Neil Carswell was born and raised in Lake James, North Carolina, a mountain lake nestled in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He was blessed to love music, singing and writing songs, since he was a child. He was strongly influenced by the music of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles, Jim Croce, Bob Segar, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Van Zant, Merle Haggard and Don Williams -- real country, real country rock and rock in general.

He loved the Memphis sound from Elvis to Al Green - real Delta Blues. Neil kept coming across the name of record producer, Tom Dowd, while reading the credits off of the many albums he loved, from the Allman Brothers, Derrick and the Dominos, Lynyrd Skynyrd all the way to Rod Stewart and Booker T and the MGs.

Neil Carswell is one of the founding members of the Southern-Rock band called Copperhead. Copperhead, managed by Dirk Peterson, played for a good seven to eight years on the road while Neil was still in high school. Copperhead cut demos and met Derrick Oliver from England who introduced the band to a producer named Eli Ball. Copperhead's entertainment lawyer, Charlie Phillips, worked closely with them during the time they were cutting demos in Memphis. Record industry executive, Eric Cronfield, took interest in the band and introduced them to Fred Davis, Clive Davis' son, which led to Copperhead doing showcases for over fifteen different major record labels in New York. Alec Peters has just joined Mercury/Polygram Records Records when Copperhead was signed to their label. Under direct supervision of Bob Skoro, and Ed Exstein, president of Mercury/Polygram Records Records, Alec Peters worked with Copperhead to find a producer.

Although Neil was torn between David Briggs and Rodney Mills as his choice for a producer, Copperhead's manager, on a whim, decided to call Tom Dowd. Mr. Dowd listened to the demo and accepted the project and was to start pre-production within six to eight weeks. Copperhead drove out to Miami, Florida to meet Tom Dowd and flew in John Hannon (David Briggs' assistant engineer and apprentice) to be their engineer, and form a production team. It wasn't long before Neil realized that he had his work cut out for him, to try to fill the shoes of all the great artists Dowd had worked with - the ones that had inspired Neil as a young man.


Copperhead returned back home to record in Memphis with Dowd and Hannlon. Copperhead's first single, however, was recorded in Rhode Island at Normandy Sound recording studio with producer Phil Green. The cut, "Long Way From Home" was an epic Copperhead song that became the title song for the movie "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man." Their song “Busted” was featured on the soundtrack of Dr. Giggles.

After cutting "Long Way From Home", Copperhead and Dowd traveled to North Carolina for two weeks of pre-production and then returned to Memphis to record at Ardent Studios. Ardent Studios had a reputation for having a bad buzz problem with guitars. The frustration of the buzz problem combined with the east coast/west coast clash of Dowd and Hannlon not getting along put a damper on the project, to say the least. Rodney Mills, in Atlanta, saved the day by stepping in to take over for Hannlon, and work with Tom (the two hadn't worked together since Skynyrd's "Street Survivors" LP). A few new tunes were added, they re-cut some guitars, added more vocals and mixed ... and then Tom Dowd passed away and out of Neil's life.

Neil recalls the last conversation with Tom as being spiritual. Tom told him "keep the faith."
 

"I pray he is in heaven arranging some of those boring hymns and adding some slide guitar, but I bet the time, the click, and the bippem is right on the beat, perfect" -- Neil Carswell