A New Orleans Creole Rock Caravan:
Cyril Neville With Constant Creation, Monk Boudreaux &
Louis-Virie Blanche
By Dean Bonzani
7.24.05
Good food, good music— this makes the body happy.
When The Big Easy’s funk ambassador and youngest Neville brother, Cyril Neville, rolls into town to give a special benefit performance for the Museum of Northern Arizona, there will be some very happy bodies.
The Uptown Ruler, Keeper of the Funk will be accompanied on this leg of his current tour by the Wild Magnolias’ Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, who performs in full Mardi Gras Indian costume, an elaborately spangled affair that spreads an electric party vibe in all directions. The storytelling griot and Mardi Gras Indian Chief will be adding his powerful vocals to Neville’s, and the funk will be brought.
Cutting through the murky stew of discontent with his pepper-sauce-hot rhythms is something Neville has been a master of since the late ‘60’s, when he co-fronted his brother, Art’s, band, Art Neville and the Neville sounds in 1967. Taking major cues from James Brown, Cyril’s voice and presence established him in the Uptown New Orleans scene. When Art took a good part of the band with him to form the legendary Meters, Cyril and his brother, Aaron formed the remaining members of the group into The Soul Machine.
During the explosive racial tensions of New Orleans in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, Cyril’s defiant intensity made him a high-profile target of the police, and he took to the road, putting in time as lead vocalist for The Meters and performing in a variety of musical configurations with brothers Charles and Aaron. It was during this self-imposed “exile” from his Cajun home that Cyril was drawn to reggae music, famously locking himself in his room for fifteen solid days listening continually to Bob Marley. The event served as a spiritual breakthrough for the percussionist, and he would subsequently come to merge the reggae rhythms and lyrical themes—with their own blend of African and Caribbean flavors—with the traditional “second line” rhythms of New Orleans. (“Second line” refers to the second “wave” of mourners in a traditional New Orleans funeral who follow the band, playing irresistibly happy rhythms to cheer the crowd up as a reminder that this life is temporary, the spirit is always glad, and there’s way better food in the afterlife.) As such, Cyril is credited with founding his own genre in the form of Second Line Reggae.
In 1974, as he was struggling to find his musical path, Cyril was asked by brother, Art, to front The Meters again. This time, though, it was so that they could go on tour with The Rolling Stones, who had asked them to open their shows. In a trice, he went from performing in local venues on a small scale, to warming up European crowds for one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
“…here I am,” Cyril said about that experience, “A kid from the Thirteenth Ward, on tour with the f**kin’ Rolling Stones.”
The Meters recorded a classic album at this time, “Fire On The Bayou,” and the Neville name really began its ascendancy.
Returning to New Orleans after the Stones tour, the Neville family was rocked by tragedy when their mother, Amelia, died in a hit-and-run car accident. Cyril’s uncle, George Landry a.k.a. Big Chief Jolly of the Wild Tchoupitoulas tribe, in the wake of this life-changing event, set out to record a collection of his interpretation of Mardi Gras Indian chants, with their sounds harkening to West Africa, Haiti, and Trinidad. He pooled the collective talents of The Meters and the brothers Neville, and together they recorded “The Wild Tchoupitoulas.” It was the first full-on Neville production, and has affected Cyril’s music to this day. The hand drumming and rhythms of the Indian chanting connected at a profound spiritual level, and continue to weave themselves like a glowing thread through his original work.
Cyril stayed on with The Meters for two more albums, before they folded for good in 1977, and it was in 1984 that he assumed leadership of The Uptown Allstars, the band that he tours with today, comprised in part of musicians from the Neville Brothers’ band.
With a vocal style reminiscent of street preaching, Cyril Neville has been referred to by New Orleans’ Offbeat magazine as “…a prophet, keeper of the flame, poet, archivist, musical alchemist, community leader, historian and very much an artist to amaze, educate and entertain.”
The massive backbeat that Louis Virie Blanche’s Constant Creation band generate will physically grip listeners’ buttocks and propel them bodily onto the dance floor, where Cyril’s rich voice will then fill the upper parts of their anatomy with joy and a sense of social expansiveness.
“This whole show tells a story,” Cyril Neville told the Jackson Hole news and events magazine Stepping Out’s Danielle Shapiro last year. “It’s like eating gumbo— every spoonful is tasty. It’s a full, rich gumbo of cultural elements from New Orleans.”
Cyril Neville’s Creole Rock Caravan, Fri., Aug. 5 th, 8:00 P.M. at the Orpheum Theater, 15 W. Aspen St. Tickets are $17. in advance/ $20. at the door. See www.RhythmAndRoots.org or call 800-594-8499 for more info. Wear your nice beads. Hydrate well prior to extreme aerobic shaking of happy buttocks cheeks.
©2005 by Dean Bonzani