Here’s a little tribute to the art of never throwing anything away, which features a cleaned-up and expanded recording by Neal Casal that has been released as a fundraiser for the Neal Casal Music Foundation. One sunny California afternoon in 2011 Neal and Johnny were working on this song, and as it took shape, Neal told Johnny, “I’m gonna go surfing and then send you a demo.” Two hours later Johnny received the basic track. Just Neal—pure voice and his guitar. And that was where it was left, until a few months ago when Neal’s neighbor and mastering engineer JJ Golden came across the original demo. He cleaned it up, primarily pulling a high pitch amplifier buzz out of the otherwise stunning performance by Neal. Upon hearing JJ’s work, Johnny shared it with Patrick Sansone of Wilco and The Autumn Defense. They recruited Jonathan Wilson to add drums and got Jon Graboff, Neal’s old bandmate in The Cardinals, on pedal steel, to complete the recording.
Johnny Irion elaborated on the new completed recording: “I was fortunate enough to have worked with Neal Casal over the last twenty years, whether he was playing guitar on a Sarah Lee & Johnny record or my last solo album or taking photographs. Neal always seemed to be everywhere, playing the ideal guitar part or setting up the perfect photograph or sharing an amazing song. ‘No Hard Feelings’ is from a moment in time when I think Neal and I were both in super creative spaces. He had just joined the Chris Robinson Brotherhood and the future was wide open. Only a handful of years later, I was there for the ‘paddle out’ after he passed to celebrate his life on the beach he surfed in Ventura. I still cry for my bud. In his memory, we keep going, we honor and we share this moving performance he left behind.”
Neal Casal died by suicide in August 2019, but the release of ‘No Hard Feelings’ during Mental Health Awareness Month continues the work of The Neal Casal Music Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit formed in 2020, to provide instruments and lessons to students in New Jersey and New York state schools where Neal was born and raised, as well as, to make donations to much needed mental health organizations that support musicians in need. In this instance, proceeds will be shared with Sounds of Saving (SoS), a non-profit founded by Nick Greto and Charlie Gross, with the mission to leverage a connection to music as a direct path to greater mental wellbeing and to hopefulness during crisis in order to decrease suicide, especially for underserved communities.
