| Willie Heath Neal (June.09 issue) |
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| Written by Jeff Clark | |
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Page 2 of 3 Today, Willie Heath Neal is 38. That seems young when you hear him, indeed when you see him. He looks closer to 50, and often sounds it. Out of Highway, his fourth studio album, barrels through a batch of barroom-ready originals full of piss ‘n’ whiskey, prayer ‘n’ heartbreak and a touch of regret, a natural-born sense of classic country sounds seeping abundantly through each cut. Then there’s a set of four covers during the disc’s second half, including the Misfits’ profane “Attitude” retooled all rowdy and cantankerous-like – a nod, perhaps, to Neal’s punk days. But the high point of the album has to be the closing title track, a haunting original wherein Willie ponders his life and where it’s led him, forever on the road from somewhere past to somewhere else: I’m from the backside of a small Georgia town And I’ve done my share of lettin’ folks down Life’s had its ups, and it’s sure got its downs I’m a little bit older now, I’m a little run downAnd sometimes I get tired of roamin’ around Sometimes I think about settlin’ down Things might be different if I change my ways Maybe someday, I’ll run out of highway… It’s a chilling sundown of a song you could have imagined Waylon Jennings crooning, with that sonorous voice of his resonating with strength and solitude. Neal’s own delivery actually reminds me of Jennings often, more so on this album than what I’ve heard of his past output. His voice and his words are becoming a force to be reckoned with. The question is, will his notoriety follow suit? Out of Highway is Neal’s third release for Austin-based Chicken Ranch Records, the small indie known more for its garagey rock bands (including releases from Atlanta’s Tiger! Tiger! and the Woggles). That may seem like an odd fit, but it’s at least more sensible than Neal’s original home on Headhunter. The San Diego-based division of Cargo Music released Neal’s first two albums – a self-titled debut in 2000 and Unknown in 2002 – but was known more for high-octane punk fare from Deadbolt, Drive Like Jehu, Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver and Atlanta’s X-Impossibles. During that time, Neal met Chicken Ranch owner Michael Dickenson while both were based in Nashville, and soon Dickenson was not only managing Neal’s career but releasing his music. Neal’s Chicken Ranch debut, the concert set Live From Somewhere Unknown came out in 2004, followed in 2006 by Lonesome. Neal is currently attempting to secure the rights to release those two Headhunter albums through Chicken Ranch, also. While he still keeps a Nashville phone number, Willie’s been based in Atlanta (specifically the Smyrna/Marietta area) for several years. It’s familiar territory – he spent time here in the mid ’90s playing in a rockabilly act called Big Red Rocket, and as anyone who’s read the slightest biographical info about Neal already knows, he was born in the area in 1971, his mom giving birth to him in the back seat of a county police car in the middle of a snowstorm. It’s no exaggeration, he assures me: “It was Woodstock, Georgia, which in 1971 was a pretty damn rural area. It was January 27th, and my dad said it was the worst storm he’d seen in twenty years. He ran off the road, and a cop came along to assist, ’cause my dad was speeding, of course. And he’s like, ‘My wife’s pregnant, she’s going into labor!’ so the cop stayed in the back with my mother, and my dad drove the patrol car to the hospital. It was like something on Hee-Haw, right? I was supposedly born in the parking lot of the hospital. My dad still bitches to this day about having to pay a doctor’s fee. He’s like, ‘There wasn’t a doctor anywhere around – it was me, a police officer and some nurses!’” |
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