Neal Francis' Keyboard Rig
Thank you to Neal for taking the time to walk through his rig before his show at The Velvet Underground in Toronto on January 28, 2023!
On his new album In Plain Sight, Neal Francis offers up a body of work both strangely enchanted and painfully self-aware, unfolding in songs sparked from Greek myths and frenzied dreams and late-night drives in the depths of summer delirium. True to its charmed complexity, the singer/songwriter/pianist’s second full-length came to life over the course of a tumultuous year spent living in a possibly haunted church in Chicago. The result: a portrait of profound upheaval and weary resilience, presented in a kaleidoscopic sound that’s endlessly absorbing.
The follow-up to Francis’s 2019 debut Changes—a New Orleans-R&B-leaning effort that landed on best-of-the-year lists from the likes of KCRW, KEXP, and The Current, and saw him hailed as “the reincarnation of Allen Toussaint” by BBC Radio 6—In Plain Sight was written and recorded almost entirely at the church, a now-defunct congregation called St. Peter’s UCC. Despite not identifying as religious, Francis took a music-ministry job at the church in 2017 at the suggestion of a friend. After breaking up with his longtime girlfriend while on tour in fall 2019, he returned to his hometown and found himself with no place to stay, then headed to St. Peter’s and asked to move into the parsonage. “I thought I’d only stay a few months but it turned into over a year, and I knew I had to do something to take advantage of this miraculous gift of a situation,” he says.
Neal’s Gear
Hohner Clavinet D6 with whammy bar mod by Ken Rich Sound Services and Chicago Electric Piano Company. The clavinet is run through a Fender Vibrolux Reverb amp.
Clavinet Effects: EHX Hum Debugger, Crybaby Wah, MXR Uni-Vibe, Orange Phaser
1963 Hammond A-100 organ (kudos to M&S Organ Parts) with Leslie 145 rotating speaker
Yamaha CP-70 electric piano, Korg MS-10 synthesizer
The CP-70 is run through an MXR Phase 90 and a Maxon AD9Pro Analog Delay