| Willie Heath Neal (June.09 issue) |
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| Written by Jeff Clark | |
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Page 3 of 3 At the time, his mother was 25 and his dad only 17 – and Willie was already the fourth of six kids! Suffice to say, their marriage did not survive much longer, and Neal and his siblings were shuffled off to foster homes around the area. “Neither one of my parents were the best parents in the world,” he tells me, adding that his mother passed away ten years ago. “My mom had her problems. You know what I mean? I loved her. But she always wanted to do what I’m doing now. She was always trying to make it as a country singer… She never really talked a whole lot about it. And my mother had bad taste in men. I know whenever she was in between relationships, and boyfriends and husbands and whatever – she was married a lot! – that’s when [her music] would really pick back up. But she’d get involved with some guy who’d just get jealous about her being on stage or something, and, you know… She was a very insecure woman. She needed a man in her life more than she needed children or music. Music was something she turned to when everything else went to shit.” For his part, Willie is consciously trying to be more involved in his own daughter’s upbringing. Now 12, she was born during Neal’s marriage in the 1990s to a woman who now lives with young Madelyn just over the border in Alabama. “I keep [my daughter] involved in what I’m doing, send her postcards from where I go, and she gets all the cool stuff like backstage passes. She’s a little punk rock chick, so it’s great. It’s so funny, she left her iPod at my house once, and I was diggin’ through it, and there was a lot of crap on there like Jonas Brothers, but she’s 12 – you’re gonna expect that. But there was also, on her own will, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. It’s a great thing. On my second album there’s a song called ‘Madelyn’s Song” that I wrote for her, and that’s definitely on there, too.” While his touring days are far from over, in many respects, Neal sounds content to keep Atlanta as his home. So, after five-odd years, why does his Myspace site still list him as Nashville-based, not to mention that Music City area code for his cell? “Man, you know what it is – on the road, it sucks. Nashville did really nothing for me, except hone my craft, and I did meet Michael in Nashville, but when you’re out playing other markets, and it says ‘From Nashville: Willie Heath Neal,’ in your subconscious mind it makes you go, ‘Oh, it must be good, he’s from Nashville.’ When that’s the complete opposite! You know, chances are it’s gonna suck if it’s coming out of Nashville today! The most common thing we hear is, ‘Man, I hate country music, but I love you guys.’ Because they just know what they hear when they turn on the radio. They don’t know about this whole little subculture of all this kickass stuff, like Wayne [Hancock], and Dale Watson. They don’t even know it’s out there.” Willie Heath Neal photo by Joshua Black Wilkins |
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