Aaron Neville
“It’s a love, and
it makes me whole. If I couldn’t sing, then I wouldn’t want to be here.” This
is how Aaron Neville feels about his craft, more than five decades into a
career which sees him now as a legend, a pioneer, a behemoth in the world of
roots music.
“For me it’s about
the love of the music. Not about the business, none of that stuff. I’m glad
that I’ve been able to have longevity, to be still doing it. You hear of so
many people falling by the wayside and I’m still around, I feel blessed.”
In 1960, as a
19-year-old, Neville released his first single, ‘Over You’. It was a precursor
to his debut full-length release in 1965, Tell
It Like It Is, and the beginning of a career which has seen him hit the
lofty heights most can only dream of.
With brothers Art,
Charles and Cyril, he was a part of The Neville Brothers (the first family of
New Orleans R&B); he’s dueted with Linda Ronstadt, a collaboration which
produced the Grammy-winning single ‘I Don’t Know Much’; and he’s released a
slew of highly acclaimed solo records, mining the depths of R&B, gospel,
soul and blues, his falsetto voice as recognisable as any other sound in music.
But it was another
sound, another style, which initially made its way into a young Aaron Neville’s
head – doo-wop, a vocal-based off-shoot of rhythm & blues which came about
in the ‘40s, achieving larger recognition in the ‘50s and ‘60s. It was this
music which first grabbed Neville, which had him careering off down a path he
had no choice but to follow.
“The doo-wop stuff
captured my heart,” he concurs. “It’s been there my whole life, everything I’ve
recorded has had some kind of doo-wop essence in it, you know? It was the
harmonies… my brother, Art, had a doo-wop group in New Orleans and he let me
sing with them. Putting the harmonies together, hitting the high notes and
singing the bass parts, all of it, it was fascinating to me.”
Despite the fact
it was doo-wop that first ignited Neville’s taste for music, it wasn’t until
some fifty years later that he’s been able to pay tribute to this style
specifically. Yes, it’s permeated his music from day one, but it was only last
year that Neville released My True Story,
a record acknowledging the doo-wop numbers that have shaped his musical life –
a covers record that tells his story.
“I’ve been trying
for a long time to do it,” he says with a smile. My True Story came about via a couple of interesting connections –
Blue Note Records head and producer par excellence Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob
Dylan, Iggy Pop, Elton John, Brian Wilson et al), and legendary Stones
guitarist Keith Richards. Not a bad team to have in your corner.
“Don produced Voodoo Lounge by The Stones, and he was
rooming underneath Keith in the hotel [in 1993],” Neville explains. “And Keith
had this album on a loop, over and over and over, it was ‘My True Story’ (the
song) by The Jive Five, so I knew he was into the doo-wop. And so Don asked him
to be involved, and he said, ‘What took you so long, man?’”
As such, Richards
takes on guitar duties on My True Story,
which also features Eugene Pitt, the lead singer of The Jive Five, singing
background vocals, along with the likes of Greg Leisz on guitar (Beck), Benmont
Tench on organ (Tom Petty), George G. Receli thumping tubs (Bob Dylan), and bassist
Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell). It’s a real rock ‘n’ roll band, which is
interesting – doo-wop is very vocal based, the focus is on the voice as opposed
to the band. With My True Story, it
seems Neville has stepped away from that somewhat.
“Well, doo-wop was
a feel, you know?” he explains. “It was an era. People didn’t start calling it
doo-wop until later, in the ‘50s. They were calling it rhythm and blues,
R&B. It was a sound I loved back in that era.” Regardless, with this
record, as with all his others, Neville’s voice takes the spotlight, no matter
who’s in the backing band.
“There have been
many highlights,” he smiles, on his career thus far, and no doubt My True Story is one of them. And yet
he’s not done yet, this stellar career having no foreseeable end. “We’re
talking about doing some original stuff, I’m doing a lot of writing on my cell
phone, on my iPhone,” he tells.
“I’ve got maybe a
hundred little parts on my phone, some [of which] will probably turn into
songs. Maybe the next record, I don’t know. I still want to do some more
country, some more gospel, some blues. I never did a [full] blues album.”
For Aaron Neville,
it’s a love. If he can’t sing, he doesn’t want to be here. But he can sing,
he’s still singing, and it looks like he’ll be singing for a long time yet.
Samuel J. Fell
Aaron Neville plays the Byron
Bay Bluesfest (April 18 & 19), plus Melbourne (April 21), Sydney (April 24)
and Perth (April 26).
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