A pop musician, trained in classical and jazz, he began his career by playing gigs in New York City clubs and Catskill Mountain resorts. Starting at age 20, he landed a series of recording deals on Polydor, Columbia and RCA Records. First, as half of the duo, Mancini & Fox, then as a solo artist. Those releases include the charted single, “But I Could Reach the Wisdom of Solomon,” “The Colors are Still There,” “See You on Sunday,” “A Painting,” and the Top 10 Dance Club hit, “In the Jungle.”

In those days, Fox’s “studio” consisted of a 4-track Teac tape recorder in the living room of a Brooklyn apartment. Still, he produced demos good enough to get a Ford commercial. Unfortunately, it was for the Pinto (their gas tanks blew up). Though the car was doomed, his new career took off.

He moved to California, became a partner in Patterson, Walz & Fox, wrote and produced music for hundreds of commercials from Coke to SeaWorld, and promos and logos for all the major networks. He composed the theme for Bryant Gumbel’s Public Eye, and co-wrote and produced themes for Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, and CBS Saturday Morning. With partner Rick Patterson, he composed music for two of the Killer Tomato movies (George Clooney), Happy Hour (Jamie Farr and Rich Little), and A Minor Miracle (John Houston and Pelé).

Neal’s next project took a total left turn. He illustrated a series of children’s books written by his wife, Naomi, based on the multi-ethnic characters they created for the Confetti Company. The popular book-CD series, also scored by Fox and narrated by actor Robert Guillaume, inspired the animated HBO series, Happy Ever After—Fairy Tales for Every Child.

Following that, just for the heck of it, Fox decided to write a full-length musical: Meat Street, a dark comedy exposing abuses in the mental health profession. The score was the first release on his indie label, Wire Duck Records (www.wireduck.com). It was greeted enthusiastically by show music hosts as “wacky and provocative,” and “witty, pithy and profound.”

Next came the CDs Hotel del Swell and Hipocracy, and another musical—a light-hearted romantic comedy loosely based on Neal’s experience in the jingle biz. Jingle This! shows how the lure of fast money can mess up your priorities.

All of this was fine, but Neal missed being on stage. He also wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before. So he learned animation and videography and created Pigeonholes—a combination of live performance interacting with the action on screen. Each song is a self-contained story with a different style of music. Subjects range from romance to a rap spoof, to war and human rights. In 2005, Pigeonholes opened in San Diego and Hollywood to standing ovations.

In September, 2007, Neal premiered a second one-man show—Thank You, Dan Rather—in Fort Lauderdale. When Rather left CBS, the theme went out the door and so did the cash. This was Fox’s opportunity to poke fun at his loss and make some money, too, so thanks, Dan.

With several self-released CDs, and more in the works, it was only logical to take the next step and make the song library available for licensing—and that brings us to Foxalot Music.