Gavin B.

The Neville Family

The Neville Brothers are the personification of 2nd line funk. There are 5 different brothers who perform with the group depending on which night you hear them. Iko Iko and Brother John are both NOLA classics.



Wild Tchoupitoulas are a crew of costumed "indians" who play every year at the Mardi Gras parade. The drum corps is led by Big Chief Jolly Landry and his nephews in the Neville Brothers are frequent participants on vocals. The Wild Tchoupitoulas are a wonder to behold in their yearly performances at Mardi Gras. The group only released one album in 1976 and it's still one of the most sought after items by music collectors. Wild Tchoupitoulas also sponsor and run cultural arts center in New Orleans This is a steet video of the 2009 parade filmed last march, just as the Tchoupitoulas hit the sacred ground of Washington and LaSalle streets where jazz was born.



The Meters were led by Neville brother Art and were produced by Allen Toussaint, the legendary NOLA musician. There is still an academic debate going on about who originated funk music, James Brown or the Meters. I'm not really sure, but I grew up in New Orleans listening to the funky music of the Meters when James Brown will still playing traditional R&B songs like Night Train, Please Please Please Please and Out of Sight.



Aaron Neville is one of America's most venerated R&B singers and generally sticks to soulful ballads and gospel music. Tell It Like It Is is another Allen Toussaint production and was a chart topping R&B hit in the Sixties. Aaron has gone a little too MOR for my taste in the past couple of decades but his early work with Toussaint was a significant contribution to early R&B.

P.S. Don't ask me why a publicity photo from the television show the Wonder Years is pictured on the video. I have no idea of what the YouTube poster was thinking about.

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There are two types of music: the first type is the blues and the second type is all the other stuff.
Townes Van Zandt