Neal Francis

Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Music, Performing Arts, Arts

4.9 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 23 November 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Singer-songwriter Neal Francis joins Rhett from Chicago to talk about his album, In Plain Sight, and why he had to step away from the album once it was finished in order to actualize the music he’d created. Neal tells Rhett about starting out as a sideman and how he learned to accept that a career in music could be possible. The two discuss the powerful combination of mindfulness, meditation, and sobriety; and why songwriting is like architecture. Neal Francis is a singer and songwriter from Oak Park, IL. “From a very early age, I was playing late into the night in a very stream-of-consciousness kind of way,” Neal has said, while citing influences ranging from ragtime to gospel soul to The Who. With a prodigy-like gift for piano, he sat in with a dozen different blues acts in Chicago clubs as a teenager, and formed a widely beloved funk band called The Heard before going solo. His new album, In Plain Sight, is a portrait of profound upheaval and weary resilience, presented in a kaleidoscopic sound that’s endlessly absorbing. Listen to the new album on Spotify or Apple Music. Wheels Off is brought to you by Osiris Media. Hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Co-produced by Kirsten Cluthe in partnership with Nick Ruffini (Revoice Media). Editing by Justin Thomas. Production Assistance by Matt Bavuso. Music by OLD 97’s. Episode artwork by Katherine Boils. Show logo by Tim Skirven. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Please leave us a rating or review on iTunes. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Will Forte, Lydia Loveless, Allison Moorer, Ted Leo, Paul F. Tompkins, Jen Kirkman, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Osiris.
0:03.9	Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.
0:09.1	I'm Rhett Miller.
0:10.8	That's when it got wheels off.
0:14.0	We started up and we ain't gonna starve.
0:17.0	Like you like it or not.
0:19.5	That's when they got wheels off. Neil Francis is so great you I could have not. That's when they got wheels off.
0:23.2	Neil Francis is so great, you guys.
0:28.5	Look, I want you to listen to this episode of Wheels Off right now.
0:34.2	I don't want you to wait.
0:35.8	But if you want to take five and go acquaint yourself
0:41.1	with the music of Neil Francis and then return to this episode, better informed, who am I to
0:49.2	disavowalue of such a great idea? Because his music is lovely. It's so cool. It's such a great idea because his music is lovely.
0:56.0	It's so cool.
0:58.0	It's such a little, well, whatever.
0:59.0	I go on at length in the interview about this too.
1:02.0	I just, I feel like he creates spaces with his music and stuff will come up in the interview that will sort of maybe explain why that's a thing.
1:13.5	Neil joins us from his apartment in Chicago to talk about a life in music,
1:19.5	twists and turns that led him to where he is now,
1:23.0	the tricks that he's figured out to stay alive, to stay present, mindful.
1:29.3	This is a great conversation.
1:32.3	A guy I did not know before our record label, we're both on the same record label, ATO.
	...

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