[5] In 1955, at the end of two years of military service in the navy, Fred Morlock married Leilani Lee Michaels, a "Fran Malione Dancer" in San Francisco, a "photographers' model," and later a beauty-pageant queen and "Geary Girl.

When Neil moved to Woodstock, New York, in 1969, he met and married Judy Cruickshank, and they lived in a cabin in Saugerties, NY on the same road as Big Pink, home of Rick Danko and other members of The Band.

[10] In the late 1950s, Neil was one of the singer-songwriters who worked out of New York City's Brill Building, a center for music industry offices and professional songwriters.

[18] A New Yorker, Martin had relocated to Florida in 1960, and soon settled in Coconut Grove, where Neil followed him after their initial musical meeting, and where he returned regularly for years after.

His album Fred Neil, released in 1967, relaunched in 1969 as Everybody's Talkin', was recorded during his residencies in Greenwich Village and Coconut Grove, with one session taking place in Los Angeles.

In particular, Jefferson Airplane considered Neil a major influence, and he was a frequent visitor to their Haight-Ashbury house at 2400 Fulton Street in San Francisco.

After a guest appearance with Stephen Stills at New York City's Madison Square Garden in 1971, Neil began a long retirement, performing in public mostly at gigs for the Dolphin Project in Coconut Grove.

In an ensemble called the Rolling Coconut Revue, which included Sebastian, Brooks, Childs, and pianist Richard Bell, Neil played at the Save the Whales benefit concert in Tokyo, April 8–10, 1977.

[25] O'Barry said he produced the first of the recordings in Miami, and that Neil was joined by Pete Childs on guitar, John Sebastian on harmonica, and Harvey Brooks on bass.

In June 1987, in Miami, he was involved in an accident that killed Christine Purcell, his girlfriend, when she hotwired her camper truck, which had a defective starter, and called for Neil to start the vehicle.

Afterward, Neil moved from Coconut Grove, visiting New York, travelling to Mexico and Texas, then, by the early 1990s, relocating to coastal Oregon.

[27] Neil gained public recognition in 1969, when Nilsson's recording of "Everybody's Talkin'" was featured in the film Midnight Cowboy; the song became a hit and won a Grammy Award.

"[33] His most frequently cited disciples are Karen Dalton, Tim Hardin, Dino Valenti, Vince Martin, Peter Stampfel of the avant-folk ensemble the Holy Modal Rounders, John Sebastian,[31] Gram Parsons,[34] Jerry Jeff Walker, Barry McGuire,[31] and Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane).

[37] In his memoir, Richie Havens recalls first seeing Neil in a duo with Martin at Cafe Wha?, and that "Tear Down the Walls" was the first protest song he had heard in Greenwich Village, "the first to point me in a clear direction".

"I can still see and hear Neil and Valenti coming down that center aisle, raising the roof of the Wha?, 'tearing down the walls' that were keeping me from expressing what I needed to do.