For Art, the first of the talented Neville brothers, music is a mission. Story by Larry Schwartz.
IT’S LATE AFTERNOON in New Orleans and a slight breeze hurries the clouds across the skyline. Art Neville is in his home studio, noodling with the beginnings of a new song. He’s created most of the instrumental bits; waiting for his young son, Ian, to come home from school to add guitar
lines.
As yet the song has no name. “It’s sounding good,” says the veteran keyboard player and singer. “It’s just something in the works. It’s a love song, up tempo, nice, happy.”
He’s the firstborn of the celebrated Neville Brothers, among the most respected practitioners within the roots music catchall. The word “Australia” is emblazoned on the T-shirt he says he donned earlier in the day without a thought of the interview about the band’s imminent antipodean
visit.
“I’m 59 and I feel like I’m 17,” he says. “I’ve got a six-month-old babe. A little girl, named after my mom. Amelia was born on my mom’s birthday.” He laughs. “That family thing. A spiritual thing happening.”
Art was followed by Charles (saxophones, percussion), Aaron (vocals, keyboards, percussion, blessed with a stunning falsetto and best known of the brothers) and Cyril (drums, percussion, vocals). A large extended family of wives and children augment the band.
From Holy Spirit to Sacred Ground, song titles on the latest album reflect his conviction that music is a quasi-religious celebration.
“We look at it like this. Everything that is alive that is living on this planet, it didn’t just happen. It is no accident. Some people think there was a big bang and it just happened. I don’t think it did. I believe that there is a God and that’s who created it. And everybody in his own image. That’s
what I believe.”
The album title, Mitakuye Oyasin Oyasin, is taken from the language of the American Indian Lakota people. Art Neville says his brothers have traced the family back to the era of slavery and found American Indians among their forebears. The title is translated as “All My Relations”. It alludes
to what he calls “the broad family, the whole world”.
A founding member of the Meters, Art Neville soaked up a rich mix of jazz, blues, rock and more for which the Crescent City is famed. Barely in his teens, he sang harmony at street corners and house parties in neighborhood doowop groups. He had no idea then that it would lead to a career.
“I knew that I liked what I was doing,” he recalls.
“Every time we got a chance we would do it. I would never have thought it would happen like this. I’m happy. I mean, it’s good.”
He quickly took to the piano. He was enthralled by the playing of Fats Domino, Professor Longhair and Ivory Joe Hunter. James Booker was a close friend. “Him and I grew up together … Whenever the teacher wasn’t around, he’d play piano. He was my main inspiration.”
Neville has backed everyone from Larry Williams to Little Richard (“a nice dude”, he says). He and Charles recorded with the Hawkettes on their mid-1950s hit, Mardi Gras Mambo.
The brothers came together at the suggestion of Art’s favorite uncle, George Landry of the band, The Wild Tchoupitoulas. They have not looked back. Albums, including Fiyou On The Bayou are deemed classics. Then there was the Grammy award-winning Yellow Moon, produced by Daniel
Lanois.
“It was a different way of recording,” he says. “It was like a family. We all sat down and had meals together. Everybody – band, crew, engineers – sat down in this house. It wasn’t like a place that was built for a studio. It was a home first.”
A reggae version of The Grateful Dead’s Fire On The Mountain, from the latest album, has been nominated for a Grammy, as has Art for his part in a television tribute to the blues guitarist, Stevie Ray Vaughan.
“Alpine Valley in the middle of the night,” he recites lines he wrote in a song for Vaughan. “Six strings down on a heaven bound flight …”
Art Neville has played with Big Joe Turner, Johnny Ace, Wilson Pickett, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Willie Mae Thornton, BB King. He and his brothers have endured.
For him, music is a mission. “We’re not trying to force this on nobody. This is just what we believe. The songs we sing, the way we put them together … all of this is a blessing to us from God. It is a gift that we are able to do this.”
The Sunday Age 23rd of March 1997
Larry Schwartz Writer 