Neville Brothers - Oddball Releases

This year at Jazz Fest we saw what was likely the final performance of the Meters and the year before we had our last performance of the Neville Brothers. Both Art and Aaron Neville have health issues that lead to the end of the road for both bands.

A conversation here in the chat box lead to me checking out my Neville Brothers folder and I came across 3 oddball cd rips from discs I had bought in SF a long time ago and eventually were sold. The only one that I kept a cover for was this weird Italian release that doesn't even have any actual Neville Brothers tracks on it! The tracks are all from various recordings done prior to the formation of the actual band! It has solo tracks from Art, Aaron and Cyril and some Meters tracks too. The two other discs included are a promo sampler done around the time of Yellow Moon, and live recordings from the era of Brother's Keeper done at Chicago's Navy Pier. The cool thing is that (last time I checked) some of the material on those doesn't seem to be anywhere else.

I'm gonna miss these guys.

Live at Tipitina's 1982

 I think most people from 'other places' are more than a bit surprised and confused that The Neville Brothers aren't particularly popular in New Orleans, at least not like they are across the rest of the country. We love The Meters, Cyrille's Uptown Allstars, Art and Aaron's earlier solo work, but somehow the general feeling seems to be that 'The Brothers' are commercial New Orleans lite.

I know that Art is more than a little confused and hurt by that and I can understand why. Hell, I not even sure that it is particularly justified but that is the way it has developed and it doesn't seem likely to change. Folks are proud of them and all that, but they don't pay much attention to their albums.

It was not always that way, however. Here in the early years of their existence is an utterly epic, powerhouse performance in front of friends and family at Tipitina's in 1982. The joy and love pouring out from the crowd is still audible 30 years later. Listen carefully to the crowd and you hear an absolute love-fest; the ladies are particularly vocal. The band would have been nearly 3 years into their experiment as a family band and just starting to really jell.

No matter what your opinion of any other Neville's you have heard, this is a different animal entirely and an absolute Must Have set of music; my mother still treasures the 2 discs I gave her 15 years ago!

It's startling how young everyone looks, even Art; of course I looked a lot different in 1982 too.