Five years after Neale’s death, Jacksoul being remembered with new compilation

TORONTO – When Yasmin Neale misses her father, the late Jacksoul songwriter Haydain Neale, she knows where to turn.

“I listened to my dad maybe half an hour after he passed away — like, the minute I got home from the hospital I was listening to my dad immediately,” said the 24-year-old Neale in an interview in Toronto on Monday. “I know for my mom it was harder to listen to him right away. She needed some time obviously. But for me I didn’t want to miss a single detail of his voice. I didn’t want to forget anything.

“For me, it’s been therapeutic listening to his music. There’s been times when I’m really sad and I miss him a lot and kind of having a low day, and I’ll just put him on, because it has that feeling of he’s in the room.

“I feel very blessed to have all this music,” added Neale, a fledgling journalist. “Years ago, if someone passes away, you’re lucky if you have a photo, right? I have so many videos and songs.”

Five years after the Hamilton-reared Neale died from lung cancer, his fans have new material and, perhaps for some, a new source of comfort. Tuesday will mark the release of “Greatest Hits,” a 16-track collection that includes three new tunes plucked from Neale’s unreleased archives and polished for inclusion by former bandmate Ron Lopata.

Lopata and Yasmin Neale sat down with The Canadian Press to discuss the collection and the developing legacy of the three-time Juno-winning band.

CP: Sometimes listening to a greatest hits compilation can shift my perspective on an artist. Looking at the songs presented this way, did you reach any new conclusions about Jacksoul or Haydain?

Neale: It kind of just made me realize that I don’t know if there’s any other band over the last decade that has actually done R&B on this scale in Canada, which kind of made me go: “Whoa.” I can’t think of another band that was doing the same sound or even just R&B and soul for that many years that was that successful. I always knew he had a legacy, but that sort of blew me away. To think of how many years it’s been and how the music is still relevant today — every song from “Sleepless” to “Resurrected” to the covers, it all could have came out yesterday.

Lopata: I agree. One thing (I noticed) is the constant evolution and progression. The first album had more of this acid-jazz (sound), which I love. Then you get into “Sleepless,” which had a little more of the R&B-commercial pop crossover kind of thing. Then you get into “Resurrected,” which is more of the old-school Motown sound. It just keeps growing and changing.

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CP: Jacksoul ended just before several Canadian R&B acts really —

Lopata: Broke through. Whether it’s in terms of Drake or the Weeknd, which are R&B/soul/hip hop, whatever, that kind of music has broken out internationally, but during the late 1990s and 2000s I wouldn’t say there were many bands doing it. I think Haydain really wanted to pave that way, create a laneway, not only for himself but for future artists, and now’s the time when there are definitely a lot of artists in that laneway and it’s hit the mainstream.

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CP: Looking at the unfinished material, did you get a sense where Haydain was going creatively?

Lopata: If you look at the “Resurrected” record and that Motown thing, and then internationally you can look at how two years later or three years later, Amy Winehouse gets on the scene and breaks internationally with that kind of sound — he tried to do that two years prior. If you look at this new song “Got to Have It,” which is in that Pharrell-Mark Ronson-Bruno Mars kind of vibe, that was written seven years ago and is only now seeing the light of day. That sound has happened in the last two years.

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CP: Is there anything else you wanted to emphasize about the collection?

Lopata: I hope (people) get a chance to hear his voice again. He wrote great and performed great and everything, but I guess one thing that is ultimate, super cream-of-the-crop about him: his vocals are unparalleled. That guy can sing. No Auto-Tune required.

Neale: That’s one thing I miss — actually listening to him do the stupid vocal warmups in the shower, with my mom and I going: “Again?” But he was really, really hard-working. He was not the type of guy who rolled out of bed and said, “Ah, I guess I have to sing in a few hours.” He worked very, very hard for that voice.

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Answers have been edited and condensed.

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