Cyril Neville: Out to Change the Way the World Perceives New Orleans Music

This article originally appeared in Wavelength Magazine

By Jerry Karp

It’s late at night on Valence Street, just a block off Magazine at Camp. On the corner is a bar that at first seems, with its shuttered windows and narrow door, to be closed, or at least private. This impression is soon dispelled by the music leaking out into the street. Open the door and the place is packed and the music is live and loud. On this night, Cyril Neville's Uptown All-Stars are pumping funk and reggae into a space about the size of a modest living room. With the room jammed as it is this evening, good luck getting across the club to the bar. Neighborhood locals sway alongside dressed down college kids who grin and jump. Towards the back, a bearded and pony-tailed bruiser with a t-shirt that says “Texas” and a Dixie Beer trucker's cap is trying to make time with a beautiful, sharply dressed woman whose jacket-and-tied date is about six steps away, waving for the bartender's attention.

Uptown reggae. Benny’s Bar.

A few days later, Benny's windows and doors are still shuttered, the artificial light inside a sharp contrast to the bright New Orleans spring day. The place does not seem any bigger now, even lit, with the tables and dance floor empty. Proprietor Benny Jones leans against the bar and agrees that having music in the club has worked out well for all concerned. In some neighborhoods, a late-night music spot might bring down the wrath of nearby residents, but Benny doesn't have the problem.

“When we're full,” he says, “most of the sound gets absorbed by the bodies, and you can't really hear much outside. And even when we're not that busy, I know just about everybody around here. I don't really get complaints.”

Soon Cyril Neville comes in, anxious to talk about the developments in his career and life over the past few years. While he talks, he sips from a quart bottle of spring water. His smile is broad and frequent, and he periodically taps the table in front of him while making a point.

He is, of course, a member of the famed Neville Brothers Band, but what Cyril is most enthused about this day is a concert at Tipitina's the previous week put on by Endangered Species, the organization for the promotion of New Orleans music, New Orleans musicians and New Orleans musical history with which Neville is strongly involved. Neville says the crowds were good and the night was a success. His two bands, the Uptown All-Stars and Endangered Species, performed, as did a series of other New Orleans musicians, including singers Shine Robinson and Mighty Sam McClain.

“We showed club owners, the media and the people of New Orleans that we can do things together, put on successful shows and promote them ourselves, and everything turns out right. One of the main successes is that we proved it to ourselves,”

Cyril leans back in his chair as he begins a recounting of the history of the Endangered Species organization.

“I guess I was 14 or 15 years old when I realized I wanted to be an entertainer,” he says, “but not just an entertainer. I wanted to make waves. One of the most important things I wanted to change was how the world perceived the New Orleans musician. Take (New Orleans R&B legend) James Booker. People thought that Booker was crazy, or whatever, but I know different. A lot of people who actually knew Booker knew that he was a genius, in every sense of the word. This cat was more than just a piano player. And Fess. One of the most inspirational moments of my life was when I played drums behind Professor Longhair in San Francisco. I want people to know how great that was to me, and I want it to mean something to my people. I want to brush the dust off the history of a lot of other musicians who are not as well known as Fess, so that my children will know what went on. “This drive that you see now started about three years ago with us forming this little three-piece band [the group Endangered Species is Cyril Neville on drums, Charles Moore on bass and Terry Manuel on keyboards] and creating this new form of music we call ‘Booker Woogie.’”

Cyril’s friend, writer/historian George Green, was instrumental in encouraging the musicians’ interest in music history, and remains an important member of the Endangered Species organization. “The seed was there,” Cyril says, “but George kept watering it.”

“A lot of what I've read over the last five years, or even longer than that, about New Orleans music has been either hearsay, or very incorrect information,” the musician continues, his gaze direct and earnest. “George Green and myself, and a few other people like Earl King, are dedicated to the idea that, from now on, our history must be written by us. I'm not saying that everything that's been written about New Orleans music is a lie, but a lot of it needs tending to by the people who experienced it. People interview us about New Orleans music with the attitude that they know more about it than we do.

“Myself, I'm writing a book about it all, and I’ll have help from my brothers and from Earl King. I've dedicated myself to keeping diaries and mernoirs since 1964 ‘cause I realized then that all of the music I could play in the world wasn’t going to mean a thing if somebody wasn’t there to tell the true story of what went on.”

As important to Neville as the music and its history is the New Orleans musicians’ relationship with the music business. “Booker used to tell me,” he says, “‘Hey, you can be the badest mother in the world, but if you can't take care of your own business, you’re going to stay broke.’”

Cyril says the last two words slowly and softly for emphasis, almost singing them.

“What I think,” he continues, “is that New Orleans right now is in financial trouble and New Orleans’ musicians could be New Orleans’ trump card. We could start doing things together that could save the New Orleans musician, who is the endangered species that this movement speaks about. We as musicians, and to be more honest about it, as Black men in America, are an endangered species, and we have to do something for ourselves and our children. What we have to do it with is our talents. What we’re going to do is make a stand now, so the next generation will be a little better off than we were. I'm not speaking just about the music. I'm talking about culturally and as a people, period.

“Everybody knows that the New Orleans musician has the reputation of being the baddest musician in the world, but the worst businessman. What we want to instill in the younger musicians, and maybe in some of our older brothers, too, is that you’ve got to sit down and learn the business. One thing we want to do with our organization is hold clinics for that purpose. This is not just a question of where I'm going to play my music next. This is a struggle for survival, and it's a struggle for the survival of my family, and a struggle for the survival of my people. That's the way we all are going to have to start looking at this.

“The main idea is to preserve our identity. I hate to see what happened in the Sixties happen again, where all these out-of-town businessmen move in, set up their little shops, rip everybody off, and then split again. This is what our non-profit organization would do. It would give us a power base to work from, where we could educate not only the musicans, but the people of New Orleans to the rich cultural roots that we have here.”

Last month's Tipitina’s concert was the first major public effort by the Endangered Species organization, and Neville promises more. Eventually, all the activity comes back to the music. For Cyril, Endangered Species and the Uptown All-Stars, the music centers around Benny’s Bar.

Cyril looks down, trying to come up with a way to express his attachment to the corner establishment.

“It's like . . .” he suddenly looks up and when he does he’s beaming. “It’s like my Apollo, man. Valence Street is my 125th Street. I feel the same way about this little neighborhood that I think the Harlemites feel about Harlem and the Jamaicans feel about Trenchtown. When I'm introducing the Uptown All-Stars at Benny's I say not only welcome to our music, but to our culture, because this is a cultural phenomenon in the making.”

Neville credits Benny Jones with providing an important venue for New Orleans music and filling the void created when Tipitina’s closed. Benny's has become a workshop for the blues and reggae musicians who perform at the club for whatever tips the crowd shoves into a large plastic water bottle at the front of the stage. The musicians get a place to gain experience and recognition. This set-up was the result of another idea springing from the Endangered Species organization, a concept that Neville calls “Preserving Local Stars and Neighborhood Bars.” Some of the groups that appear often at Benny's are J. D. Hill and the Jammers, Mighty Sam McClain, Charmaine Neville, Paula and the Pontiacs and the J. Monque’d Blues Band.

The publicity that J. Monque’d gives to Benny’s on his Monday alternoon blues program on WWOZ was important to the project’s early success, Cyril acknowledges.

“We didn't have anything as far as equipment was concerned when we started the Uptown All-Stars,” Cyril remembers. “I started out with a bass drum and a snare drum and a high hat. No cymbals, no nothing. We used to have to go out and hunt for wires and microphones, but we were determined to do something about our situation ourselves. Benny provided us with the perfect place to do it. This building has a special meaning to Benny and me, because we grew up in this neighborhood, and this corner has always been a gathering place for the adults of our community. And now we’re adults and he's running the place where we both used to have to just peek into the screen door.”

They're not concerned about any potential change in the local atmosphere of the bar brought about by the larger crowds attracted by the music.

“What we're mainly about is the struggle to preserve our musical heritage by having it known to as many people as we can. We tried to appeal to the younger, college age people, because these are the people who are going to be running the country in the near future. At first, even some of the musicians involved with Benny’s and with the Endangered Species organization were skeptical, but all George and I asked was that they have some faith in us and not only in us, but to have a little faith in themselves, and it happened. I had a few mmennts where I was scared, but the only thing I was afraid of was that the message would be missed. And the message is that we're not just musicians, we're human beings, too. Everybody’s got a life. For myself, I want to project a meaningful image all the way around the board, because I come from a great race of people. I think everybody should be aware of how great the gift is that Africa gave America. Not only Blacks, but everybody should get a little more hip to it.” Cyril Neville finally rises and, smiling softly, says, “We've got to teach our children a freedom song to sing.”

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