With his debut album at a mature age, Neale Eckstein proves its title – it’s never too late if you have something good to say.
How many grey-haired singer-songwriters, that are offering their first full release is it possible to encounter these days? Quite a few, actually, but that should not be the key point here – that one is whether that ‘mature’ artist has something to offer to their potential listeners. One such artist is Neale Eckstein who has been around for a while, but is only now releasing his aptly titled debut full length recording ‘Never Too Late.’
As Eckstein explains himself, he was nearly 60 when he decided after producing projects for other artists to devote his time to songwriting and performing his own songs. After an album where other artists performed his songs (he did only one) in 2014 and a brief EP in 2019, Eckstein is only now releasing this album where he writes and sings everything.
It might be the case that it took him time to mature as a songwriter, or maybe that he needed it to gather the courage to go fully on his own, but there is a sense of a fully-formed songwriter who knows how to express his thoughts and emotions through the 14 songs here.
Eckstein seems to have poured all that production experience into his songwriting, as he took cues from a broad range of Americana-connected artists and moulded them into something individual and personal with songs like ‘Gonna Get It Right’ and ‘Masterpiece’ presenting us with a debut from a fully formed artist who knows his way.
The assured but subtle backing he gets (his bandmates from Fox Run Five) adds all the right touches here, rounding up a very good debut effort, with or without Eckstein’s grey hairs.
