- Kenny Neal
- The Rockzillaworld Interview
- By B.J. Weikert
 Kenny Neal is
the oldest of eleven children born into the family of Louisiana
blues harp artist Raful Neal. Eight of his brothers and sisters
are excellent blues players in their own right and the rest can
surely hang with the best on any blues stage, anywhere. On the
night I saw Kenny's show he had his brothers Darnell (Bass) and
Frederick (keyboards) playing in his band, and both were very
accomplished. Drummer Ken Johnson rounded out the rhythm section
and he was also outstanding. Ken had played with James Cotton
in the 70's and I still have the double live album Super Harp
on vinyl that he was featured on.
Although Kenny and the band weren't happy with the venue or
the audience, they still put on one hell of a show. Though there
were a few real blues fans in the audience, most of the crowd
consisted of Spring Break types who probably didn't know Buddy
Guy from John Lee Hooker. Notwithstanding the overly enthusiastic
drunk who hopped up on stage to chat in Kenny's ear during a
guitar solo, or the besotted chick who grabbed his ass when he
turned around once, these guys played great. Kenny's proficiency
on vocals guitar, harp, and lap steel were amazing and the rest
of the band were definitely up to par.
The band did a nice selection of originals and traditional
blues tunes, but they also did a fantastic version of Bob Marley's
"No Woman, No Cry" and a great crowd-pleasing rendition
of the Louisiana standard "My Toot-Toot." I introduced
myself to Kenny at his show at The Wild Wing Cafe on Hilton Head,
SC. Kenny Neal is GQ handsome and dresses like a real
showman. His personality is friendly, wholesome and intelligent
and he was very ingratiating. Kenny invited me onto his tour-bus
to do the interview and here's how it went:
B.J. So this is your bus, huh?
K.N. Oh man, this is just a little sleeper that we tour
in, that's about it. Beats a
damn van, I'll tell you that!
B.J. Get in the van! right?
K.N. Van gives you all them back aches and shit.
B.J. So, you were born and raised in Baton Rouge?
K.N. Yeah, that's my home, I was born in New Orleans, raised
up in Baton Rouge.
B.J. You were the oldest of ten children?
K.N. Yeah, I got the two last one's with me tonight. I
got my two younger brothers
with me tonight. One plays keys and the other plays bass.
B.J. Now, your dad's Raful, and he's a great harp player in
Louisiana. How old is he
now?
K.N. He's 68 I think, 1936.
B.J. And you're how old now?
K.N. I'll be 45 in October.
 B.J. I know you're
proficient on several instruments, there's trumpet, harp, bass,
guitar and keyboards. That's a lot of talent man.
K.N. Ah man, it was just something I grew up around the
house with, so I didn't realize that there was any talent involved.
I just made music on anything I had around, I made sound.
B.J. In the blood, right?
K.N. Yeah, so that's where that came from, just enjoying
the music and singing around the house.
B.J. And with your Dad, I guess you had a lot of great musicians
hanging around.
K.N. Yeah, well my Dad...they would practice at home. It
was real exciting. I'd get a free show.
B.J. So, what's the story I hear about how Slim Harpo stuck
a harmonica in your hand to stop you from crying when you were
a baby...
K.N. Well, Slim and my father were very close, and they
used to share the trailers
together, you know back when they used to drive the '59 Cadillac
with them big ol' long fins. Then they'd put a trailer on the
back of the Cadillac and they were in business you know. He came
to drop off the trailer at my home, and he opened the doors up
and he said, "Look inside and see if there's anything left
inside." So when I went in to look, he closed the doors
on me. It was pitch dark and I freaked out. (laughs) That's what
happened. And so he was trying to soothe me and chill me out.
So he went into his car and got a harmonica and said,"Here
you go! Here you go!" He felt sorry about doing that, so
that's how that happened. It wasn't anything like he was giving
it to me to play, he was trying to shut my butt up.
(laughs)
B.J. I wanted to ask you about some of your influences when
you were young and starting out. Who you liked to listen to,
or who you were into.
K.N. Well, my influences were mainly the guys who were
in my Dad's band, like:
James Johnson, Slim Harpo, Rudolph Reeshaw, Big Bo Melvin, Chuck
Mitchell, it
was all local. These were the guys, 'cause I never did go to
concerts. When I did go
to a show, these were the guys that I saw, those they were my
influence. But on the
Gramophone and the jukebox around the house, we had Jimmy Reed,
Muddy
Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lonesome Sundown, Lazy
Lester.
B.J. What do you think about the really old stuff, like Robert
Johnson and Charley
Patton?
K.N. Oh yeah, Fred McDowell. I just did a tribute to him.
B.J. You played in Canada in the Downchild Blues Band, right?
What was it like during those years? How long was that going
on?
K.N. Well, things got slow for us because I was with Buddy
Guy as a bass player.
Work just got real slow. So I ended up in Canada. I married a
Canadian girl, and
so there wasn't no use for me hanging around Chicago when we
weren't touring.
B.J. What year was this now?
K.N. When I joined the Downchild, it was '81 - '82
B.J. Was there like, a down-swing in blues popularity in America
at the time that you
went over to Canada?
K.N. Yeah right, for Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. I don't
know about the whole
blues scene. It was kind of slow.
B.J. Did you have a better fan base in Canada?
K.N. Not really, I just had a good woman! (Laughs)
B.J. I had just heard that you're still revered over in Canada
for that band.
K.N. Oh yeah, well before I started with The Downchild,
I brought my brothers
who's older than the ones I have tonight to Canada and I got
a house gig at a place
called The Isabella Hotel. Every week I would bring in people
like Big Mama
Thornton one week, John Lee Hooker the next week, Buddy Guy one
week, Junior
Wells the next. I would get all these blues artists to come up
and be a guest on my
show. Every week I'd have a new guest, and I'd use my brothers
as a back-up
rhythm band. That gave me a showcase, the exposure, and it developed
Kenny Neal
with the guitar, because previously I was a bass player. So I
wanted to do my own
thing on guitar, and that was an easy way for me to do it. I
invited all the people
that I met while I was with Buddy Guy, and back then, they needed
the work. So
every time I would phone up John Lee (Hooker), or Big Mama (Thornton),
or
Lightnin' Hopkins, they would say "Okay, send a plane ticket."
It was all good.
You know, I've got all that stuff live and I'm getting ready
to release it on tape with
video as well.
B.J. That was televised?
K.N. Well, some of it with Big Mama Thornton was televised,
but a lot of it, I just
got it on tape. The video is mostly with Big Mama Thornton, Blind
John Davis and
like that. But when that cold weather kicked their butt, they
said "Man, I'm going
back down South! You can have this part of the country!"(laughs)
Then I put
together another group around '79, the end of '80. Then I got
a phone call from
Downchild Blues Band. I thought they were just looking for a
guitar player, but
they wanted me to play guitar and sing. To front the band, that
was perfect because
these guys were already well known, and traveling all over the
country, that was
instant exposure for me. It was wise for me to stay there as
long as I could.
B.J. Your first record I guess was with King Snake Records?
K.N. King Snake out of Sanford, Florida.
B.J. Bio On The Bayou...
K.N. Yeah, that was my first album.
B.J. Then you had like five albums on Alligator?
K.N. Yeah, I had that same album put out on Alligator and
we called it Big News
From Baton Rouge. They only took a couple of cuts off of
it, but it's the same
album.
B.J. What's Bruce Iglauer like?(President of Alligator Records)
K.N. He's determined to stick behind the blues and work
his company. I admire
him for that, because he's a hard worker. He likes to feel comfortable
with the
artists that he chooses. He's friendly, he's not strict. He's
very particular about the
music that he's looking for. I was one of the lucky ones, because
I would always
lease. I would produce and lease the tapes to him, so I never
did work with him a
lot. I'd just give him my final product.
B.J. What about your Broadway thing, Mule Bone.
K.N. It was written by Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughs.
It was a love triangle thing. The play itself was good.
B.J. Was there acting in there, was a lot of music involved?
K.N. Yeah, I did a lot of acting and Taj Mahal did all
of the music. I performed the
music, but I had the lead role in it so I was acting as well.
I was a major part.
Lincoln Center sent me to school for crash courses on acting
because they were
looking for somebody who could sing the blues. The actors were
doing the job of
acting, but when it got to that Delta, swamp type of stuff...
B.J. Did you play instruments in it?
K.N. I played acoustic guitar. That's the main reason I
felt so comfortable on stage
because throughout both sets I had a guitar with me.
B.J. So how do you feel about the way roots music, not just
blues but bluegrass, seems to be making a come-back?
K.N. Oh yeah, very much.
B.J. Like the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
K.N. Is that the one with Chris?
B.J. Yeah, Chris Thomas King.
K.N. My home-boy, yeah.
B.J. He just put a new album out based on his character from
that movie. I think a lot of people are starting to notice the
roots type music, now more than it has been in the past.
K.N. Yeah, we had a great late 80's, 90's was all good,
but then it started to get a little crazy with all of the wailing
on the guitars. Stevie Ray Vaughn, he was the man, he did it
well.
B.J. I thought Johnny Winter did it well too.
K.N. Oh, Johnny Winter's my ol' buddy from way back, that's
my partner there. But what I'm saying is that we got a zillion
of Stevie Ray Vaughn clones, so we wasn't being creative, you
know, you start to get "cloned bands". So now that's
selling in and it's weaning everybody out now so the real hard-core
ones are still
surviving again.
B.J. Some of my favorite blues artist right now are some of
the Fat Possum artists.
Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside...
K.N. Oh yeah, that's my other buddy...
B.J. Like on Buddy Guy's last album (Sweet Tea) he covered
a bunch of the Fat Possum artists.
K.N. Good, that's good. For a while, we thought that we
were going to lose the blues, but it's popped back up and it's
here to stay now. And Bluegrass as well, man I love bluegrass,
all those pickers man.
B.J. Actually, some of the first blues, even pre-blues black
musicians played fiddles and banjos back in the 20's and 30's.
K.N. That's right.
B.J. You played on The Blues White Album on Telarc
where they did blues covers of
Beatles songs off of The White Album. What about that experience?
K.N. (laughs) I don't know where that came from man! (Laughs)
I just did one cut.
B.J. Which one was that?
K.N. Uh...man, I don't even remember... Is It All Right?
or something. man, I don't
know. (Note: it was Revolution)
B.J. Your last album One Step Closer came out a couple
of years ago, so you're about
due for a new one?
K.N. About. I got a call a couple of weeks ago where they
wanted to know what I was doing and did I have any ideas. I said
"I've got a bunch of ideas". But, I don't know what
I'm gonna do next. I'm just kinda settin' back and ...but, I
know what I want to do...but I'm not sure if I'm ready. I find
a lot of the music, you see, I've been writing music all of my
life like all of the stuff I did on Alligator. When you start
bringing in other people's songs to me, it kind of distracts
my creative, you
know being creative.
B.J. You mean doing tribute albums and stuff like that?
K.N. I don't mind doing tributes, but I do mind doing a
whole bunch of other
writer's songs.
B.J. You mean like, producers are telling you to do this and
that?
K.N. Yeah, when the company says "I want you to do
these five songs". Some of
the songs are good, but I'm creative and I want to do my own
stuff.
B.J. And when they give you that, it's like they don't think
you're good enough to do
your own songs...
K.N. Yeah. So, I don't want to go through that, I want
to go in and whoever I work
with on the next one, I want them to go ahead and let me do what
I've been doing,
what started me out from the beginning.
B.J. That's what you need to do man, because that's usually
where the best albums come
from.
K.N. Right! You know that's where my albums came from,
all of my better albums.
B.J. It stunts your growth.
K.N. Right, it don't work, it don't work. So that's one
thing I don't want to do. I'm
still open to certain songs, but I'm not gonna go way out, because
I'm too creative for that.
B.J. Yep, you gotta definitely follow your muse.
K.N. Yeah, that's right. You can hurt yourself by not doing
that. The fans are looking forward to another Kenny Neal, and
all of a sudden, I come out with a Beatle's song, you know. (Laughs)
B.J. But, that's not what you really want to do...
K.N. But I did though...doing them white blues...(laughs)
B.J. That wasn't really your project though. You've got to
do what you think is the best
thing for you to do. Don't take no shit.
K.N. Got to stick with it.
www.kennyneal.net
Contact BJ Weikert at bj-at-rockzilla.net
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