VARiOUS ARTiSTS - HiGHWAY BUTTERFLY: the SONGS of NEAL CASAL

ROUTES & BRANCHES

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

November 6, 2021

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

Despite my best efforts, Neal Casal wasn't a household name when he took his own life at the age of 50 in August 2019. Reaction to his passing spread like wildfire, however, across the social media accounts of artists who would fall into that category. Notables with whom the songwriter and guitarist had played over his busy career shared their grief in the wake of the loss of their cohort, collaborator and friend. Here was a man who had played alongside Chris Robinson, Ryan Adams, Todd Snider, GospelbeacH, Beachwood Sparks and many more. 

These days Neal Casal's dozen solo albums and many more band projects are not hard to track down and stream- try the compilation Leaving Traces: Songs 1994-2004 for an excellent survey. His easy-riding roots songs speak of time and distance, with the songwriter's light touch adding an air of wistfulness to the folk- or country-rock arrangements. Even working within a jam band setting as he did with some of his later projects like Circles Around the Sun, Casal exercised taste and restraint to his playing. 

For a wider ranging appreciation, the Neal Casal Music Foundation will be making available a terrific 5-LP or 3-CD box set called Highway Butterfly: the Songs of Neal Casal. This essential compilation offers more than 40 of Casal's songs played by dozens of friends, bandmates and admirers. Produced by Dave Schools and Jim Scott, the sessions feature a dream house band including Jon Graboff and Jesse Aycock (guitar), Adam McDougall (organ), Don Heffington (drums) and more. 

Like Neal Casal's own music, a wide embrace of musical style is represented here. Billy Strings is joined by Circles Around the Sun on "All the Luck in the World" (originally from Casal's 1996 Rain Wind and Speed album). Adam McDougall's cascading piano is beautifully downcast: You tried to do the best you could / It wasn't quite enough / But what else can you do. Where Casal's original opted for a fuller sound, Susan Tedeschi is backed by nothing more than husband Derek Trucks' acoustic guitar on the exquisitely simple "Day In the Sun". Cass McCombs (who served alongside Casal in Skiffle Players) generates an extended psychedelic groove on "You'll Miss It When It's Gone". For every breezy moment of California country-rock, there is a jammy fusion or an introspective acoustic singer-songwriter track. 

Casal rarely gave lead to any country tendencies, but chose instead to use them as a shade beneath some of his songs. Highway Butterfly features a handful of excellent artists who tease out that country influence, including some especially satisfying offerings from Zephaniah Ohora backed by a couple remaining members of Hazeldine, Dori Freeman and Teddy Thompson, and a worthy take on "Maybe California" from Shooter Jennings. A perfectly weathered Steve Earle growls Oh, our brother's gone away on his run through the title cut, one of Casal's finest songs. Perhaps best of all, Jaime Wyatt retains the loose groove of "Need Shelter" from its original airing on 2012's Sweeten the Distance. 

Roots and rock fans in England actually embraced Neal Casal's music more readily than their counterparts on our side of the pond. The collection reminds us here and there of the strain of British folk and pop that could be heard in songs like "You Don't See Me Crying", delivered here by his former cohorts in Beachwood Sparks and GospelbeacH. Listeners will hear the influence as well on Aaron Lee Tasjan's chiming jangle through "Traveling After Dark", adding extra fuel to Casal's 2006 original. 

Spread liberally across this treasury are reminders of Neal Casal's undeniable gifts as a songwriter. From 2012's "Feathers For Bakersfield", given a mournful acoustic music box treatment here by Eric D Johnson of Fruit Bats: She sings the same song every night / Her dark and empty stretch of Highway 99 / Her heart's been broken by the sun / And when she needs some rain / It never comes.  Elsewhere, Jonathan Rice delivers the should-be classic "Me & Queen Sylvia", setting the spartan stage with a band of black trees / A brown cross on a white wall. Casal shared Townes Van Zandt's tendency toward melancholy, and even hinted at the circumstances of his own passing: When all you got is your suitcase full of pain. His friend and collaborator Kenny Roby adds horns and Amy Helm to "Too Much To Ask", which philosophizes Sometimes just being alive is enough. 

At five LPs or 3 CDs, Highway Butterfly cannot be fully appreciated in a short review. There is a rich vein of soul in Marcus King's "No One Above You", and a stirring gospel redemption in "Soul Gets Lost", covered by his Hazy Malaze bandmates with a revelatory vocal from Jena Kraus and salvific pedal steel from Marcus Randolph. 

Tribute compilations aren't uncommon, though genuinely successful ones can be real treasures - see Por Vida, the Alejandro Escovedo tribute, or the Guy Clark celebration, This One's For Him for a couple great examples. Like Highway Butterfly, both of these packages serve to spotlight the masterful artistry of the subject, while adding another layer of excellence in the generous array of contributors. But where the Clark and Escovedo projects remind us of favorite songs often as familiar as a comfortable jacket, the Neal Casal tribute should serve to escort listeners into a rich new body of work from an essential songwriter that we just might be getting to know for the first time. It's an important addition to our small but treasured shelf of essential compilations. 

Puss 'n' Boots contribute a suitably loving benediction on their refreshingly loose run through "These Days With You": Long may you run / May your song be sung / And may you never go before your time has come. 

amen and amen