Cyril Neville Interview
HarveyCanal
"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-04-28/music_feature.htmlMr. Cyril Neville breaks down the New Orleans situation. There's also an 11,000-word transcript that I'll post up here later today.
Comments
How about this?
CN: Red Cross ain???t did jack, not for nobody in New Orleans anyway.
AC: I wonder how much the people who contributed aid, and did a great thing by it, maintained enough of an interest in the cause to understand the back-story.
CN: How do those people feel? From the goodness of your heart you did what you did, but now you find out that the money didn???t do the people you was trying to help any good. Now what are people going to do about that? What are people going to say about that?
I'd actually been wondering about this pretty much since things went down... sounds like the overpaid contractors are the only ones getting anything in the aftermath...
CN: If you want to talk about looting, who looted all that money from the Red Cross? Three days after the storm I had to leave my family in a hotel room to go up to New York and Nashville and LA to raise money for the Red Cross. Every suggestion I gave them as far as information on who to send money to, people who I knew personally...they didn???t want to hear that. So I put a t-shirt on that said ???Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans??? because I had to get my voice heard some kind of way. The point I???m making is that the same questions that I asked in the beginning and got shut down for asking, now everybody wants to know. In between the initial raising of the money and the public finding out that we all got ripped off, I asked the councilman at large Oliver Thomas what was going on with the city and how I could get back in and do my house. I had already cleaned up everything. Anyway, in the conversation he asked me if I could get in touch with my brother Aaron to tell him to take his voice off of the PSA???s for the Red Cross because we have seen not one dime. This was months ago before the bullshit hit the fan. I???m talking about millions of dollars. From the Big Apple to the Big Easy was on pay-per-view. I???m looking out and Madison Square Garden is packed to the gills and I know that wasn???t no cheap ticket to get in there. That same night I was driven from there to Radio City Music Hall and did another thing with the Meters and the Wild Magnolias and a bunch of other people, all New Orleans people. And we felt that we were doing something good for the city, but at the same time let???s get some other information involved in this. The Tambourine and Fan Club needs money. The Backstreet Cultural Museum needs money. Miss Antoinette K. Doe needs money for the only club in New Orleans named after an African American artist, Ernie K. Doe???s Mother-in-Law Lounge. So keep that going. Backstreet Museum holds that part of our culture, the Mardi Gras Indians, those Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs like the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club that were put together back in the day because black folks couldn???t get insurance from white folks. So we had to form those Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs to get from one end of year to the other end of the year. So in October everybody got together and partied and second lined. But at the same time, your name was on the roster so that if anything ever happened to you, they???d help take care of your family. The Tambourine and Fan Club with Jerome Smith has been actually taking care and nurturing our kids for years. Big Chief Victor Harris of the Spirit of the Fa Yi Yi for 17 to 18 years, he???s been giving out suppers and things by his house in the 9th Ward to raise money to send our kids back to school with supplies and clothing. So I???m trying to tell them, OK, you???re talking about people who need help, well here I know where they???re at. I know how you can get straight to them. Tambourine, Backstreet Museum, St Augustine Church. That???s our culture. Erase that and you done erased us.
Here's a continuation of a discussion we've had on here before:
AC: Many consider ???Cold Sweat??? by James Brown to be the first funk song. I always say it???s ???Big Chief??? which came out a little earlier. What do you think?
CN: There???s more funk shit than that that came out before that. The shit Smokey Johnson was playing was funk, before what Zig started playing in the Meters became what it became. So there was funk coming out of New Orleans with Earl Palmer. The early 50???s hits that came out of New Orleans, what is that if that isn???t funk? James Brown included, everybody borrowed from New Orleans. It???s like New Orleans is this big well and everybody came and dipped. Wherever New Orleans musicians are, as soon as people know they???re in town, they???re going to be working or doing sessions or doing something. An element of that that???s been really enjoyable to them as it???s been for me is that you???re going to feel respected. And that???s really important because living in New Orleans and living what I was living in and seeing other people going through shit that I wanted to stand up for and different things, it was hard to create and some kind of way I found a way to do it anyway. Listening back over my stuff as I have for the last couple of weeks or so, the majority of the things that I have that I am most proud of have some socially redeeming quality to it. One of the proudest moments of my life was getting an award from the NAACP and hearing Julian Bond say that that song ???Sister Rosa??? was one of the reasons that we were standing on the stage. Suppose I hadn???t written that because people told me to shut up way back then. The most critically acclaimed Neville Brothers record is Yellow Moon and the reason is because of ???Sister Rosa,??? ???My Blood,??? and ???Wake Up??? as well as Aaron???s cover of the Bob Dylan song ???With God On Our Side.??? Those three original songs came out of the repertoire of the Uptown All-Stars.
That is where I come from, my heritage is African and Caribbean rhythms. The other part of it is gospel melodies and harmonies. And the rest of it is spoken word, the truth.
AC: That???s a powerful combination.
CN: ???It Ain???t My Fault??? by Smokey Johnson, I think came out before ???Big Chief.??? There was a song called ???My Oh My, What a Wedding Day??? by I think Earl King and a song by Earl King called ???Trick Bag.??? You don???t get no funkier than that. ???My Oh My, What Wedding Day, I don???t know who it???s by, but that???s the funkiest shit you ever gonna hear. This song by Earl King called ???Honey Child??? and ???Ooh Poo Pah Doo??? by Jessie Hill, ???There???s a Certain Girl??? by Ernie K. Doe, and ???Mother in Law,??? as far as funk goes.
Damn, I loved the Yardbirds version of "Certain Girl" as a youngin, didn't know it was a cover... I'll have to investigate. Outside of one or two 45s I just never see Doe material
Always loved "Ooh Poo Pah Doo".
Any recommendations for comp's of the EARLY NOLA R&B, outside of Prof Longhair and Eddie Bo?
The 2 Soul Jazz comps are great:
So is that old Mardi Gras in New Orleans comp:
Thanks for the links. Dope interview...I'll check out the transcript.
I mean this money isnt being syphonned (sp?) by Bushs cronies on the other side of the world, no its fucking happenning right in the homeland, and noone seems to give a flying fuck.
i also recently saw a CNN report and shit looks exactly the fucking same in N.O.
its amazing how quickly this has become yesterdays news,
Todays news: Britney Spears is pregnant again, Brad and Angie are getting hitched, TomKat had a baby, Jessica and Nick have split.
ahhh shit, this is just too unbelievable, im fucking apalled.
http://houstonsoreal.blogspot.com
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/current/mus_feat.php
I wouldn't argue with this. I got this Dave Bartholomew LP on Jubilee last week with Smokey Johnson on drums. It's from '61, and damn if there aren't a few tracks with some funky drumming. Tells me I gotta keep going back & listen to the earlier stuff.
Gonna read the balance of the interview tonight. Looks great.
good call. shirley raymond, "what a wedding day" (at last). some primo early funk. look it up.