Basement Dreams

In many ways, I would regard this as Neal’s best and most personal solo album, covering the whole variety of styles that he was capable of in his music. The original version of the record was a 23-track double album and the streaming version of the album also includes a bonus ‘second disc’ of 10 demos and live tracks that only came out in Europe thru Glitterhouse Records and Fargo Records in France. Most of this album was recorded in the home studio Neal set up at the farm he and his wife Christy had moved into in Columbia, NJ. The studio was in a building on the property that was once a dog kennel and still smelled like it. Neal called it Fuzz Folk Studios and he got himself an old 8-track recording rig and really became an excellent recording engineer and producer in that kennel. Volume 1 is bookended by two brief acapella, funny vocal performances by Neal’s dad, Ray. ‘No One Said A Word’ really defines the term “fuzz folk” and ‘Basement Dream’ is one of the best kennel recordings he ever made and features an ethereal organ drone that Neal played himself one night after John Ginty left his Hammond B3 organ at the studio. You also get two rare performances from Neal’s bluesman alter ego on ‘I Run And Hide’ and ‘Neal’s Blues’, both featuring harmonica from his pal Mike Santos, aka El Rauncho. This album also contains some of the classic singer-songwriter folky songs he was so good at; ‘Fremont Row’, ‘Me and Queen Sylvia’, ‘Delaware Station’, ‘Promises To Keep’ are all good examples of that. ‘St Cloud’ was recorded one day at Daniel Lanois’ Teatro Studios in Ojai, California with engineer Mark Howard and features Don Heffington and Neal playing trippy keyboard strings over Neal’s acoustic guitar part. ‘Denver Song’ was written the night that John Denver died in a plane crash and features Neal’s sweetest, highest vocal range as a tribute to Denver, who we were both big fans of. Just a few months later, our hero Townes Van Zandt also died and ‘Highway Butterfly’ was Neal’s tribute to him. Another highlight from Volume 1 is Neal and Angie McKenna’s version of the gospel standard ‘Oil In My Lamp’, which Neal learned from his fave Byrds record, Ballad Of Easy Rider. Volume 2 highlights include ‘Junkyard In The Sun’ and ‘Burned Out Town’ with Andy Goessling on banjo and musical saw