Fred Neil

Frederick "Fred" Neil (March 16, 1936-July 7, 2001)was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, Neil was exposed to music at an early age, travelling around the US with his father, who was a representative for Wurlitzer jukeboxes. Neil was one of the singer-songwriters who worked out of New York City's Brill Building, a center for music industry offices. While composing at the Brill Building for other artists, Neil also recorded six mostly rockabilly-pop singles for different labels as a solo artist. He wrote songs that were taken by early rock and roll artists such as Buddy Holly ("Come Back Baby" 1958) and Roy Orbison ("Candy Man" 1961).

Neil met Vince Martin in 1961, and they formed a singing partnership; his first LP, Tear Down The Walls (1965) was recorded with Martin. During 1965 and 1966 Neil was joined on many live sets by the Seventh Sons, a trio led by Buzzy Linhart on guitar and vibes. Neil released Bleecker & MacDougal on Elektra Records in 1965, reissued in 1970 as A Little Bit of Rain. His album Fred Neil, released in 1967, relaunched in 1969 as Everybody's Talkin', was recorded during his residencies in Greenwich Village and Coconut Grove, Florida, with one session taking place in Los Angeles.

After "Everybody's Talkin'", Neil's best-known song is "The Dolphins", which was later recorded by several artists, including Linda Ronstadt, It's a Beautiful Day, Billy Bragg and Tim Buckley, for whom Neil was a major influence.

Interested in dolphins since the mid-1960s, when he began visiting the Miami Seaquarium, Neil and Ric O'Barry founded the Dolphin Research Project in 1970, an organization dedicated to stopping the capture, trafficking and exploitation of dolphins worldwide. Increasingly involved in that pursuit, Neil progressively disappeared from the recording studio and live performance, with only occasional performances in the rest of the 1970s.