Something for the weekend: Neal Casal “Someone Else’s Shoes”

Well that’s it from us for another week dear reader and we leave you with the second single to be released from the forthcoming Neal Casal archival album “No One Above You (The Early Years 1991–1998)”. The release of the song ‘Someone Else’s Shoes’ is accompanied by a lyric video illustrated by Casal’s friend, fellow musician and filmmaker Deren Ney. More than just a collection of raw, unfinished work, the album’s producers, longtime manager Gary Waldman, Cardinals’ bandmate Jon Graboff and Grammy Award-winning engineer Jim Scott, added a handful of subtle musical additions to the original recordings, with performances by John Ginty, Dan Fadel, Angie McKenna, Jeff Hill, Graboff and more. For ‘Someone Else’s Shoes’, Alex Koford was called upon to add drums and percussion to the original tracks.

Waldman explains: “‘Someone Else’s Shoes’ is a song Neal wrote and recorded in the spring of 1992. I think it’s part autobiographical and part about a certain friend of his. I’ve always loved this tune and the beautiful melody and vocal harmonies with Angie McKenna, plus Neal’s layering of multiple guitar parts. At that point Neal was writing so many songs that this one just got left behind and overtaken by other songs he was more excited about, so it never appeared on any of his records. I’d always wanted to hear what it would sound like with drums on it, so a couple of years ago when we started planning this release, I called up Alex Koford and asked him if he could add a drum part. Alex had played drums at various gigs with Neal at Terrapin Crossroads and Neal loved his feel. He went in and played over the song maybe one or two times and it was done and the song just came to life. He even pitched in an additional vocal harmony in a few spots. I think Neal would have loved the way it turned out.”

Take care everyone, don’t forget Palestine and keep fighting the fascists. We are heading down to London tomorrow to try and avoid being arrested by the Met on a “2 out of 10” suspicion of supporting a proscribed group, wish us luck.  See you on Monday.