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Neal, born in New Orleans and raised in Baton Rouge, began playing
music at a very young age, learning the basics from his father,
singer and blues harmonica player, Raful Neal. Family friends like
Lazy Lester, Buddy Guy and Slim Harpo also contributed to Kenny’s
early musical education. In fact, it was Harpo who gave the crying
three-year-old a harmonica to pacify him. Kenny stopped crying that
day, and eventually learned to play the harmonica. Along the way,
he also mastered the bass, trumpet, piano and guitar. At 13, he
joined his father’s band and began paying his musical dues.
Four years later, he was recruited and toured extensively as Buddy
Guy’s bass player. Signing with Alligator Records in 1988, Kenny began releasing a
series of consistently lauded albums featuring his laid-back, Baton
Rouge blues, with a modern spin on the Louisiana sound he grew up
with. Throughout this period, Kenny distinguished himself as one
of the brightest prospects of the contemporary blues scene, receiving
great critical acclaim in the process. The Chicago Tribune pegged
Kenny as “one of a mere handful of truly inventive young contemporary
guitarists, Neal has something fresh to say and the chops with which
to say it,” while AllMusic said his “gruff-before-their-time
vocals retain their swamp sensibility, while assuming a bright contemporary
feel that tabs him as a leading contender for future blues stardom.”
Blues Revue agreed, calling Kenny "one of the brightest young
stars on the blues horizon, and a gifted artist." |
In 1991, Kenny branched out into the world of acting when he starred
as the lead in the much-acclaimed musical, Mule Bone, a lost play
written by the famed African-American poet Langston Hughes and folklorist
Zora Neale Hurston in 1930. Featuring music written by Taj Mahal,
Kenny’s performances garnered a prestigious Theater World Award
for “The Most Outstanding New Talent On and Off Broadway,”
and he concurrently set two Hughes poems to music on the album Walking
With Fire. |