Neal Francis

Neal Francis was just ramping up on the road to promote his critically acclaimed debut album Changes when 2020 pulled the brakes. In a year that would have found the funky, New Orleans-inspired keyboardist/singer-songwriter on stage in Europe and Japan, he instead holed up in his beloved hometown of Chicago, taking the opportunity to teach himself reel-to-reel to recording while completing his yet-to-be-released sophomore album on Otari 8-track. A lover of analog and retro, Francis takes us back in time to his childhood music roots, where he was messing around on the piano by age 2 and soon devouring his father’s eclectic record collection and wearing out a compilation cassette of soul music. He reveals the film that gave him the rock ’n’ roll bug at age 7, the cover you least expect him to play today and his optimistic approach to life’s many curveballs.