Music historians continue to flesh out this region’s contributions to American culture that extend beyond the twin pillars of Bakersfield’s previous-century honky-tonk scene.
The most recent example, screened Thursday night at the Fox, is Nate Berg’s “Hwy 58: The Children of the Bakersfield Sound,” a fond, tilted-horizon photo album of local characters, living and dead, not named Buck Owens or Merle Haggard.
Vignettes about two of their late contemporaries, Red Simpson and Tommy Hays, generated some of the evening’s warmest ovations — particularly Hays’ telling of his harrowing 1947 trek from Mississippi to California as a wary passenger/hostage aboard an oil-burning, black-smoke-spewing clunker.
But the most sustained cheer of the night was for keyboardist Chris Neufeld, a savant whose story is especially compelling: Music has helped him overcome some of the restraints of his autism.
Diagnosed at the age of 3, Neufeld, now 41, is in high demand as a pianist, producer and all-purpose musician. Singer-guitarist Monty Byrom, alongside whom Neufeld has played for 17 years, says Neufeld has an infallible, pitch-perfect ear.
“He’ll tell me when I’m playing something wrong,” said Byrom. “He’ll tell the drummer if they’re playing something wrong. … We don’t argue. Because he hears it.
“His ear is second to none.”
Guitarist Chuck Seaton, a longtime performer on local stages who, like Byrom, is also featured in “Hwy 58,” said Neufeld has been known to abruptly bring things to a screeching halt in rehearsal.
“‘Your G string’s out of tune,” Seaton said, quoting a typical Neufeld objection. “And I think, ‘Come on, you stopped the rehearsal for that?’ But I check it and, sure enough, it’s a little bit out. But that (nanoscopic oversight) annoyed him.”
Neufeld’s parents first realized they had a remarkable boy the night Chris, age 3, came downstairs in his pajamas carrying his plinkety-plink toy piano.
“They were watching ‘Cheers,’” Neufeld said. “I hear the theme song. I immediately came down and played along with it. Then I went back to bed.”
The moment no doubt overshadowed whatever comic sexual tension Sam Malone and Diane Chambers were preparing to experience in that episode.
Neufeld was performing with his guitarist father, Dave Neufeld, by the age of 7.
Another red-letter date in his evolution as a musician took place about 17 years later when he was performing with a band at Fishlips, the now-defunct club in downtown Bakersfield. Byrom was in the audience.
“I didn’t know who he was,” Byrom said. “I just stood there mesmerized. And I kept asking everyone in the room, ‘Who’s this keyboard player?’ I never heard of him.”
“He was like, ‘Who is this kid?’” Neufeld said. “Next thing I know, I’m up there with Monty.”
“That night he became my keyboard player,” Byrom said.
For a long time, Neufeld kept to himself — at shows, rehearsals, whatever. That has gradually changed as the curtain of autism has lightened.
“He’s getting out of that shell,” Seaton said. “Now it’s not uncommon for him to sing lead on a bunch of the songs and hold his own.
“He used to not want to shake your hand. He didn’t like to be touched. But he’s been working on it, because sometimes now he’ll be the first to say, ‘Hi, Chuck!,’ and reach his hand out. ‘How you doing today?’”
Neufeld acknowledged that things are much easier for him now, thanks to the attention he attracts onstage and the camaraderie of fellow musicians.
“I was nervous (at first),” he said. “I was shy, too. It took me years to get comfortable with the surroundings and the people. But I think (music) satisfies some urge to communicate.”
These days, far from an inhibited social recluse, Neufeld has become a bit subversive, if his new song “abNormal” is any indication. It’s sort of hip-hop-meets-Yes; Neufeld plays all of the instruments, including drums, and he produced the track.
“We’re human just like all of you,” Neufeld raps. “We come from your planet, too.”
And later: “We don’t have your kind of mind / Our DNA is so refined … Superpowered, no guarantees / And we are our own species.”
“I think I’ve changed quite a lot,” Neufeld said. “My communication — I don’t think it was very good a long time ago. It’s gotten better as the years went on and I began to come out of my shell and be a little more comfortable.”
Said Seaton: “It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
Neufeld has been fortunate to be around people willing to encourage and tease out talent that might not have been obvious. That, Byrom said, is something every parent ought to be willing to attempt, if at all possible.
“We’ve heard the story of ‘Rain Man’ and (autistic) math geniuses and all that,” said Byrom, whose son Jake is living with autism. “It was just always something you heard about. But it’s all true. I mean, everything in that movie is true. That kind of intelligence exists.
“Find what works for them,” Byrom said. “Be patient and find what they excel at. Because you’ll find that will bring them out of their shell.”
Neufeld said he feels blessed.
“I don’t think,” he said, “there’s anybody like me.”
