Born in Wilmington, Delaware, on June 11, 1954, keyboardist and blues harmonica player Johnny Neel formed his first band, The Shapes of Soul, at the age of twelve, and enjoyed local success before turning professional. After releasing his first album, One Hot Night, credited to the Johnny Neel Band, in 1981, he moved to Nashville three years later as a studio musician, accompanying a host of artists including Mickey Gilley, Johnny Paycheck, Keith Whitley, Peter Wolf, Carl Perkins, Suzy Bogguss, Ann Peebles, John Mayall, David Allan Coe and Keith Urban. It was during a session for Gregg Allman that he met The Allman Brothers Band and Dickey Betts. He simultaneously joined the Dickey Betts Band and Southern rock's flagship group, touring with them and contributing to their respective albums Pattern Disruptive (1988) and Seven Turns (1990). In between sessions, in 2000 he formed Blue Floyd, a recreational band whose repertoire consists of covers of Pink Floyd in a blues rock progressive version, a pretext for long jam sessions. For his part, he alternates between solo productions such as Late Night Breakfast (2001), Gun Metal Blue (2004) and Every Kinda' Blues (2012), and short-lived formations such as Johnny Neel & the Last Word (1994), Johnny Neel & the Italian Experience (2004) and Johnny Neel & the Criminal Element (2007-2010). Sessions continue throughout the 2000s, whether for Michael McDonald, Delbert McClintno, Gov't Mule, Robert Gordon, Smoky Greenwell, Fred Mollin or the Italian band W.I.N.D. In 2019, he takes part in a new band, Rattlebone, with ex-Outlaws Chris Anderson. On October 6, 2024, Johnny Neel dies of a heart attack at the age of 70.
