Kenny Neal is having a busy summer. The Baton Rouge blues man is staging a music festival this month and releasing a new album later this summer.
The annual Kenny Neal’s Family & Friends Blues and Southern Soul Festival takes place June 18 on the levee in Port Allen. The album, Bloodline—financed by Neal himself and recorded at The Henhouse and Switchyard studios in Nashville—will be released this summer by Los Angeles’ Cleopatra Records.
Immersed since birth in the swamp blues of southeastern Louisiana, Neal could easily have knocked out another of his definitive swamp-blues albums. Instead, this 18th studio endeavor reveals his many other musical influences.
Bloodline encompasses Memphis soul, Southern soul, classic country, New Orleans’ second line and the legacy of B.B. King. Neal sees the project as the most important of his career. He recorded it with Tom Hambridge, the producer of Grammy-winning albums for blues star Buddy Guy.
A successful blues artist for decades, Neal hopes Bloodline will take him to an even higher level.
“This is probably the album that I spent the most time on, out of all of the ones I’ve recorded,” he says. “It’s been rough. It’s been good; it’s been bad. Finally, it’s happening, but I had to work my butt off to make it happen.”
The album’s title song is the only one not recorded in Nashville.
“I didn’t get the Nashville guys to do that ‘Bloodline’ song,” he says. “That had to be done by the Neal family. So I had to bring that one back home.”
Four generations of Neals sing and play on it, and the song name-checks local swamp-blues artists Slim Harpo, James Johnson and Kenny Neal’s singing and harmonica-playing dad, the late Raful Neal.
Neal performs on the track with blues-textured authority and deeply personal lyrics, like “Down in Louisiana, where the blues bloodline run deep … The apple don’t fall far from the tree. Grandpa died. Daddy gone. Now I’m here to carry on.”
Another track, “Ain’t Go Let the Blues Die,” expresses the same keep-the-blues-alive sentiment, but it also steps up the tempo and joy, like a Sunday church service. The lyrics cite such blues ancestors as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.
Surprises on Bloodline include Neal’s take on Willie Nelson’s bittersweet country ballad, “Funny How Time Slips Away.” For his version, Neal pairs the elegant strings and background vocals that were hallmarks of the 1960s Nashville sound with his own soulful down-home vocals.
Describing why he chose the song, Neal says, “Willie Nelson, that man writes some nice stuff. That’s some blues.”
Neal delivers another surprise cover with the second line-popping “New Orleans,” a song Ray Charles recorded but never released.
When Neal speaks and sings, his voice resembles that of his late father, Raful. His dad would feel at home singing the sweet Southern soul of the track “I’m So Happy.”
Neal thinks Bloodline may be his best album to date.
“A lot of the records I did in the past, they worked, but this is a great production,” he says. “I took my time to think it out. Even still thinking it out after it’s done. So far, I’m on the right track.” kennyneal.net
Blues across the river: Kenny Neal’s Family & Friends Blues and Southern Soul Festival is set for Saturday, June 18, 5-9 p.m. on the Port Allen levee. Admission is free.
THE LINEUP: Kenny Neal and the Neal Family; Tyree Neal Band with special guests; Mz Pat; Riverside Blues Band; Insight
