FRED NEIL SESSIONS CAPITOL RECORDS 1968

one thing that could safely be said about Fred Neil is that a more disguised, inscrutable shadow figure floating 'round the nether regions of the 60's folk boom you'd be hard pressed to find. best known for penning "EVERYBODY'S TALKING", made famous by Nilsson's version in John Schleshinger's Midnight Cowboy film, the publishing from this and many other covers of the song insured his escape from performing, recording or any other entanglement with the music industry for pretty well the rest of his life. sporadic shows or recording dates aside, Neil indulged his love for heroin and hanging out with the dolphins near his home in South Florida until his death in July of 2001 from skin cancer. "THE DOLPHINS", his other most well known song, is ample proof of his affinity with the sea faring mammals over most any of the people he encountered during his tenure in the music biz.

which brings us to SESSIONS. recorded shortly before his withdrawal from the work-a-day world (interrupted only by 71's lackluster THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS LIFE), this record is seven songs culled from four days of sessions in october of 67. as the title implies, everything is live, straight-to-tape audio verite, warts and all. along with Neil on vocals and 12 string acoustic, Dylan cohort Bruce Langhorn is credited on acoustic, as are Eric Glen Hord, Cyrus Faryar, Peter O. Childs,along with one James E. Bond on stand-up bass. rather than being a pile-up of inappropriate, busy jamz, the first impression one takes away from even a cursory listen to these songs is the sense of space. gorgeous widescreen spaces opened up by the gently intertwining guitar lines and bass pulse give way to the record's secret weapon, Neil's voice. and for a man who claimed to be the unholy spawn of a brief liason between Jimmie Rodgers and Bessie Smith, well, one listen to his bottomless baritone and just-woke-up-this-mornin' lazed out drawl gets me to thinking that just maybe it's true.

the one thing 'bout this album that always gets me is its otherness, the way it stands apart from a thousand other records of its sort released around the same time. there's a looseness, no doubt inspired by the open party in the studio that Fred actively encouraged, plenty of singing but also a lot of drinkin and druggin going on, a fact bore out by the between song banter left on the record. "fly united" indeed. that said, a song like LOOK OVER YONDER seems to arrive out of a fevered dream, Fred forlornly moaning elemental blues to a setting sun, random guitar lines mimicing birds in flight. and when he sings " mama, mama, ain't you sorry that you bore me, can't you see what I've become?", the curtain is lifted for a second on this intensely private man, an admission of sorts shared, briefly, but he's already gone. that line about how a real showman knows how to disappear in the spotlight? here's how it's done.

check out ROLL ON ROSIE for it's freewheeling raga-drone and spirited vocalese. it's a real gas as well. MERRY GO ROUND deserves a good listen for it's Mary-Janed-to- fuck waltz time stroll, Fred freely interjecting lines from Leadbelly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" into his own inner circular narrative, pitching a tent in the cosmos. in closing, I gotta say it's a real soulful night-time listen, open, warm, pitch-perfect.

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