Fred Neil
Bleecker & MacDougal

Every now and then, a miracle happens. A forgotten legend is snatched from the shadowy cone where life's events have relegated them, and finds an unexpected showcase through the new icons of contemporary culture. This is the case of Fred Neil: a leading figure of the folk boom in Greenwich Village (Dylan, Crosby, and Stills were declared disciples), pioneer of psychedelic songwriting (Tim Buckley and Paul Kantner underscore), until his obstinate self-exile in Florida in the early seventies. The famous series "The Sopranos" recently paid tribute to him in a touching and raw scene, with the unparalleled skimming flight of "The Dolphins" as a soundtrack. Yes, the extraordinary animals to whose study and protection the author of "Everybody’s talking" would dedicate the last 30 years of his life.

"Bleecker & MacDougal" is Fred's solo debut, published in 1965 after years of apprenticeship at the Brill Building, a couple of pieces written for Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison, and an interesting album with Vince Martin. The cover says a lot about Neil, captured here at the corner of Bleecker Street, as at the entrance of an enchanted garden in the heart of the Village enlivened by his concerts (in some of which he was supported by the not yet famous minstrel from Duluth). He's a shy southern boy who arrived in the metropolis of a thousand lights, dazzled by its vices - particularly toxic ones - soon transporting his journey into a songbook still rarely intense and beautiful. And he is poised to stamp one of the most influential debuts of all time. Accompanied by Peter Childs (guitar and dobro), Douglas Hatelid (bass), and the harmonica of future star John Sebastian, Neil redefines with his acoustic guitar and baritone voice the classic folk chisel. Introducing into it gospel hints, Cole Porter-like rhythm, and blues despair, never sung so vividly by a white man before him, and initiating the jazz and lysergic wanderings that would culminate in his eponymous masterpiece of 1967.

There are plenty of key episodes among these grooves. From the livelier moments, such as the quirky "Sweet Mama" or the fierce title track, to those tuned into folk on the verge of electrification, like the mocking "Candy Man", the echoes of Chicago blues in the angry confession of "Country Boy" or that "Mississippi train" puffing through "Travellin' shoes" with a quick step towards the Delta, running parallel to Dylan’s Highway 61.

And then the ballads that have made history for generations of songwriters, manifestos of urban frustration sung with a mournful and accursed demeanor: take the sublime "Blues on the ceiling", with verses like "Up to my neck in misery /I'll never get out of these blues alive" or "Blues keep on fooling /With my weary head /Cocaine couldn’t numb the pain /I'd be better off dead." Not to mention "Yonder comes the blues" and "Handful of gimme", odysseys in the metropolitan realms where even the penumbra glistens with seduction, deceit, and sins.

Finally, the pearls where the cosmic abandonment mood opens to dreamy and boundless glimpses, later explored by his most famous disciple, Tim Buckley. The velvety "A little bit of rain" and the expanded blues of "Gone again" are worth gold, not to forget "The other side of this life" which will serve as a basis for incendiary live diversions by Jefferson Airplane. And above all, a stratospheric version of "The water is wide," in which peaks of jazz spatiality and acid moods paint an atmosphere turned into soot, with Neil’s crooning serving as the only glimmer on the water.

It's no coincidence that at a certain point, Fred Neil got tired of those lights and decided to return to Florida. To listen to the dolphins' song in a tranquility that restored the purity of his soul, preventing him from being sucked into a vortex like his friend Tim Hardin. Sometimes, you are left with only yesterday's road: it's not at all rugged, and it leads you to the other side of this life.