Neale Eckstein has been chasing music his entire life. He started playing guitar in the early 60s, never dreaming he'd one day be friends with the likes of Noel Paul Stookey and Tom Rush. By the time Neale was in high school, he had formed a cover band that played weekends around Fayetteville, North Carolina, and the band kept playing together through college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Neale gave up rock 'n' roll to become a pediatric dentist, but he never lost his love for the singer-songwriter music of the 70s. That passion never faded, and over the decades it led him deep into the folk music community as a performer, host, and champion of the craft.

He and his wife Laurie hosted house concerts for over 20 years, opening their home to touring singer-songwriters and building a devoted local audience for the kind of music Neale had loved since he was a teenager. Behind the scenes, Neale produced dozens of albums in his Fox Run Studio, lending his ear and his gear to artists including Greg Greenway, Eric Schwartz, and Buskin & Batteau. For years, he was better known as the guy behind the board and behind the front door than as a performer in his own right, quietly helping other people's songs find their finished form while his own stayed in a notebook.

That changed in 2024, when at age 75, Neale released his first full-length solo album of original songs, "Never Too Late," a fitting title for a lifelong musician finally stepping into the spotlight. As a member of Fox Run Five, alongside bandmates Tom Prasada-Rao, Matt Nakoa, Eric Schwartz, and Jagoda, he released a 24-song double album, "Holding Out Hope," in 2025. In May 2026, he followed up with another solo album, "Build Our Dreams," proof that for Neale, the music was always worth the wait, and that a life spent listening, producing, and hosting for others was really just the long runway to his own second act as a songwriter.