10 Music Artists Who Quit In Their Prime

While hardly a household name, singer-songwriter Fred Neil is something of a legend of New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene. Working in the famous Brill building as a songwriter for the likes of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison. He was also co-host of a regular hootenanny at the Village’s Cafe Wha? and when Bob Dylan first arrived in the city it was Neil he was advised to seek out.

Jefferson Airplane considered Fred Neil a major influence, with both Airplane and The Lovin’ Spoonful paying tribute to him in song. Neil’s own songs, including The Dolphins and other side of life have been covered by the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Tim Buckley and Billy Bragg but he’s probably best known for Harry Nilsson’s take on his song Everybody’s Talkin’.

Nilsson’s hit version of the song won him a Grammy and was prominently featured in the film Midnight Cowboy, earning its writer millions of dollars in royalties. However, by the start of the Seventies the revered folkie had abandoned his lucrative songwriting career.

He continued to perform sporadically but only to raise money for The Dolphin Research Project, an organisation he had Co-founded with the capture, trafficking and exploitation of dolphins worldwide. He was content to step out of the spotlight but his legacy remains as a profound influence on subsequent generations of singer songwriters.