5. Fred NeilFred Neil
He was really a big hero to people like Dylan and David Crosby and the whole Greenwich Village scene. He was a bit older than them as well. There are different references in his music to that whole gang – there’s much more blues and R&B underneath, and his voice! He sounds like a man, like a world weary man. There’s a sexiness you’ll probably not find in early Dylan records. There’s a song about cocaine: it’s all a bit more earthy and left-of-centre.
This record especially is the first one where he went electric before Dylan was doing that. There’s a real lightness of touch the way the musicians play, supporting this rumbling, brooding voice in the middle of it all. He just sounds like he’s had a really fucking heavy night and you just believe him. He doesn’t even have to sing about much. The lyrics aren’t particularly poetic, but you just know that he’s seen it and lived it.
He fucked off actually. He made one more record in ’71 and ended up disappearing to Florida and opened a dolphin sanctuary. One of the highlights of the record is called ‘Dolphins’ which is just sublime. Nobody knew what happened to him and he died in 2001. He really was a big figure for a lot of musicians at the time. He was just one of those guys who didn’t really want to know.
