Neal Casal - RAIN, WIND & SPEED (LP)

Facts Neal Casal's second studio album, Rain, Wind And Speed-originally released in 1996-has been reissued via the Neal Casal Music Foundation on three limited edition, color vinyl variants of which 333 LPs of each will be pressed: Blue Rain, Peach Wind and Black Speed, along with previously unpublished photos, lyrics and new liner notes by Casal's longtime champion and former publishing representative Jim Cardillo who details the period in the late singer/songwriter's life when the album was created. A sparse, plaintive and largely acoustic album, Rain, Wind And Speed was written and recorded in the months immediately following Casal being dropped from his recording contract with Zoo Records, the label who'd released his debut effort, Fade Away Diamond Time. As Cardillo explains in the reissue's essay: "At first Neal couldn't comprehend what this all meant. No European Tour? No video? No single to radio? No tour support? All of the label's promises withered and died like bitter fruit left on the vine. It was a disorienting sucker punch that left Neal numb and reeling. Five years of hard work, demos, showcases, phone calls, meetings, no-money gigs, all the results of that labor evaporated."