ENTERTAINMENT
BRIEFS
con­
ith
Lov r'
n
The I te t couple to n­
nounce that they're making
the trek down the wedding
aisle are En Vogue' Terry
ElUa and entertainment attor­
ney Steven Barnes. Barnes i
the attorney for the Hudlin
Brothers, Tracy Chapman,
Vane a Williams, Keenen
Ivory Wayans, and a boat of
Othell ••••
••• .speaking ofWayans, he
un't on hand for a recent
open call for talent held by
producers of -In Uving
Color". Instead W yans wu
patiently awaiting the birth of
his first child .•
By The Way
It should be .now be no
secret to anyone that Uonel
Ricbie bas Igned a new
recording pact with Mercury
Recorda, marking his official
exit from Motown Records ...
In
recording
.. iiaMS s
set for July • The albwn lJ
slated for releue on August
18 ...
- Best wishes for
speedy recovery to actor
Taurean Blacques, who was
recently hospitalized with
chest pains. Take it easy,
Taurean, we're all praying for
you (Usa Collins) ...
- Those who attended
"R&B Uve", a popular I.A
nightspot, got an earful when
vocalist MUcki Howard -
impatient with organizers -
offering them a piece of her
anatomy to kiss. Un­
beknownst to Howard, her
mike was on ...
- Herbie Hancock will
team with four other Mile
Davis alumni for a seven­
month tour in tribute to the
legendary trumpeter who
died last year.
OnTh�
. Home Front
Living' next door to an
entertainer may not be all its
cracked up to be. At least
that's the case of the neigh­
bors of Smokey Robinson,
who have just filed a
$750,000 lawsuit over a tree
that fell in their y rd in 1991,
along with a fence they claim
Robinson erected ("in spite")
to annoy them.
Hollywood
Swinging
Cast members of "Meteor
Man" and "Poetic Justice",
who gathered for a friendly
softball game, didn't want to
addre the LA riots nor the
verdict. Instead, those turn­
ing out - John Singleton,
Robert Townsend, Tupac
Shakur and Regina King
among them - just wanted to
release tensions, and have a
light afternoon.
- oomplled by t<. 8et1ca
- epeoI oontrtbutora: U.
Col (BehInd-The Soet -) &
RldcBcCl� •• The CoIwnn
"Succ to 1M Lf being together
as brother. and ill looking out lor
each other. We lived together as
kids, and now we're taking care of
each other as men. "
-A ron vIII.
·Whether 010 arti or, ince
1977, bandmate ," Newsweek
has observed, they've "poured out a
tream of yncopated, funky, rivet­
ing m lc th t make you dance and
che d cry i ide." To y th t
the eville Brothers' Itt album,
Family Groove, contai ome of
the most compelling music Art,
Chari ,Aaron. and Cyril Neville
have made either collectively or in­
dividually in their combined cen­
tury-pius of music-making is to ay
a pat, great de I indeed.
, "We were trying to do omething
different," confides keyboardist
Art, the elde t of the brothers .
.. "We're inging about what we've
always sung about-love, justice,
and waking up to the fact that we're
all human being on the same
planet. But on this album we've got
a state-of-the-art ound."
With the help of new co­
producers Hawk Wolinski
(heretofcre be t known for his col­
laborations with Chaka Khan, the
Commodores, and Jermaine Jack­
son) and Dave Leonard (who en-
r Prt ,Indl 0 Gltll,
n ncamp. ton
'*.' ...... '111lO111.t., )
the ovI11 have packed their la t
album with some of the most
propulsive grooves in their il­
lustrious history. Where their pre­
vious couple of album often
seemed aimed at the cerebrum or
heart, Family Groove resonates
primarily in the listener's solar
plexus.
Hawk encouraged the brothers
to record S\eve Miller' remarkably
prescient "Fly Like An Eagle," the
first single from the LP, after hear­
ing it on a live recording the band
made a decade earlier. Just as they
convincingly Nevilltzed "With God
On Their Side" that you'd have
thought Bob Dylan had written it
just for Aaron to sing, so do they
make "Eagle" theirs too. "It was a
challenge for all of us to do tha t
song," says Cyril, "since it had al­
ready been a hit. For a little some­
thing extra, what 'we call the
'laggniappe' down here, we got
Steve Miller playing and singing on
it. When he heard what we had
done with it, he said he was chang­
ing his version." (laughs)
YOU· PROBABLY haven't
heard as funky a track in the '90s,
but you'll hear an even funkier one
on Side 2 - the title track. In ref­
erence to which Cyril asserts, "The
family is the basis of civilization,
and our connection to God." F ami­
Iy Groove features the contributions
of several Nevilles other than the
four brothers.
"One More Day," a considera­
o lion of the tragedy of homeless ness
howcases a rap written and per­
formed by two of Aaron's sons and
portrays the influence of such
young Black superstars as Bobby
Brown as vividly as "Day To Day
Thing" evoke the "Ball of Con­
fusion" -era Temptations. And it
was Cyril's wife Gaynielle who
wrote the.song's Single most poig­
nant line, that about children who
live in the very streets in which they
play. "She wonders," Cyril relates
gravely, "if people realize how
many of the homeles are
children. " In "Line 0/ Fire," Art
takes up the ubject of another
Neville concern, violence in our
cities, dmonishfng the young inner
city resident whom the ong addres­
ses to "put down that gun, boy."
The Nevilles have occasionall y
been criticized for their preoccupa­
tion with injustice and racial in­
tolerance. But any notion that they
spend the whole Of Family Groove
sold spectacularly, though no leu
than Keith Richards called Flyo on
the Bayou the best album of 1981. .
The brothers nonetheless became
their hometown's beat-loved local
attraction. In 1987, they returned to
A&M and won a Grammy with the
sublime Daniel Lanois-produced
Yelllow Moon. 1990' Brother'.
Keeper cemented their status u one
of the most fervently acclaimed
group in American pop.
The Neville Brothers have IOld
millions of records worldwide and
have had gold and platinum records
in 6 different countries. In the U.S.,
they have been the featured per­
formers on televi ion from the early
morning on Good Mornillg
America and Today show to mid­
day on Oprah to late night on Satur­
day Night Live, Arsenio. £ene,,,",,,
and the Tonight Show. They wore
the stars of their 0 D'
Cinemax/HBO special bo ted by 60
Minutes' Ed Bradley.
The Neville ' music baa been
hailed by music writers in nearly
every major periodical n the
country and their live perfOI"llADCCll
are legendary, moving one of
America's most cclaimed youol
novella , John Ed Bradley, to DOte
in G.Q., "The Nevfl1e play
Tip[itina]' , and a spooky ma e
happens. Fruit juice becomea a
Hurricane cocktail, the fat of foot
can suddenly hoof it, tbe lind, by
God, can ee. "
NEVILLE BROTHERS'- Cyril, Aaron, Charles and Art
atop a oaphox will be quickly dis­
pelled by the extultant, calypso­
flavored "On The Other Side Of
Paradise, " which finds them croon­
ing delightful choral "show-wadda­
waddies" behind Art's joyous lead,
while "True Love," the samba-in­
flected "Take Me To Heart, " and "1
Can See It In Your Eyes" feature
Aaron singing about romantic love
as only Aaron can. Thanks to its HI
Records-like rhythm track, inciden­
tally, some are apt to hear the latter
song a a tip of the Nevilles' caps to­
the Rev. AI Green.
describle," remembers Cyril
Neville. "It was like meeting long­
lost members of our own familie .
I think the reason they identify so
strongly with us a African
Americans is that they're involved
in a civil rights movement of their
own."
No group in America can claim
a more illustrious history than the
Nevilles'. Art first came to note
well before Elvis, having written
"Mardi Gras Mambo," till a staple
of the festival, for his band The
Hawkettes in 1954. While Art was
"Success to me is being
together as brothers and
still looking out for each
other. We lived together as
kids, and now we're taking
care of each other as men."
RECORDED LIVE during the .
heroes' welcome the indigenous
residents of New Zealand accorded
the Neville at the end of their tour
ofthe Pacific I t faU, "Maori Inter­
lude" i urely the album' mo t
unusual track. "The feeling was in-
backing little Richard in the studio
and Larry Williams on tage,
saxophonist Charle left New Or­
leans for Memphi , where he
played with ... well, everyone -Big
Joe Turner, Wi} on Pickett, Bobby.
Bland, B.B. King, you name them.
And Aaron, who'd developed his
heart-breaking falsetto after falling
in love as a child with the yodeling
of the singing cowboys of the silver
screen, had a No.2 smash with "Tell
It Like It Is" the winter preceding
The Summer of Love.
After Art, Cyril, and Aaron
failed to attract comparable collec­
tive attention as The Neville
Sounds, Art (who was joined later
by Cyril) formed The Meters, who
were acclaimed the world over as
the grand masters of New Orleans'
Caribbean-influenced " econd
line" funk style. While The Meters
ruled New Orleans' Latin Quarter,
Cyril and Aaron played on
Claiborne Avenue with The Soul
Machine, and Charles found him­
self teaching at Goddard College in
Vermont, a very long way from
home.
Finally, after not having played
together for 12 years, the brothers
reunited to help record the univer-
ally acclaimed The Wild
Tchoupitoula a year after their
mother's death in 1975. They
credit their uncle, the flamboyant
Mardi Gras "Indian" George (Chief
Jolly) Landry, with getting them to
join force. "He told us that our
mother and father had alway
wanted to ee us work together a
. band," Charle recalls. "He knew
that if we got together as a family,
it would happen.
IT HAPPENED, all right, out
lowly. None of their first few
recordings as The Neville Brothers