Search - Willie Heath Neal :: Out of Highway

In the era when "outlaws" like Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, and Waylon Jennings ruled the radio, another little outlaw was born in the back of a cop car somewhere in Gwinnett County Georgia. It took him many years and many roads (including stays in foster homes, a stint in the Navy, and a run with a punk band) but eventually Willie Heath Neal returned to his roots and began bashing out the kind of outlaw country that used to be so famous but now is in short supply. Back then "outlaw" was more than a marketing ploy--it was a way of life, with an authenticity that couldn't be bought by a washed-up rocker trying on a pair of borrowed boots for one last grasp at fame or a suburban songsmith desperately hoping that he could make his songs more "Americana." Neal remembers that time, and delivers his trashed-up take on honky tonk with that same sense of honesty on his latest Chicken Ranch release Out of Highway. Just take the lyrics to the lonesome road dirge of the title track: "I'm a little bit older now, a little rundown/Lord, I'm livin' for the people waitn' for me in the next town." Neal's not imagining life on the road, he's living it, haulin' his songs up and down the Redneck Riviera and wherever else there's a stage, a mic, and a bar tab. With the help of producer and Legendary Shack Shaker bassist Mark Robertson, Neal has cranked out an album that delivers everything from hard luck ballads and honky tonk hell-raisers to clever covers (who else cuts tunes by both the Misfits and Convoy author C. W. McCall?) and pointed critiques of the current climate in country music (check out the jabs at the Nashville sausage mill on "Something's Wrong with the Radio"). Neal has long been popular with his peers, such as likeminded touring partners from the past à la Wayne Hancock, the Rev. Horton Heat, and J.D. Wilkes of Th' Legendary Shack Shakers (who makes an appearance on the record). Hank Williams III even cut (but has not yet released) one of Neal's tunes. Now it's time for fans to take note: with Out of Highway Neal has made the album of his life, and one that should make the original "outlaws" proud to call him one of their own.