It was some shock to hear the sad news today from USA that Neal Casal has died at the relatively young age of 50 years old. He was a lovely man & an astonishing guitarist. We first booked Neal in the late 90’s when he was pushing his singer songwriter thing & he did a few gigs at Live Theatre ( one really memorable gig with Kenny Roby). He then brought his southern californian band to play the Fish Quay Festival… & they absolutely rocked the joint, last time our stage was actually there (2000 ?) . His guitar sligging skills were used in the years that followed with artist’s like Willie Nelson, Ryan Adams & Shooter Jennings. He was major league. However a phone call from a decent agent gave us the chance to see Neal play solo again & we last booked him in Cluny2 in 2011. After playing for 2 hours solid he said to me , “Do you think the audience got there moneys worth Graham ” I said Neal, you’ll have to cut it down to 80 mins & an encore !!!” He was so unassuming & such a soulful guy. He’ll be missed by everyone he touched. RIP Neal.
