Aaron Neville posted the following to Facebook and his official website on Thursday, May 6, 2021:

Dear Friends…

I have had such an incredible and blessed journey as a musician, singer and human. The time has come for me to stop ripping and running on the road. I waited for someone to invent a way to beam me from show to show but with no such luck. I love singing for others, it provides so much joy for me, at least as much as for those listening, if not more. Unfortunately, the grueling nature of travel and the schedule needed to make a tour work has become less than desirable.

The current climate of our world brought me many realizations. Life is short and I’d like to spend my remaining time on this earth being less hurried. Don’t see this as a permanent goodbye, by the grace of God, I will keep making more music and may show up at a special event or concert down the road.

Thank you to my band, crew, managers, the talented artists I’ve performed with, my wife and family. Most of all, thank you to my fans. Your support has been invaluable, and the memories are countless and cherished.

It is my prayer that all the music I’ve recorded over the years will continue to provide enjoyment! May the beat go on…

Aaron

Given that Neville is only retiring and still among the living, OffBeat took the opportunity to compile our features and interviews with the renowned vocalist. We begin with an interview by Kalamu Ya Salaam in March of 1990 and conclude with Geraldine Wyckoff’s interview in April 2017 when Neville preformed at the French Quarter Festival. In between are interviews by John Swenson, Bunny Matthews, Michael Hurtt, Jeff Hannusch, David Jones and Scott Jordan. Please use the links to read the full feature or interview.

March 1990: Interview by Kalamu Ya Salaam

Aaron Neville, born January 24, 1941, is “the” voice of New Orleans. In a city that has a long history of diverse song stylists—from the early originators such as Louis Armstrong in jazz and Mahalia Jackson in gospel, to distinctive and influential R&B shouters such as Professor Longhair and Fats Domino, to generations of major movers on the pop scene such as Dr. John and the new heir apparent, Harry Connick, Jr.—it’s saying a lot to say that anyone singer is “the” voice, but Neville has certainly earned the honor.

What makes you unique as a singer?

I don’t try to copy anybody. I’ve developed my own style, but I did copy at one time. I used to listen to people like Nat King Cole. I used to want to sing all kinds of music when I was younger. I used to sing spirituals, cowboy music, yodeling, doo-wop, slow standards like Nat King Cole. It was fascinating to be able to sing all those different kinds of songs.

When you recorded “Tell It Like It Is” did you have any idea that it would become as big a hit as it did?

No, I didn’t. As a matter of fact, when we did that session we recorded four songs, and at that time most of the hit songs were uptempo. I had my eye on another song we did called “Took You For A Ride” which was an uptempo song. But Art [Neville—Aaron’s brother] said no, “Tell It Like It Is” is the upsetter.

How does that make you feel when you hear your song on the radio, a song you recorded years ago and that they still play on the radio, you know that it was a big hit, but you aren’t making any money from it?

I don’t feel bad anymore. I just mark it down as experience. Some of the people who did make money off it are no longer around, but I’m still around and kicking and making money now, so all of that is just water under the bridge.

In addition to your singing career, you also write poetry. Have you had any of it published yet?

That’s right, I write poetry, but I haven’t had any of it published yet. Well actually, “Yellow Moon” is one of my poems that’s in my book I’m working on. In the next album we’ll probably be using another couple of poems.

Do you write the pieces as poems first and then turn them into songs?

I write them as poems but I also have a rhythm in mind.

How did you feel when Linda Ronstadt called to ask you to be on her album?

Well, it didn’t just happen like that. I met her in 1984 when she was here with Nelson Riddle’s Orchestra at the world’s fair. After her gig she came over to our gig at Pete Fountain’s Club. Somebody told me she was in the audience, so I dedicated a number to her and called her up to the stage and she sang a doo-wop song with us. Later she told me that was one of the highlights of her tour. I asked for her autograph. She gave me her autograph and told me that “I’ll record with you any song, any time, any place, just name it.” She was joking around but she was also serious. About a year later I called her to ask her to play on our Hungry and Homeless Benefit. She came down and at that time asked to sing with me. So, we started going over songs together and found out that our voices blended well. That was in 1985. After a while our managers started talking with each other and got the ball rolling, about a year and a half later, we got together and did the record that’s out now.

July 1992: Nevilles on the Air? by Keith Spera

Few artists straddle two generations of music lovers like the, Nevilles do. The faux-hippies and twenty-somethings (including this writer) who shake and sweat with the Brothers at Tipitina’s today are the children of the couples who fell in love to Art’s “All These Things” and Aaron’s “Tell It Like It Is” 30 years ago. None of the Nevilles ever became an oldies act; they are still current, still hip.

It was the desire to be even more current, and to finally woo their old nemesis, American commercial radio (and achieve the big sales that follow in airplay’s wake), that led the musicians to forsake the low-key ambience of their last two records, which bore the mystical stamp of producer Daniel Lanois.

In conversations with all four Brothers the week following Jazz Fest, everyone insisted that Family Groove represents no fundamental shift in the way they make music, just a sprucing up of the old sound.

Most reviewers have pointed out the same things about the record—the slicker production, the nod to hip-hop and urban contemporary arrangements, the break with the sound of the last two records—but interpreted them along half full/half empty lines. Rolling Stone and The Times-Picayune went with half full, praising the innovation; Musician Magazine, The New York Times, Request and OffBeat spun their reviews half empty. Questioning the enormous stylistic leap is mixed. A few rock and Top 40 stations have placed the album’s first single, a remake of Steve Miller’s “Fly Like An Eagle,” in rotation.

Although Aaron Neville is one of most recognizable persons in town, he still defers to the traditions that regulate other New Orleanians. Such as trudging through the aisles of Schwegmann’s, makin’ groceries with wife Joel.

And, like many a Crescent City parent before him, he trekked down to The Times-Picayune office one day this spring with a bridal announcement for his daughter’s wedding. Those who assembled at Our Lady of Guadalupe on Rampart Street for the ceremony witnessed the marriage of a pop legend’s daughter and a Marine.

The tux worn by the bride’s father even had sleeves.

“I ain’t got but that one daughter, so I ain’t gotta do that no more,” said Aaron with a chuckle. “It was cool.”

Aaron’s recent history has been quite bright.

His 1991 solo album, Warm Your Bean, became the first modern-day Nevilles’ project to go gold (the video for “Everybody Plays the Fool,” which cast niece Arthel as a sexy mail carrier, certainly didn’t hurt). Aaron hopes to began work on his next solo album, with Linda Ronstadt at the production helm once again, in November, after the current tour is completed.

Like his brothers, he supported the decision to bring in David “Hawk” Wolinski for Family Groove.

“I thought Hawk was a good choice. We had been knowin’ Hawk for a long time. Matter of fact, he worked on some stuff with my son Ivan. He had some good ideas, so we said, ‘Come on, let’s put them together.’ The goal is the same every time we do it: we want to make a good record. We want to make good music. We still doing our harmonies, and talkin’ about the social conscience thing, and gettin’ all funky.”

That element was missed on the last couple of records; the slow burn of “Sons and Daughters” just isn’t funky.

Aaron chuckles quietly. “I know.”

Was the outcry over the change expected?

“In a sense, yeah. But we got a great write-up in Entertainment Weekly and other papers. Everybody got they own opinion.”

There are no hard feelings toward the man who shaped the sound of the last two albums. Aaron turned up at a post-Jazz Fest party at Daniel Lanois’ French Quarter manse, and even sang “With God On Our Side” (from the Lanois-produced Yellow Moon) and “Amazing Grace” with Lanois and his house band.

When he’s on the road, Aaron doesn’t venture out much, except to go to a gig or maybe a gym. “Other than that I’m writing or watching TV or calling home.”

You don’t like seeing the towns?

“I done seen ’em.” He chuckles. “They all look alike.”

Growing up in New Orleans can spoil a person… “It don’t have the hills or the countryside. (But) like I tell people, I’ve been to Europe and seen the Swiss Alps and the south of France. You name it: all the beautiful places—California, wherever … The most pretty site to me is when the planes start gettin’ lower and I see the swamps comin’ into New Orleans. I know where I’m at then, you know?”

May 1996: Fest Focus by David Jones

“The thing about us is we were together as kids,” Aaron says, “We were always close and our parents were great. They instilled a lot of love for one another in the family. Right now I can be onstage, and the part of the family that’s not here anymore, they still live within us.

“Because I can look at my brothers and I see my dad, my mama, my uncles, whatever. And the thing about it is, we’re men now, we’re grown men and we’re still looking out for each other.

“We’ve got to look out for one another on this one planet, one race—the human race, one love, one heart. All my relations. We feel like kin to the people, wherever we go. With everybody in the world.”

January 1998: Lifetime Achievement Award by Jeff Hannusch

When asked if people in New Orleans have different tastes in music than the rest of the country and different expectations from him and his brothers, Aaron Neville said, “The people in New Orleans are no different than people anywhere—it’s the media that’s different. You know they say the hardest place to make it is in your own hometown, and it’s true.”

Clearly, no matter what any writer or critic says about Neville, he has definitely made it. His success is attributed not only to his voice—which seems to have been bestowed upon him by a higher power—but also his ability to conquer his inner demons, many of which he describes in the title track of “To Make Me Who I Am.”

The third oldest of four brothers, Aaron Neville was born January 24, 1941. The Neville family lived in the Calliope housing projects, which during Aaron’s youth was the center of a musical neighborhood. Neville’s father, Arthur Neville Sr., labored on the riverfront, and his mother Amelia (a song that Neville co-authored on his new CD is called “Sweet Amelia”) took care of the six Neville children.

“My mother was the sweetest and most understanding woman I ever knew,” said Neville. “She read us Peter Rabbit when we were children, but we got a spanking if we did something wrong. I’ve always felt I got my strength from my father and my compassion from my mother.”

As a child, Aaron was a big fan of radio serials, especially those with a western theme, like Roy Rogers, Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy shows. Not surprisingly, Neville often organized games of cowboys and Indians in the project courtyard.

Early cowboy music left an impression on Neville, but not as deep as the gospel and doo-wop he heard on the radio. Neville lists the Soul Stirrers, the Spaniels, the Drifters and the Orioles among his early influences.

“Doo-wop has always been my medicine and I still listen to it today,” he said. “There was a lot of dumb stuff going on then, and even dumber stuff now, but that kind of music is like a temporary escape from the real world.”

Two other direct influences on Neville were his Uncle Jolly (George Landry), a merchant marine who played blues piano and entertained the family with stories about other parts of the world, and the otherwise obscure Izzacoo Gordon.

“Izzacoo sang background with Huey Smith and the Clowns,” said Neville. “We grew up together. He never really got a chance to step out but he had a beautiful voice, especially for doo-wop. We used to harmonize together a lot.”

Neville made his professional debut with the Avalons, whose first gig was at Lincoln Beach in 1956. He would later sing occasionally with Snooks Eaglin’s group at the Driftwood Lounge. In 1958, Neville’s brother Art joined the navy and Aaron took over his brother’s band, the Hawkettes. With the recently married Aaron at the helm, the Hawkettes were hired by Larry Williams who needed a band to go on the road to promote his hits “Bony Moroni” and “Short Fat Fanny.”

Like his older brothers Charles and Art, Aaron was on the road to a career in music but ran into a temporary roadblock. Neville was arrested for joyriding in a stolen car with some buddies and wound up doing six months in Orleans Parish Prison. During his incarceration he wrote a song about the experience called “Every Day.”

When Neville was released in 1959, Williams took him to Larry McKinley, a deejay who was a surreptitious partner in the newly formed Minit Records label. Minit had hired Allen Toussaint as a producer and had signed up a lot of local talent, including Ernie K-Doe, Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas and Jessie Hill. McKinley and Toussaint were impressed with Neville’s songs, but even more so with his voice.

“He had a voice that sent shivers down your back,” said Toussaint. “Aaron has the voice of an angel. I don’t think there’s a vocalist alive that can match him when it comes to singing ballads.”

February 1999: Funky Four: The Neville Brothers Do Mardi Gras on Valence Street by Scott Jordan

Aaron Neville arguably possesses the most recognizable voice in American music. There’s no disputing his status as one of the 20th century’s greatest balladeers, and his vocal genius just earned him another Grammy nomination, this time for his most recent solo album, To Make Me Who I Am. But while his love songs may have earned him his greatest recognition, Neville’s aficionados also know that he’s always been a master of heat-seeking New Orleans rhythm and blues, singing scalding vocals on his classic 1960s track “Over You” all the way through to his tough turn on “Brother Jake” from the 1989 album Brother’s Keeper. No amount of mainstream success has kept Neville from keeping it real: underneath the beautiful flourishes of the Valence Street ballad “Give Me a Reason” is the tale of a man searching for salvation, in a society that often doesn’t make sense.

“‘Give Me a Reason’ was a song that [producer] Joel Dorn brought to me back when we did Fiyo on the Bayou,” remembers Aaron. “We did it one time, but it didn’t work out. Then I heard it done by the Cate Brothers. That’s how I wanted it, that same feeling … I’m thinking about the people out in the streets, and the kids, and that line, ‘Somebody tell me where I belong / and that’s where I want to be,’ the first time I heard it, it made me cry.”

Aaron believes in the healing power of music and has maintained a strong connection to his gospel influences. He contributed the reggae-ish rearrangement and vocal to Valence Street’s version of the Pete Seeger folk classic “If I Had a Hammer,” eliciting new nuances out of the song’s message. He’s also currently recording a spiritual album on his own and shares his brothers’ views on the importance of their respective solo projects, and the positive effect they have on the Neville Brothers band.

“It’s a way that everybody keeps their individuality, and then we become the Neville Brothers and put it together. It’s like your fingers opening up, and they might be going in separate directions, but when you close ’em up, you’ve got a fist, and we’re going in the same direction.” When the Brothers come together, they have generations of connections that unite them. “We look out for each other,” he says. “I want for them what I want for me. I don’t feel like I’ve made it until they’ve made it. We’ll be on stage and I can look at my brothers and I can see my ancestors that aren’t here anymore. I think they can do the same thing. We’ve got stories we can tell on the bus; we can talk about things from a long time ago, and it’s special, you know?”

September 2003: Backtalk by Bunny Matthews

It has been an honor in my life to know Aaron Neville, one of the greatest singers in the world. We have not always agreed on everything—particularly some of the musical courses he has undertaken.

Nature Boy: The Standards Album, Aaron’s new release on Verve Records, is the sort of masterpiece I was talking about. And since we hadn’t spoken in over 20 years, I jumped at the opportunity to visit Aaron at his beautiful home in the gated Eastover community and offer my personal congratulations. I trusted that Aaron would forgive my previous transgressions.

Aaron, this is a fantastic album. Whose idea was it to do standards?

Well, it was me and my brother Charles. We’d been talking about doing stuff like that for a while. And then Ron Goldstein [president and chief operating officer of the Verve Music Group] came up with the idea after hearing me do “These Foolish Things” on one of my earlier albums. He got in touch with my management and talked about it and thought it would be a great idea.

Did you have input picking the songs out?

Yeah, I picked out a few. “Summertime” is something that me and Charles have been doing for a while. A couple of ’em I used to do a long time ago, back around ’68 or ’69—no, it was earlier than that—at a place called Gloria’s Living Room when “Tell It Like It Is” was out. I used to play there with Willie Tee and I’d do “The Shadow of Your Smile” and “Cry Me A River.” “In The Still of the Night” is one that the Nevilles did on the Cole Porter tribute album [Red Hot & Blue]. [Producer/keyboardist] Rob Mounsey brought “Blame It On My Youth,” “Who Will Buy?” and “Come Rain or Come Shine.” “Our Love Is Here to Stay” is something I’ve been listening to Ella Fitzgerald sing. “Since I Fell For You” is a song Rob Mounsey came up with and it’s a song that my mother used to listen to by Annie Laurie back in the days. And “Danny Boy” was Ron Goldstein’s idea. He heard me singing it with Amasa Miller, I think, one time. He said we had to put that on there. And it’s got Ry Cooder on it so that put the icing on the cake.

What about “Nature Boy”?

My mom and dad were big Nat “King” Cole fans. My dad and my uncle—my mother’s brother [a.k.a. Big Chief Jolly]—were merchant marines. They would go overseas and come back and tell us stories about all the places they went to. I kind of picture them as being “Nature Boys.” It’s like a tribute to them really. I love the song.

I was intrigued by the photo inside the CD of your hand with a jar of honey and a bottle of cayenne pepper. Is that something you use for your throat?

Yeah. I don’t know if it works, or I be psyching myself out. [Laughs]

Have you been using that a long time?

Yeah, I heard Stevie Wonder was doing it one time so I said, “Well, if Stevie can do it, it’s probably alright.” You take hot tea, put a little honey in it and sprinkle a little cayenne in it—not too much ’cause it’ll choke ya. It kind of soothes your throat.

You’ve had problems with your throat in the past, right?

Yeah, I had the beginnings of a nodule at one time and then I had a bruised vocal cord at one time. I’m either on the road with the Nevilles or doing the solo stuff or in a studio and there’s no breaks.

Do you do vocal exercises?

Yeah. I just sing the notes, do the scales and stuff. I started seeing this guy in L.A.—he’s the vocal coach for Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder and Natalie Cole and James Ingram. I just had one session with him so I’ve got to go back and get some more sessions with him, to try to find an easier way to hit notes. I never had any lessons before. If I was doing it right or wrong, I don’t know.

What advice would you give to a young singer?

To try to take some lessons and find out how to exercise your voice and how to hit the notes—to do all the things that I didn’t do. Take care of it—don’t drink and smoke ’cause that hurts your voice. Treat it like it’s a gift from God and you’ll give back to Him with what you do with it.

I think you’re one of the most spiritual people I’ve ever encountered, Aaron. I think you really convey your love of God through your music.

Well, sometimes I be thinking why am I here? There’s some reason God sees fit for me to be here. A lot of my friends just fell by the wayside. Just recently I’ve actually been doing things to preserve myself—like the exercising. I was doing it off and on back in the day but now, I’m getting more religious with it. Trying to eat healthier and drink plenty of water. When I think about all the years I was abusing it … like I say, He saw fit for me to hang around.

What do you do with all your time on the road?

When I’m on the road, it’s like I do the gig, I go to the hotel, turn on the TV, flip channels. I don’t go out nowhere. I don’t venture nowhere on the road. Every once in a while, I might go to a mall if it’s connected to the hotel. Other than that…

No nightlife.

Oh no, no—that’s been over with.

How do you feel about the New Orleans music scene? It’s really burgeoning…

Yeah, yeah. I’m glad to see a lot of the guys getting recognition, like Irvin Mayfield and Wess Anderson and Trombone Shorty and his brother, James Andrews.

What kind of cars do you have now?

I’ve got a black Corvette, a white Lincoln, a green Sequoia. I gave my son the red ’Vette—the one with “Kemo” on it. It stands for “Kemo Sabe.” My son Jason took my Town Car, my daughter took my Land Cruiser. I need to put a lock on the gate! When Ivan’s here, he uses the Sequoia.

Ivan works with the Neville Brothers now.

Yeah, he does stuff on his own, too. His album Saturday Morning Music was just re-released—they’d done it at Bruce Willis’ house. It’s a great album.

How do you feel about hip hop?

Some of it’s cool. I don’t like some of the negative stuff. I think because a lot of kids listen to it, they should be giving ’em a good message. ’Cause some of it’ll burn your ears.

You’ve been a really good role model for New Orleans. I don’t imagine you’ll ever leave.

I leave when the hurricane comes—I have much respect for them. I was here for Betsy and Camille. It never leaves your heart once you witness a hurricane.

Is there a message that you would like to impart to the people of New Orleans?

New Orleans—we’re sitting right here in the middle of Hurricane Alley. I go to St. Jude Church a lot, to the novenas. I remember a couple of times when we had hurricanes coming this way and people were packing the church and would pray and some kind of way, that hurricane would turn off. So, I like to tell the people of New Orleans to keep on praying, to keep our city safe and pray some more to keep down some of the killings. It’s getting ridiculous. We’ve become the murder capital of the world. We’re too nice of a city to be going through that kind of stuff.

Tell us something about St. Jude.

St. Jude is the saint of hopeless, impossible cases. My mama turned me on to him a long time ago. She used to go to the novenas with me and my brothers. She also turned me on to the St. Ann shrine on Ursulines Street, where you go up the steps on your knees. I’ve witnessed a few miracles, so you know. I wear a St. Jude earring in my ear and I tell people about him. [He points to the three bracelets on his left wrist.] This is a one-decade rosary bead, one with the cross, one with a St. Jude medal. St. Jude is special to me.

You seem like a pretty contented man, Aaron.

Yeah, I am. I’m home right now and that’s one of the nice things. I be on the road a lot, steady moving, here, there and somewhere else the next day. It all becomes a blur after a while. When you get home, you can mellow out.

It’s hard eating in hotels. Room service is ridiculous. In the morning, I ask for eggs scrambled. I say, “Like you do at home, you crack ’em over the pan and scramble ’em.” “Oh, yeah—we know how to do that!” The next thing you know, the eggs come all yellow—like powdered eggs! Man! I just wind up eating it rather than sending it back.

What’s your favorite po-boy?

Oyster, from Domilise’s up on Annunciation Street.

What are your other favorite New Orleans foods?

Red beans is my favorite. I don’t know if fried catfish is a New Orleans food but that’s one of my favorites! It’s the river cat I like because you get all the toxins and stuff and that’s what keeps us young, you know—that river water. [Laughter.]

When they called you “Moleface,” that didn’t bother you?

No, I loved it! I thought it was cool!

Everything really does come from New Orleans.

Yeah, that’s what Ernie K-Doe said.

What about New Orleans is so special, Aaron?

I don’t know—I guess it’s my ancestors here and the spirits. It’s the place of my birth and the place that I love. I love, I guess, being below sea level.

November 2004: Interview by Michael Hurtt

Michael Hurtt interviewed Aaron Neville by phone shortly after the Neville Brothers flew to the East Coast for a weekend of concerts and an appearance on NBC’s Today.

In your book, The Brothers Neville, you and your brothers talk about seeing a lot of drugs when you were growing up in New Orleans during the ’50s. Would you say it’s worse today or just different?

Oh, man, it’s so much worse it’s ridiculous. Back then you had junkies but junkies had more dignity than they have now. They’d just go out and hustle and make their money and go buy their dope and that was it. Back in the day I had to go and hunt for it somewhere, but [nowadays] they come out the door and it’s right there. It’s in every neighborhood, on every block.

A lot of them little guys get to the penitentiary and don’t realize until they get there, “Man, you mean this is it, I done messed my life up and this is my existence from now on?” You dig? No more having a date with a girl or going to a dance, you’re a convict for the rest of your life behind them drugs. And now they’ve got these guns. And they’ve got so much on television romancing the gangster life. Everybody wants to be a “G” and half of ’em don’t even know what the hell they’re talkin’ about. You see these little youngsters walkin’ around with their pants hangin’ down, they don’t even know where that come from. That come from the penitentiary; that’s easy access for them boys to grab ’em and pull ’em in a corner somewhere. They got no idea; they just think it’s a cool fashion.

Having struggled with drugs yourself, turning kids away from that lifestyle is obviously a very personal mission for you.

I have compassion for them kids because I know what they’re going through in a way. But when I was back there in the days, it was maybe 50 percent, 60 percent pure at the most; now it’s almost 100 percent pure. So, when a guy gets a jones, it ain’t no monkey, it’s a gorilla.

But I’ve gotta thank the Lord I’m here, man. I’m a miracle. To be here, alive, free, halfway sane. [Laughter.] My patron saint is Saint Jude, the patron saint of hopeless cases. My mama turned me on to him back in the day. I’d  make the novenas and times when I was supposed to be getting locked up he saw my soul and saw that God had something else for me to do. He kept me here for a reason and so that’s another reason I wrote the poetry, to pass on things that I saw in my life and try to see if there was some kind of way I could reach out and grab somebody by the hand and pull ’em away from that—you can’t call it a life—pull ’em away from that hell. It is hell. I’m getting ready to do a spoken word performance from my poetry book, where I have music playing in the background and I speak my poetry.

I always enjoy hearing you talk about how much you love doo-wop music. Have you and your brothers ever thought about doing a doo-wop album?

Well, me and Art have been talking about that and we want to do it just like they done it back then. Doo-wop, that’s my first love. Art had a doo-wop group with Izzicoo [Junior] Gordon and Art and Izzicoo were two of my first inspirations as far as singing. This was when we were growing up in the Calliope projects. It was a brand-new place and it was like paradise to us. We’d play and ride our bicycles, make our own skateboards, we made our own toys. If we was poor, we didn’t know nothin’ about it ’cause we didn’t miss nothin’ we never had. And what we did have was being able to sit out on them park benches at night and sing that harmony and sound like the Spaniels and the Flamingos and the Dominoes. That was worth more than gold. Just like I say, sometimes in my life I didn’t have nothin’ but my voice but I felt rich. Being able to sit down and sing to myself, I’d sing the “Ave Maria,” the “Lord’s Prayer,” to myself and it would make everything alright. But the doo-wop was the start for the Neville Brothers, really.

We had a good life with this music. Music saved us, really. Even through all our adversities we still had this music. When somebody comes up to me and says, “Your voice helped me through such and such an adversity,” all I can tell ’em is, “It’s not me, maybe it’s the God in me touching the God in you.” Since God gave me the voice, that’s him and I don’t take no credit for that.

May 2013: Aaron Neville: One Man’s True Story by John Swenson

The secret to Aaron Neville’s genius has been hiding in plain sight all these years. His perfectly balanced voice, a warm, conversational tenor that modulates effortlessly into an ethereal falsetto or rich bass notes, is a natural gift that has been carefully nurtured by growing up in a family of musicians. But the key to Neville’s voice is that he trained himself to use it as an instrument in emulation of the great vocal R&B groups of the 1950s and ’60s. His older brother Art started out singing on street corners and park benches in the Calliope housing project and Aaron grew up trying to break into that lineup. He formed his own vocal group in school, years before his commercial breakthrough with “Tell It Like It Is.”

Neville flourished as both a member of the Neville Brothers and a solo artist, but health problems began to catch up with him as well as his wife Joel in 2004. After the Nevilles’ Jazz Fest performance that year, Aaron was hospitalized with acute asthma, a condition from which he has never completely recovered. Then Joel was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Miraculously, her cancer went into remission.

But then the tragedy that still clouds recent New Orleans history, the flood following Hurricane Katrina, knocked Aaron literally off his moorings in 2005. His house and all his family possessions were lost. He relocated to Nashville with Joel, but the stress hit her hard in her weakened condition and the cancer returned. In January 2007 Aaron returned to New Orleans for the first time since the storm to bury his wife on their 48th wedding anniversary.

Aaron strolled over from his midtown Manhattan home to the Blue Note offices on Fifth Avenue in the shadow of the Flatiron building for this interview. He was beaming with pride over the official poster for this year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, which bears his likeness. These days the only addiction Aaron is fighting is food as New York’s restaurants offer a challenge to his waistline. “I’m trying to diet,” he says with a laugh. “I’m eating a lot of salads.”

A lot of musicians stay in New Orleans and aren’t well known outside of the city. New Orleans music is so often an end in itself, something that doesn’t aspire to go beyond the borders of the community.

I feel blessed and lucky that I was one of the ones who got known. You know New Orleans could have been like Motown. Art could have been a big solo artist. If he could have done something like “A Mother’s Love” by Earl King with The Meters, you would have got chill bumps. He recorded “All of These Things.” I recorded it a few years later, but it was his song. I was just copying him. Then he did a Lee Dorsey song called “Lover of Love” that was great, he has that natural high voice.

Was your mom more supportive of you playing music?

My dad was supportive. He’d bring us to our gigs. But my mom and my uncle Jolly [George Landry], who was chief of the Wild Tchoupitoulas, they had a chance to go on the road when they were young but my grandmother wouldn’t let them go because of the Jim Crow laws and all that stuff. Because of that my mom said she’d never try to stop one of us from doing what we wanted to do. So Charles went on the road when he was 15 years old with a minstrel show.

I moved to Valence Street when I was 13. Chief Jolly lived there later on right before he died. I used to go out on Mardi Gras day with Chief Jolly. We did some gigs with the Wild Tchoupitoulas, went on the road, but I never wore the full regalia with the band, just wore a headband. I was into the music part of it. But I was always with him, I’d walk with him on Mardi Gras morning, I’d be there with him when he was sewing. I remember the last year he masked. The year before he died. The last year he was alive he had been in the hospital and they wouldn’t let him out of the hospital because he had a fever. Turned out he had lung cancer ‘cause he worked at this place where they made sheet rock. They gave him three months and that was it.

You’ve had to deal with a lot of problems and sadness in your life. But you also were with your childhood sweetheart Joel who became your life partner until she died.

Yes. From 16 to when she died in ’07. I was 66.

How did you meet her?

I was walking down the street. I was with Idris Muhummad, the New Orleans drummer. His name then was Leo Morris. We were walking and he knew her so I said “Introduce me, man.” This was when we were on Valence Street. I fell in love with her right there, I knew that’s who I wanted to be with. I met her in May of ‘57 and we got married in January of ‘59.

You went through some hard times. Going to jail, being addicted to hard drugs.

I don’t have no regrets about nothing or anything I did. Some of the things I’ve done give me compassion for people who’ve gone through it, maybe I can give them some worldly wisdom. I look at it as all the things I did, the world that I come from, has made me who I am. When I’m singing, the good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly, the sweet, the sour, it has all added up to make me who I am. People who are listening to me sing know that I’ve been there and I’ve done that. I hope that can give them some kind of comfort or something.

You were finally able to overcome your addiction in 1981, right?

Yes, I saw a cross on the wall up in Harlem. It was in a shooting gallery. People were tying up their arms and shooting up. I remember it was horrible. The stench … the blood, I was overwhelmed by it all of a sudden. When I first started I was in love with it. Then I found out that this was the devil. So I was praying. My mom had always believed in me, she sent me a St. Jude [the patron saint of lost causes]. So I’m looking at the wall and there’s cracks on the wall and suddenly I realize I’m looking at a cross on the wall, y’know. And I knew right then it was a sign, telling me “Get me out of there.”

When Katrina hit did you know Joel was ill?

She was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2004. The doctor gave her three months to live. But her and my sister started praying to St. Jude. We all prayed, every day. Then she went back for another CAT scan and they didn’t see it no more. So she proved them wrong. She was so strong. I don’t know if I could have taken something like that. She beat it but everything else took its toll. She lived three more years.

So many people were infirm before the Katrina flood and the stress took something out of them. They might not have died in the water, but the stress took them in the next few years.

It knocked the wind out of everything. All of a sudden New Orleans was different. No matter how hardcore you were, no matter how deep into it, you could see all the musicians, you could tell by the look in their eyes they was hurtin’. You might have left the city taking three day’s worth of clothes and thinking you’d be back in the city in three days. I called down to find out what happened to our home. When I heard it was in three feet of water I said, “I don’t want to take anything out of the house. I don’t want nothing.” I left it there to be gutted. I felt violated. I lost all the pictures, tapes of recordings.

Can you describe your feelings after Joel died?

The loss is indescribable. I thought I would never stop crying. I cried all day, every day. I couldn’t sing for crying. My heart was breaking. The last time I had been through something like that was when my Uncle Jolly was in the hospital dying of cancer. It was the hardest time of my life, man.

And then, miraculously, a new love entered your life.

I fell in love again with Sarah. I’m happy I’m alive and moving in the right direction with a new life in New York. It’s nice to feel at home in a different place, you know. She came to New Orleans to photograph the Brothers when we reformed to play the Jazz Fest in ‘08. Something passed between us, an attraction. So, I got her card and I called her later on. I gave her one of our books and said “Here, read this book. Then give me a book report.”

Do you have a bucket list?

No, I don’t think about no bucket list. If I ain’t gonna do it, I ain’t gonna do it. People ask me when I’m going to retire. Don’t even think about it.

September 2016: Aaron Neville Talks Back by Geraldine Wyckoff

The year 2016 represents many milestones for Aaron Neville. The legendary New Orleans vocalist released his 17th album, Apache, which stands as his first product to feature songs primarily coming from his own pen. On January 24, 2016, Neville celebrated his 75th birthday. The year also marks the 50th anniversary of Neville’s first and enduring hit, “Tell It Like It Is.” The song was initially recorded and released in 1966 on his album of the same name. Later, in 1967, it was put out as a single. A bit of trivia here—the musicians on the recording include guitarist Deacon John, baritone saxophonist and cowriter George Davis (along with Lee Diamond), keyboardist Wilson “Willie Tee” Turbinton, trumpeter Emory Thompson and drummer June Gardner.

“Age is a concept made up by man,” Neville says philosophically on reaching his mid-seventies. “So only the Creator knows how old you are. No doubt, everybody on the planet is the same age. It’s up to you to take care of yourself. A lot of people are living longer but they didn’t take care of their bodies. I’m takin’ care of mine.”

People know you’ve been living in Manhattan though word is you also have a place outside of New York City.

Yes, in Pawling, New York—it’s about an hour and a half from the city. I have about 12 acres up there and Sarah [Neville’s wife, photographer Sarah Friedman] is growing everything. We have a couple of cows—one’s name is Ribeye and the other one is Sirloin—and some chickens and two cats. I call the garden Little Angola because it just reminded me of all those rows of vegetables up there [on the penitentiary grounds]. And working out there in the hot sun reminded me of it too. I never spent any time up there [incarcerated in Angola] but I’ve been up there a bunch of times playing music for the prisoners. Part of the garden is named Lagniappe. We thought we might help some people up here by giving some vegetables away.

Apache is the title of your new album, and word is, it’s your nickname. There’s also a photo on the disc’s inside cover of the name tattooed across your back. Why did people call you Apache?

When I was a teenager we used to play football out in the streets in the hot sun and my skin would turn red. They started calling me redskin, and Red Apache and Apache Red. I used to have a license plate with Apache. People that know me still call me that. My dad used Brillo on the tattoo—the skin came off but the tattoo didn’t.

You mention the Mardi Gras Indians—the Wild Tchoupitoulas and the Creole Wild West—in “Stompin Ground.” Did you ever mask Indian?

I used to be one of the Wild Tchoupitoulas, but I was like a renegade. I didn’t put on a whole suit—just a feather in my head. I went to some of the Indian practices and played tambourine. I didn’t do that much. Cyril and Charles followed the Indians.

I used to hang out with Scarface John. He was the chief of the Apache Hunters. That’s who they sing about in “Brother John (Is Gone).” That’s why I say in “Stompin Ground”: “Hung with Mac Rebennack and Scarface John. Hung in the Dew Drop, all night long.” I performed at the Dew Drop too. [John “Scarface” Williams was also a member of Huey Piano Smith’s backup vocal group, the Clowns, and led his own band, the Tick Tocks.]

When I was growing up in the Calliope projects and we’d be playing marbles or playing ball we’d hear a brass band going and we’d just follow the music of the second-line parade. On Mardi Gras you’d listen for the tambourines and follow that. That was back in the days when they were really fighting.

You are renowned for your falsetto. Can you yodel too? Yodeling is different as it involves rapid changes of pitch.

You have your talking voice and then you go to [your upper register for] falsetto. I learned to yodel from going to the movies and seeing [singing cowboys] Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and all of those guys. I started when I was about 10 years old when I could go to the movies by myself. I yodeled on the “The Grand Tour.” I also did a tribute to Jimmie Rodgers with different artists [on the album] and I sang his song, “Why Should I Be Lonely?” and I yodeled on the end of that one.

Do you miss New Orleans?

New Orleans raised me. It molded me. It’s who I am. I’m glad I grew up there and I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else. It’s great because of the richness of the culture, music and the food.

I miss New Orleans, yeah. My kids are down there and Art and Cyril and my sister Athelgra are there. Things happen, my life ended with Joel [his first wife]—I buried her on our 46th wedding anniversary. So, when I go down there, there are a lot of memories.

April 2017: Aaron Neville: From the Calliope to the Farm by Geraldine Wyckoff

Environmentally and culturally, New Orleans’ Calliope housing projects stood a long way from a 12-acre farm in New York state. From the age of one until 13 Aaron Neville lived with his family in the projects. He’s now 76 and  resides in Pawling, New York. He speaks glowingly of both locales. Each, in their time, became havens that provided just what was needed for happiness.

“The Calliope was like an oasis to us,” remembers Neville, a multiple Grammy–winning, legendary vocalist who will lead his quintet at the French Quarter Festival on Thursday, April 6. “It was our town, our village—that was our world.”

The Calliope, and thus the Nevilles’ apartment, was also a hotbed of musicians. Many of them, like Aaron and his brothers, Art, 79, Charles, 78, and Cyril, 68, would go on to enjoy successful musical careers.

“Art was my first inspiration of all time,” Aaron declares. “He was a singer. He had a doo-wop group in the Calliope. They would go around and win all the contests and get all the girls. I used to go up and try to sing with them and they’d say, ‘Get away from me, kid.’ One day one of the singers, he used to call me Kevin for some reason, said, ‘Hey Kevin, come here and hit this note.’ And I came and hit the note and it was on then. They showed me how to do the harmonies and all that.”

“In the early days, we had a doo-wop group together with Aaron, Art and some other guys in the neighborhood,” recalls saxophonist Charles Neville, who presently performs with Aaron’s quintet and is heard on his brother’s latest album, Apache. “There were certain artists that he listened to like Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters and Sam Cooke and the lead singer of the Orioles. For a while he would sing Larry Williams [of “Bony Moronie” and “Short Fat Fannie” fame].

“At first he was copying the styles of those guys but his voice was unique, it was his. What developed was not any one of those things but a kind of compilation of the different styles—but he didn’t sound like anybody else. He could sing like other people if he wanted to but his singing was just him.”

“For a long time in my life, Aaron was my idol,” says youngest brother Cyril. “Other kids had movie stars as idols, I had them in real life. Aaron, me and my sister Athelgra, we would be in our kitchen [on Valence Street] practicing harmonies. The influences are all over the place starting with Art who, I imagine, influenced Aaron. The cats that Aaron introduced me to like “Scarface” John also have a lot of to do with how I perform on stage.”

Aaron, who never had any music instruction inside or outside a classroom, credits his Uncle Jolly for him picking up both the tambourine and piano.

“Before we were born, him and my mom were a song-and-dance team,” Aaron explains. “They were the best dancers—lindy hoppers—in New Orleans. They were offered to go on tour with [bandleader] Louis Prima but my grandmother wouldn’t let them go because she was afraid they wouldn’t be treated right because of the Jim Crow laws. My mother said she would never stop any of us from doing anything we wanted to do and let Charles go on the road when he was just 15.”

“The cowbells and tambourines, all that came from Jolly,” Cyril agrees. “He didn’t go nowhere without a tambourine and didn’t knock on a door; he banged that tambourine.”

That brings us to Apache, Aaron’s nickname since childhood, the name that’s tattooed across his broad back, the title of his latest album and perhaps, most importantly to Aaron right now, the moniker of his constant companion—his often-photographed little Shih Tzu-Pomeranian dog. According to Charles, who lives in a wooded area in Massachusetts, Apache has even gone on some tours. “Aaron’s always posting pictures and videos of Apache on Facebook,” Charles says with a laugh.

“When I was a teenager, we used to play football out in the streets in the hot sun and my skin would turn red,” says Aaron when explaining his nickname. “They started calling me redskin, and Red Apache and Apache Red, and shortened it to Apache. I used to have a license plate with Apache on it. People that know me still call me that.”

Aaron is also renowned for his muscular physique, which, he says, was always just how he was. “People always thought I worked out because my body was already built,” he says. He first experimented with weightlifting at age 13 when his brother Charles got into it. “So they’d be asking me how much I was benching. I’d say, ‘I ain’t benching nothin’.’ The first time I actually started going to the gym was in the 1960s. Once I started, it was like, ‘Oh yeah.’ I just liked it. I liked to be in shape.”

“In jail you do a lot of push-ups and whatever,” adds Aaron, who, when he was 18, spent six months in prison for auto theft. “Me and my boys would steal cars and take a joyride in ’em. They were so easy to take it was ridiculous. That was all part of me growing up—I’m still growing up. The guys I was hangin’ with, if you had a dare, you were going to take that dare.”

It was in the late 1950s and early 1960s when Aaron began writing poems, many of which would later become lyrics to songs. “If something was bothering me, I’d write about it and it would make it alright,” he remembers. “So I started doing that and through the years I had a paper bag full of poems. I didn’t really think they were worth anything.”

The first 45 that Aaron recorded with Allen Toussaint, “Every Day,” is a beautiful song that remains much in demanded within his repertoire. He wrote the lyrics while incarcerated in Orleans Parish Prison. Toussaint wrote the flip side, the equally popular “Over You.” Aaron recalls that the Del Royals, a favorite of his whose members also came from the Calliope, were in the studio that day recording a song he really wanted to do, the solid “Who Will Be the One.” One listen to that tune, released on the Minit label, makes it clear that it is right up Aaron’s doo-wop alley.

“‘Yellow Moon’ was a poem that I wrote on me and Joel’s 25th anniversary,” Aaron recalls. “She had a chance to go on a cruise with her sisters and while she was gone and the moon was sitting up there one night it inspired me to write ‘Yellow Moon.’ I can’t plan to write. I’ll wake up and I just put it [a poem] on my iPhone. I don’t write with pencil and paper anymore. Sometimes, I wonder if I can still write. I can sign my autograph and sign a check but uh…”

Aaron says that he would sometimes bring his poems to the studio with perhaps a rhythm in mind but not a set melody “to see if anybody liked them.” “[Record producer] Daniel Lanois liked ‘Yellow Moon’ and ‘Voodoo,’” he remembers. “He was the type of guy who wasn’t trying to create anything, he just wanted to use what was there. Between us and the musicians, we got the groove on.”

Life and times change. The road, which the Neville Brothers often traveled, can become difficult and tiresome. Health considerations become a factor in decisions concerning where and how to live, and love and marriage enter into the equation. Aaron and each of the Neville brothers remembers their past glories as both a group and family while they continue to explore and enjoy their individual lives and musical pursuits.

“One thing about being on stage with my brothers,” Aaron says thoughtfully, “is that I could look around and look at each one of them and see some of our ancestors in them—our mother and father and Jolly in their faces.”