| AN INTERVIEW WITH BAYOU BLUES MASTER KENNY NEAL |
| Kenny Neal is the oldest of 11 children born into the family of Louisiana blues harp artist Raful Neal. 8 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 wanted to hop up on stage and chat in Kenny�s ear during the guitar solo, and the besotted chick who grabbed his ass when he turned around once, these guys played great. Kenny�s proficiency on vocals guitar, harp, and lapsteel 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 on April 11th, 2002 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 as he invited myself and my friend Rex, who took the photos, onto his tour-bus to do the interview in a comfortable setting. 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 your 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 Caddillacs with them big ol� long fins. Then they�d put a trailer on the back of the Caddillac 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�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 our 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 Gramaphone and the juke-box 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 is 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 awhile, 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. |
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