Americana's forgotten golden boy: Remembering Neal Casal

My first tentative step into the music blog world as an author was a guest piece for Farq's Fake Memory Foam Island about Neal Casal. The piece has since gone the way of the dodo, but it was a little mawkish anyway and I spelled Neal's name wrong throughout. Also, being a pure consumer (a real 'youse bums' type character) at the time, I didn't provide any music to go with the words. So, once more I'll try to put into words what the man and his music mean to me, and why you should know him. 

First off, Casal was a musician's musician and a rock'n'roll lifer. Starting as, of all things, the guitar slinger for one of the latter day versions of Ricky Medlocke's Blackfoot, Casal soon tried to catch on as a solo musician, doing the kind of mix of rock, pop and country that once came out regularly out of Topanga canyon. If you love classic Jackson Browne or the Eagles, then Casal was your gig. Like fellow grandsons of Topanga, the Beachwood Sparks (with whom he collaborated and toured), he kept the flame of the west coast sound of the 1970s alive at a time when the music scene at large didn't have any use for it, or him. Had he been born twenty years before, who knows. But in the mid- to late 90s this kind of music, fabulous as it was, was always destined to be for a niche audience. And a niche audience it was. He could be a concert attraction in Europe and in Japan, but in the U.S. he was only ever a talented sideman, backing up Lucinda Williams, Willie Nelson and others. His highest profile gig as a sideman was probably as part of Ryan Adams' backup group The Cardinals. As a lifelong Grateful Dead fan, it also felt natural to form the jam-band Circles Around The Sun and compose the set break music for the band. Hell, in his last years, with long heir, full beard and small glasses he even started to look a little like Jerry Garcia. Certainly a long way from the young Adonis you see up there, from around the time of his debut album Fade Away Diamond Time.  

When I said that Casal was a rock'nroll lifer, that's probably why his death by suicide hit me so hard. He wasn't supposed to go out like this. He was supposed to, even at retirement age, shuffle down with his guitar case to the local watering hole and play his and other people's songs for shits and giggles and beer (or Mountain Dew) money. That's how I envisioned Casal to spend his retirement. Alas, we can't choose the endings we like, and Casal chose his, unwisely.  Listening to some of the interviews he gave, you do hear someone extremely uncertain and somewhat rudderless. His restlessness as a child, when his parents moved all over the U.S. seems to have led to a certain restlessness of spirit. Far be it from me to speculate about the reasons for his decision to end his life, but there seemed to be a hole where a home - spiritual, physical, what have you - should've been. "I am just a shadow on your wall / one day you won't think of me at all" are the first words you'll hear on this album, from the last song he ever finished. That's why I wanted to end this compilation with his cover of Gram Parsons' beautiful "A Song For You". In "Everything's Moving" he fears that no one will remember him, nineteen songs later he sings about hoping that "tomorrow we will still be there". 

In some ways, Casal's music is clearly reminiscent of those that came before him, but unlike his compatriot Adams Casal never slid into pure pastiche. Instead, his albums sound like artifacts from another time and place. Though he was born in New Jersey and passed his childhood all over the place, like those Detroit/Texas/Nebraska-sourced Eagles, there is something quintessentially Californian about his music, from its deserts that some of the dustier, pure country numbers evoke to the ocean drives that the sun-kissed songs from Anytime Tomorrow bring to mind. Unlike four fifths of the state's official Californian dream merchants he was an avid surfer. There is also a clear Byrds influence on tracks like "Too Far To Fall" and the tellingly spelled "The Gyrls Of Wynter" (whose title mightjust be a nod to Big Star). And, equally if not more important, Casal had one of the sweetest voices in all of music.  

That voice sings no more, and never will again. But the man leaves behind a rich legacy, not only in the nine albums he published, in the contributions to other musician's albums and tours or his numerous musical collaborations, but the countless stories of his camaraderie and kindness. Casal was by all accounts one of the nicest men in the music business.  

So, compiled by yours truly, twenty songs showing what Casal had to offer. Listen, like, become a fan. Or don't. But everyone wins if you do.