Fact #144513
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Arthur Gorson (manager/activist) : Freddie Neil was a junkie, unfortunately, but still those Freddie Neil records were incredible.
John Sebastian (singer-songwriter, Lovin' Spoonful) : Fred was an interesting cross. He went around the South with his father, who was stuffing jukeboxes. I think Fred was essentially a pop songwriter. Remember, he had Number 1 songs.
Paul Rothchild (producer, Elektra Records) : He was on Elektra. For my sins I had to produce him. He was a brilliant songwriter and a total scumbag. The forerunner of the unreliable performer, the original rock flake.
Jac Holzman (founder of Elektra Records) : He was not nice, verging on nasty.
(Source : interview with Richard Williams in The Guardian, 24 November 2006)
Paul Rothchild : We'd book recording sessions and he'd show up or not show up. I mean, here's a guy who wrote Candy Man, which Roy Orbison had a hit with, and the day he finished writing it he went to the Brill Building and sold it to about twenty different publishers for fifty bucks each. This is not a nice man. Here's a guy who would go to Izzy Young and say, "Izzy, I've got a gig tonight and I don't have a guitar." Izzy would say, "Freddie, you owe me for about twenty guitars, but I love you, here's another twelve-string." And Freddie would go to the club fucked up, he was always fucked up - I've watched this on about ten occasions - couldn't get the guitar in tune, pick it up and smash it to smithereens on the stage. A guitar he didn't own.
Izzy Young : I beg to differ with Mr Rothchild. What he describes never happened. Not that I wouldn't have loaned Fred a guitar - I certainly would have, and may have done so on one or two occasions. But I definitely would remember the scenario Paul describes. If it happened, which it didn't.
Jim Marshall (photographer) : I remember this one time at the Night Owl, the club that had a backyard with a tree in it. It was the same place I took the picture that became the cover of the Fred Neil album. Anyway, he was having trouble with his 12-string, couldn't keep the damn thing in tune. I'm not a guitar player, but I'm told 12-strings are a bitch to keep tuned. So he walked off the stage and went into the back. Then there was this loud crash. He'd smashed it to pieces against the tree. He came back and said, 'I just fixed the fuckin' thing.'
Barry McGuire (protest singer) : Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.
I was very laced with drugs myself, but Fred seemed to be even more so than me. That might have had something to do with it. That might have had something to do with nobody wanting to play my records, too, I don't know.
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John Sebastian (singer-songwriter, Lovin' Spoonful) : Fred was an interesting cross. He went around the South with his father, who was stuffing jukeboxes. I think Fred was essentially a pop songwriter. Remember, he had Number 1 songs.
Paul Rothchild (producer, Elektra Records) : He was on Elektra. For my sins I had to produce him. He was a brilliant songwriter and a total scumbag. The forerunner of the unreliable performer, the original rock flake.
Jac Holzman (founder of Elektra Records) : He was not nice, verging on nasty.
(Source : interview with Richard Williams in The Guardian, 24 November 2006)
Paul Rothchild : We'd book recording sessions and he'd show up or not show up. I mean, here's a guy who wrote Candy Man, which Roy Orbison had a hit with, and the day he finished writing it he went to the Brill Building and sold it to about twenty different publishers for fifty bucks each. This is not a nice man. Here's a guy who would go to Izzy Young and say, "Izzy, I've got a gig tonight and I don't have a guitar." Izzy would say, "Freddie, you owe me for about twenty guitars, but I love you, here's another twelve-string." And Freddie would go to the club fucked up, he was always fucked up - I've watched this on about ten occasions - couldn't get the guitar in tune, pick it up and smash it to smithereens on the stage. A guitar he didn't own.
Izzy Young : I beg to differ with Mr Rothchild. What he describes never happened. Not that I wouldn't have loaned Fred a guitar - I certainly would have, and may have done so on one or two occasions. But I definitely would remember the scenario Paul describes. If it happened, which it didn't.
Jim Marshall (photographer) : I remember this one time at the Night Owl, the club that had a backyard with a tree in it. It was the same place I took the picture that became the cover of the Fred Neil album. Anyway, he was having trouble with his 12-string, couldn't keep the damn thing in tune. I'm not a guitar player, but I'm told 12-strings are a bitch to keep tuned. So he walked off the stage and went into the back. Then there was this loud crash. He'd smashed it to pieces against the tree. He came back and said, 'I just fixed the fuckin' thing.'
Barry McGuire (protest singer) : Fred Neil would come up when he was in L.A., we all used to hang out. He would sit there and sing, and we would just melt. I mean, we would go to his recording sessions.
I was very laced with drugs myself, but Fred seemed to be even more so than me. That might have had something to do with it. That might have had something to do with nobody wanting to play my records, too, I don't know.