his former manager Robert Steinberg. The quote can be read above on 1966 section.

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- April 26: Goldmine magazine (#411) published a long essay on Fred Neil, written by Simon Wordsworth and titled: The Last Great Undiscovered Greenwich Village Folk Legend.

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- The British label Rev-Ola would reissue, for the first time on CD format Everybody's Talkin' (CREV 021), the 1969 Bleecker & MacDougal reissue.

- November: The Japanese label Vivid would reissue for the first time on CD Bleecker And MacDougal (AMCY-2693) and Tear Down The Walls (AMCY-2918), hence which by then only could be got via import.

- December: A 2-CD set called The Many Sides Of Fred Neil was released by Collector's Choice (CCM-07-2), compiling the three entire Capitol LPs, a mistakenly-credited to Fred single -as it was explained on 1964 section of this chronology-, really by Capitol act The Nashville Street Singers -that was confounded with the 1969 Nashville reunited-band-, and six bonus tracks, all of them recorded during the second half of the 60's. The compile was produced by Cheryl Pawesky with the help of Howard Solomon. The songs authorships were all credited also mistakenly to Fred, in despite of the rich liner notes by Richie Unterberger, and John Sebastian and David Crosby brief comments. With this release a late recognition period of the Neil masterful works would start, through CD -and special vynyls- reissues and compiles. The bonus on this compilation are:

Long Black Veil (Trad.)

-mistakenly credited to Fred Neil- by The Nashville Street Singers

Bottom Of The Glass (Trad.)

-mistakenly credited to F.Neil- by The Nashv. St Singers

Sweet Mama (Neil)

Trouble In Mind (Trad.)

December's Dream (John Braheny)

Ride Stormey Weather (Trad.)

How Long Blues/Drown In Tears (Trad.)

The Other Side Of This Life (Neil)

The Many Sides Of Fred Neil was brought to them by me to produce a tribute boxed set and it wound up third rate with incorrect credits to writers and publishers… Fred who covered December Dream was credited by Capitol and in that the tittle was mispelled to December's Dream instead of December Dream, John Braheny was left out of the loop when I put the album together. The publising rights are posessed by Third Story Music and have since made an attempt to clear it up when it was brought to Herbie Cohen's attention. Perhaps someday it will bring income to John… Someday this evergreen will be covered by many balladeers who have an ear for the great… I unearthed the song from the archives of Capitol and couldn't believe it hadn't been released before as a single. Fred had long forgotten he recorded it but sang it many times since. (H. Solomon, 7.17.2001, ETF).

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- January: A Japanese label would reissue on CD Bleecker & McDougal and Sessions.

- Feb. 9: Japanese label Vivid would release Everybody's Talkin' and Other Side Of This Life on one only CD.

- The German label Buffalo Bop launched the compilaton Hot Rockin' (CD 55088), containing rare early rockabilly songs, comprised You Ain't Treat Me Right, Fred's ever first 1957- single.

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- February: The british magazine Mojo published an article written by Ben Edmonds, titled I Don't Hear A Word They're Saying...

- April: On Mojo issue (# 77) requesting to the Mojo article published on previous February issue, it would feature a letter written by Fred explaining why he was seen in Cuba and the purposes of the Dolphin Project, although he didn't argue any comment about music. Here it's the entire text as it was published then:

In his article I Can't Hear A Word They Say (Mojo 75), Ben Edmonds comments that I was last seen in Havana. Your readers might be interested to know what we are doing in Cuba. I was there with The Dolphin Project, an organization dedicated to stopping the capture, trafficking and exploitation of dolphins worlwide.

Historically, the billion-dollar captivity industry has been capturing dolphins in Florida and Mississippi and exporting them to amusement parks, shopping centres, and swim programmes around the world. Due to the project's efforts, the capture of dolphins in the United States has stopped. However, dolphins are now being captured in Cuba to meet the demands of the captivity industry to put dolphins in public display for casual amusement.

The Dolphin Project has been trying to convince the people responsible for the dolphin captures in Cuba to create an alternative to captivity: a Dolphin Watch. By establishing a Dolphin Watch in Cuba, tourists from around the world can be given the opportunity of seeing dolphins in nature, wild and free. Indeed, this would be a win-win situation for everybody, especially the dolphins who would no longer suffer the horror of capture and life-long confinement.

To learn more about The Dolphin Project and our work, please visit our website: dolphinproject.org

Fred Neil, co-founder, The Dolphin Project

In the same Mojo issue, another letter written by Robert Steinberg -Fred's former legal account and last manager-, in the name of Fred would be published, the letter about the presumed refusing by Fred to feature on Johnny Cash show in 1970 -as Ben Edmonds' told on his article-: