Interview with a Pro – Kenny Neal – Booga Music
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Making a Scene Presents an “Interview with a Pro”
Kenny Neal
Booga Music
Acclaimed American Bluesman Kenny Neal is launching his new label, BOOGA MUSIC, in partnership with the VizzTone label group and Brat Girl media label management. Booga Music’s flagship release is Brody Buster’s One Man Band/Damn! I Spilled the Blues, released through Redeye Worldwide distribution on October 18, 2019. The music for Booga Music is produced by Kenny Neal in his Baton Rouge, Louisiana based Brookstown Recording Studios, and will feature artists from the musically rich area, as well as select artists from far and wide. Other upcoming releases will include a new Kenny Neal album.
Listen to the interview and discover the passion Kenny has for his new endeavor and why he felt it was important to start a record label in this new environment in the music industry.
Brookstown Recording Studio uses Baton Rouge based company Presonus for their Recording hardware and their Studio One Recording Software
About Kenny Neal
If you want to experience the “Real Deal”, take time out to find Kenny Neal. One of the strongest modern proponents of Baton Rouge swamp blues, Kenny Neal is a second-generation southern Louisiana bluesman who is cognizant of the region’s venerable blues tradition and imaginative enough to steer it in fresh directions. Neal was born on October 14, 1957 in New Orleans. His dad, harpist Raful Neal, was a Baton Rouge blues mainstay whose pals included Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo (the latter gave three-year-old Kenny his first harmonica).
At age 13, Neal was playing in his father’s band, and at 17, landed a job playing bass for Buddy Guy. The guitarist recruited some of his talented siblings to form the Neal Brothers Blues Band up in Toronto (brother Noel later played bass behind James Cotton; five other Neal brothers also play in various bands) before returning stateside. In 1987, Kenny Neal cut his debut LP for Florida producer Bob Greenlee, an updated swamp feast initially released by Kingsnake Records as Bio on the Bayou. The following year, Alligator Records signed Neal and reissued the debut under the title Big News from Baton Rouge!! Young Neal was on his way. Neal’s sizzling guitar work, sturdy harp, and gravelly, aged-beyond-his-years vocals served him well, and he cut four albums for Alligator Records between 1989 and 1994. An acclaimed 1991 stint on Broadway in a production of Mule Bone found him performing acoustic versions of Langston Hughes’ poetry set to music by Taj Mahal.
In 1998, Neal moved from Alligator to the blues division of the jazz-based Telarc Records, releasing three albums for the label: Blues Fallin’ Down Like Rain (1998), What You Got (2000), and One Step Closer (2001). In the new millennium, Neal recorded sets for a variety of independent labels, including Easy Meeting (a 2003 collaboration with Billy Branch), Double Take (2004, a one-shot return to Alligator), and A Tribute to Slim Harpo and Raful Neal (released in 2005 for True Life Entertainment). Three years later, Neal hooked up with Blind Pig Records and released Let Life Flow in 2008, once again incorporating his gritty Louisiana roots with a sophisticated Chicago/Memphis soul approach. A second Blind Pig release, Hooked on Your Love, appeared two years later in 2010.
