Jul 28 2009
The Meters and The Neville Brothers
It’s funny how if you mention The Meters and The Neville Brothers to most music fans, they assume that basically the first band became the second band. While this isn’t strictly true (since it’s not as if the band stayed the same and just changed the name), it is almost true. Allow me to explain; let’s start with what we know:
The Meters are/were a legendary and highly influential funk combo from New Orleans. They were the house band at Seasaint Studios and played on tons of sessions produced by Allen Toussaint. The Meters made 8 of their own albums between 1969 and 1977. There were two Nevilles in the band, Art (keyboards/vocals) and Cyril (percussion/vocals). Art was there from the beginning, Cyril joined in the early 70’s. The band split up in 1977.
The Neville Brothers are a legendary and highly influential soul/rhythm & blues/funk combo from New Orleans. They made their first album in 1978. There are many Nevilles in the band (Art, Aaron, Cyril, Charles and Ivan), but apart from Art and Cyril, there are no former Meters.
So, it should be obvious from this that while there are a couple of common elements (two Nevilles), the bands are not interchangeable.
What is interesting, however, is the pairing of both groups on the album ‘The Wild Tchoupitoulas’. The album featured the Wild Tchoupitoulas ’Mardi Gras’ Indian tribe, which was led by George ’Big Chief Jolly’ Landry. Landry was a Neville uncle, rather than a Neville brother. Apart from the indian tribe calls, the vocals on the record are by the Neville Brothers. The rhythm section is The Meters. You could almost see it as the point where The Meters stopped and the The Neville Brothers began, since the Meters broke up in 1977, The Neville Brothers made their first album in 1978, and the Wild Tchoupitoulas album was made in 1976.
To throw some further pepper into this confusingly tasty gumbo of Meters, Neville Brothers and Neville uncles is the fact that the man who produced the Tchoupitoulas album (along with many many many great New Orleans records), Allen Toussaint, used to write songs using his mother’s name as his psuedonym - Naomi Neville!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this abridged history of The Meters and The Neville Brothers!
Nick
