The Neals expanding family tradition

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music writer
• Published: Oct 23, 2009

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Members of Baton Rouge’s Neal family have been playing the blues together on stages all over the world for decades. Kenny Neal tours internationally with his band of talented brothers. Whenever possible, he invites other Neals, including his daughter, Syreeta, to the stage, too.

Neal’s late father, Raful, started the tradition. A singing, harmonica-playing blues patriarch who filled his house with instruments in hopes that his 10 children would follow his lead, the elder Neal also was among his oldest son Kenny’s special guests and vice versa. 

Neal family performances were always spontaneous gatherings, but, as of last year, Kenny Neal made the clan an official concert attraction. In 2009, the family’s blues revue appeared at the Lead Belly Blues Festival in Shreveport and North Atlantic Blues Festival in Rockland, Maine. Upcoming gigs include January’s Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise.

“It’s about a two-hour show,” Neal said last week from Los Angeles. “And it’s starting to take off. I’m getting offers from across the country to do the Neal family thing.”

“It’s time for us to start doing more things,” Neal’s bass-playing brother, Darnell, said. “It’s fixing to work out for us.”

Response to the Neal family performances, which will be featured throughout Saturday at the Greater Baton Rouge State Fair, is also generating more attention for Baton Rouge and its blues community.

“I’m so proud because it’s something that my dad started,” Neal said. “I don’t take full responsibility for this, because he did it by keeping the family together and having us come to the festivals and play. Which was a great idea and a great thing for Baton Rouge. And now I’m in a position where I can take it not just to the U.S., but abroad as well.”

Even as his latest CD, Let Life Flow, gathers multiple awards and is a strong contender for Grammy nominations, Neal loves to share the spotlight.

“I’m passing something on that’s special,” he explained. “I don’t have time to stay in this limelight saying, ‘Hey, I’m Kenny Neal.’ When I leave here I want people to say, ‘Kenny did a lot and he left a lot behind for the others, too.’

“And that’s the way I look at it. It’s giving everybody a chance. I found out that if you pull together as a team you can get much more accomplished.”

Neal’s nephew, Tyree — just one example of the younger Neal generation that includes Raful and Shirley Neal’s 52 grandchildren and 34 great grandchildren — recently became a fulltime member of his uncle’s band.

“My audience is so amazed when Tyree performs the blues like he does,” Neal said. “A bunch of kids out here just learn to play some Stevie Ray Vaughan licks, but when you see Tyree, you know he’s the real thing. He’s got something that’s so natural.”

“I’m doing blues and R&B with a different flavor,” Tyree said. “Me, coming at it so young, I can get the blues across to the younger generation.”