Neal & Leandra - Stranger To My Kin

Size: 96,7 MB
Time: 41:17
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1998
Styles: Folk
Art: Front & Back

01. Penny On The Tracks (4:22)
02. Ready For Memphis (4:57)
03. Rich (4:05)
04. First Best Friend (3:39)
05. Cry (4:30)
06. Firefly (3:45)
07. Wish I'd Never Gone Away (3:06)
08. Less Of You (4:00)
09. Take Me Down To The Water (5:14)
10. Roll Away The Stone (3:35)

Neal Hagberg sounds a little like fellow singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, of "Walking in Memphis" fame. In fact, the resemblance is impossible to ignore when Hagberg begins to sing one of his own reflective ballads, "Ready for Memphis." Yet by the time he finishes the first verse, Hagberg has rendered the comparison moot. The ballad, which concerns Martin Luther King Jr.'s fateful visit to Memphis in 1968 and how it inspired a young white man to travel 10 hours to greet him, swiftly casts its own spell, fueled by a potent mixture of anticipation and foreboding.

While not all of the tunes on "Stranger to My Kin" have such an intriguing narrative structure, leaving listeners to fill in the blanks, as songwriters and storytellers, Hagberg and Leandra Peak clearly have mastered the art of saying more with less. And they do with complementary voices and affecting harmonies. As low-key as it is, their ballad "Less of You" is deceptively powerful, a searing reminder that cruelty is a double-edged sword, while both "Take Me Down to the Water" and "Roll Away the Stone" address themes of spiritual solace and redemption in such a personal way that both songs ultimately turn into haunting refrains.

By contrast, the Washington-based folk duo Lynn Hollyfield and Nina Spruill tend to see the world as a more agreeable place on "Blue and Green," in which they marvel in the joys and mysteries of motherhood ("Keely's Song"), friendship ("For All You Bring") and caffeine ("Java Jive"). Even the album's closing blues, "Watching the Sky," has a happy ending. The pair's sometimes sparkling, sometimes sensuous harmonies are always appealing, and several local musicians colorfully enhance the mostly guitar-driven arrangements. ~By Mike Joyce

Stranger To My Kin

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Neal & Leandra - Old Love

Size: 100,3 MB
Time: 33:59
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 1992
Styles: Folk
Art: Front

01. A Gambler's Life (3:40)
02. Standing In The Quicksand (2:46)
03. It'll Still Be You (3:22)
04. Self-Made Man (2:21)
05. Old Love (4:21)
06. Another Dead End Romance (2:21)
07. Hopelessly Square (3:29)
08. The Way We've Killed Our Love (4:26)
09. This Garden Will Grow (3:27)
10. Sweet Memories (3:42)

Folk duo Neal & Leandra -- singer/songwriters Neal Hagberg and Leandra Peak -- formed after the two met while attending Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota in 1981. Hagberg, from Montevideo, MN, was a premed biology major (he later switched disciplines and got a masters degree in theology); Peak was pursuing a masters degree in Spanish, but having grown up in a musical family in Louisville, KY, with a father who was a professional singer, she was appearing in a campus production of the musical Godspell when Hagberg went backstage to meet her and invited her to perform with him. Both had been inspired to sing folk music through a connection to Bill Staines, Hagberg by hearing a Staines recording, Peak by hearing Kate Wolf over the PA while attending a Staines concert.

Hagberg and Peak turned professional after finishing their studies, founding their own label, Uncle Gus Music, in 1987 and self-releasing their debut album, Rocky Road, in 1988. The following year, they married. Two more self-released efforts, Summer Evening (1990) and Old Love (1992), appeared before they signed to the Minnesota-based independent folk label Red House Records for their fourth album, Hearts & Hammers, issued in January 1994. This began to spread their renown beyond their Upper Midwest base. Red House reissued Old Love in 1995, and in March 1996 came the duo's fifth album, Accidental Dreams. Stranger to My Kin, issued in October 1998, marked the end of their association with Red House. Returning to their own label, they released the holiday collection Listen to the Angels (1999); Bridge Rail (2002), a concept album about a long-term committed relationship; and A Dreamer's Holiday: A Tribute to Perry Como (2003).

Old Love

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Neal & Leandra - A Hundred Years From Now

Size: 99,2 MB
Time: 40:25
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2012
Styles: Folk Pop
Art: Front

01. A Hundred Years From Now (2:59)
02. Hello, Goodbye (3:32)
03. Star Girls (5:03)
04. Nothing Left To Lose (3:41)
05. Boss Of God (3:22)
06. One (4:16)
07. It's You (2:32)
08. Learn How To Float (3:09)
09. Serenity (3:23)
10. The Joy That Is You (3:45)
11. I've Been Everywhere (4:38)

25 years ago we started a grand experiment as Neal & Leandra. We have been everywhere in the U.S. in that time, literally and figuratively. We have slept on the couches of strangers and in luxury hotels; played in coffee houses to a handful of disinterested people who did not know - or care - who we were, and in packed auditoriums for fans who knew every word of our songs. Sometimes in the same week. We have been headliners who audiences came to see, and openers who audiences wanted to chase offstage as soon as possible. Sometimes in the same week. We have received awards which we coveted to make us "legitimate" as singer/songwriters and performers; and we have been passed up for those same awards many times, leaving us wondering if we were frauds. We have watched some peers "make it big" - although "make it big" is certainly an oxymoron in folk music - and others, equally talented, never seem to get out of the shadows. We have felt like each of those at different times. We have poured our hearts out on paper and stage. We have been rewarded monetarily to the point where we could make our living for all these years, but mostly we have been rewarded in intangibles. The funny stories that have arisen from years on the road; the letters we have gotten from fans about how our music has had an impact in their daily lives; the unusual gift of working out our own lives in song; and a friendship that has survived intact after all these years.

25 years ago we started this grand experiment. A hundred years from now, all of this angst and striving and laughter and sadness and love and desire and letting go will mean something different. So, we're 25 years older than when we began, and we can see that it really does pass in the blink of an eye. It is strangely comforting to know this, as we head into whatever the next 25 years holds. Thanks for floating with us down this stretch of the river.

A Hundred Years From Now

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