McNeill learnt music on the violin before taking up other instruments including guitar, fiddle, viola, mandolin, bouzouki, cittern, concertina, and hurdy-gurdy, as well as singing. He played fiddle with Battlefield Band from its formation in 1969 until 1990. In 1987, he won the UK National Songsearch competition for amateur and professional performers, having been runner-up in 1986.

From 1996 until January 2008, McNeill was head of the traditional music course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow.

Brian McNeill won the inaugural Fatea Lifetime Achievement award in 2007 and was the producer of the 2017 instrumental album of the year, “Matt Tighe” the eponymous debut album of the young English fiddler that Brian had inspired at one of his many Cambridge Folk Festival appearances.