Neal & Leandra

The folk duo Neal & Leandra came into being when singer-songwriters Neal Hagberg and Leandra Peak first encountered each other as students at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota during 1981. Hagberg, a native of Montevideo, MN, had begun as a premed biology major before switching fields and completing a master’s degree in theology. Peak, then working toward a master’s in Spanish, had been raised in a musical household in Louisville, KY, where her father performed professionally; she was appearing in a campus staging of the musical Godspell when Hagberg approached her backstage and asked her to sing with him. Each had discovered folk music through a link to Bill Staines—Hagberg via one of the artist’s recordings, Peak after hearing Kate Wolf over the PA system at a Staines concert.

Once their studies ended, Hagberg and Peak began performing full-time, establishing the independent label Uncle Gus Music in 1987 and issuing their debut album, Rocky Road, the following year. They married in 1989. Two further self-released projects, Summer Evening (1990) and Old Love (1992), preceded their signing with the Minnesota-based independent folk label Red House Records, which released their fourth album, Hearts & Hammers, in January 1994. The recording helped extend their audience beyond the Upper Midwest. Red House reissued Old Love in 1995, and Accidental Dreams, the duo’s fifth album, appeared in March 1996. Stranger to My Kin, released in October 1998, concluded their tenure with Red House. Returning to Uncle Gus Music, they next offered the holiday collection Listen to the Angels (1999), the concept album Bridge Rail (2002) exploring a long-term committed relationship, and A Dreamer’s Holiday: A Tribute to Perry Como (2003).