Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Aaron Neville,
Speaker 1: who's got a brand new autobiography. Tell it like it is, Aaron,
Speaker 1: Why a book? Why now say liked?
Speaker 2: And why not? Well, I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 2: many more? Yes, I figured I just do it while
Speaker 2: I'm still got on my mind. Some of my mind anyway,
Speaker 2: you know, was left of it.
Speaker 1: So how did you actually write the book?
Speaker 2: With a wonderful writer, her name is Beth Edelman, and
Speaker 2: she told me the first things that I want this
Speaker 2: book in your voice. And that's what he did. He
Speaker 2: put it in my voice.
Speaker 1: But absolutely seems that way. Okay, a couple of things.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a number of things in your book. You
Speaker 1: say you're retired. Tell me about being retired.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm retired. Uh. When the COVID pandemic came in
Speaker 2: two thousand and maybe twenty, Uh, I was supposed to
Speaker 2: go to California and Sarah to him and she don't
Speaker 2: think I should be on the airplane six hours and
Speaker 2: with you know, with this thing going around, because they
Speaker 2: were taking people and taking the temperature and if they
Speaker 2: had a fever or something. They put them in quarantine
Speaker 2: and some of them wind up dying by theyself somewhere,
Speaker 2: and I just, you know, I'm glad she decided me
Speaker 2: not to go. And through the years I've and I've
Speaker 2: been doing a little singing, but I have asthma, and
Speaker 2: I don't have the breadth to you know, hit the
Speaker 2: notes like I used to, Just like Lynda Rond says,
Speaker 2: say she didn't want to cheat the people. You know,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to go out there and old though
Speaker 2: he don't sound you know, you know I got records.
Speaker 2: You know that's thinking to hear all they wanted me
Speaker 2: on the record. I still call them records.
Speaker 1: I do too. Okay, Uh do you miss it?
Speaker 2: You know, in a little I don't miss none of
Speaker 2: the traveling and hotels and buses and all that special airports.
Speaker 2: I call that airport agony, especially what's going on right now.
Speaker 2: But people are just getting stuck in airports for a week.
Speaker 2: And I've had that done that. You know, your your
Speaker 2: flight has been canceled and we don't know where your
Speaker 2: luggage is.
Speaker 1: Okay, you grew up in New Orleans, but you're living
Speaker 1: up in New York State on a farm. That's really different.
Speaker 1: What's it like?
Speaker 2: It's great, it's mondful. I mean this place they have
Speaker 2: is so beautiful, and it's like I call it in
Speaker 2: Shanton Forest because we have all kinds of animals, bad deer,
Speaker 2: we have fox, we have rabbits, we have all kinds
Speaker 2: of birds and and it's just peaceful, you know. So
Speaker 2: like we kind of cut back on the farm. But
Speaker 2: Sarah's still making the air and level. He looks her.
Speaker 2: She mixed with a tumor of ginger, cayenne, honey and
Speaker 2: lemon and what else the upple side of vinegar and
Speaker 2: something I drink every day.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's keeping in good health. So, but living in
Speaker 1: the city and living in the country is different. Do
Speaker 1: you have friends you see in the country. Are you
Speaker 1: more of a loner or you a social kind of guy?
Speaker 1: What kind of guy are you?
Speaker 2: I have three cats, a dog, me and Sarah, you know, so, hey,
Speaker 2: I see the male man. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: get out sometimes. It took a ride, Yester, gone for
Speaker 2: like a few hours, get to see people. But that's
Speaker 2: that's the enough for right now. With all the stuff
Speaker 2: going on as well.
Speaker 1: And you talk in the book about staying in contact
Speaker 1: with some people by the phone. So in phone or
Speaker 1: in email, you staying in contact with people, how much
Speaker 1: you're talking connecting.
Speaker 2: I have a couple of few friends, like Morvin. He
Speaker 2: and I grew up together. He's in the book. We've
Speaker 2: done some stuff together. We talk about uh pity Pat
Speaker 2: talk to him every day. He's got cancer and so
Speaker 2: I try to, you know, help him field have a
Speaker 2: feel good day, you know. And my keyboard player, Mike Goods,
Speaker 2: we talk every day, and I talk to my kids.
Speaker 1: And how about email? Do you use the computer?
Speaker 2: Nah? Not really. I mean I can send the email
Speaker 2: on my phone, you know, the computer. I'm not computer
Speaker 2: sad at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, most of the book is about you growing up
Speaker 1: and all the bad activities and all the trouble you
Speaker 1: got in. Was that conscious? You wanted to lay that
Speaker 1: out that there's much more of that than your music career.
Speaker 2: The thing about it, I couldn't have, you know, done
Speaker 2: the book. What I'm telling it all, you know, I'm telling
Speaker 2: it like it is and like it was, and that's
Speaker 2: how it was back in those days. I was stuck
Speaker 2: and stupid a lot of times, you know.
Speaker 1: So tell me what it was like, you know, New
Speaker 1: Orleans has a different legal system a lot of people
Speaker 1: in what way, since you've traveled the world, is New
Speaker 1: Orleans different from the rest of the country and the
Speaker 1: rest of the world.
Speaker 2: New Orleans is like my brother Sarah says, that an
Speaker 2: island that's stuck onto the United States because it's a
Speaker 2: mixture of all kinds of different cultures. You know. They
Speaker 2: have a Caribbean, trans Italian, Kish, and Creole, you name it,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, you your bond with music. All
Speaker 2: through your life there's music, and you're gonna die with music.
Speaker 2: With the second line, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Okay, So, uh, tell me about your family growing up.
Speaker 1: So when what did your parents do for a living.
Speaker 2: Well, my dad when we were kids, him and my
Speaker 2: uncle Jolly was my mother's brother, George Landry. They were
Speaker 2: merchant marines. They would go out on the on the ships.
Speaker 2: A couple of times they got shot at me. One
Speaker 2: time they almost the ship almost got sunk. And then
Speaker 2: when when he was home, he he was a cab driver.
Speaker 2: He worked in a furnished, a moving place. They worked
Speaker 2: at a car place. They worked, he worked at the
Speaker 2: boys home. He was he was a he was a trooper,
Speaker 2: you know, and my mother. She took care of us
Speaker 2: while they were gone, and she uh went to beauty
Speaker 2: school while we went the project. Then she went to
Speaker 2: nursing school so she could fix her hair and help
Speaker 2: people in the hospital.
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family, Well, there.
Speaker 2: Was six of us. There was Aunt Charles, me, Myla,
Speaker 2: my brother Cyril, and our younger sister cook It she
Speaker 2: died in nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: And you know, if your father's out on the boat
Speaker 1: and your mother's there and there's all those kids, how
Speaker 1: much supervision was there or could you do whatever you wanted?
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't that. It is a respecting you know.
Speaker 2: My mom was the greatest. Well we would as she
Speaker 2: would have us. Well, first it was just met Charles,
Speaker 2: and when I was three years old, my sister came
Speaker 2: and Syly didn come till about seven years later. So,
Speaker 2: but my mom used to be on the floor with us,
Speaker 2: playing games and telling reading stories and whatever my mom
Speaker 2: should have done, she did it. You know. She always
Speaker 2: had a smile on her face and uh always made
Speaker 2: hers still good, you know.
Speaker 1: And were you a good student? Bad student?
Speaker 2: I was a good student, But think about it, I
Speaker 2: always had a song in my head, you know. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if the teachers thought, the nuns thought
Speaker 2: I had had the deal whatever. A lot of times
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, got a song going in my head.
Speaker 1: So tell me more about you know where this was
Speaker 1: there music in the house and you started to sing along.
Speaker 1: How did you ultimately get interested in music admitting by
Speaker 1: the music bug?
Speaker 2: Well, my mother and father were big nactin cole Fans.
Speaker 2: They had all his records and h Charles Brown and
Speaker 2: Louis Jordan, uh Dinah Washington and and before we were born,
Speaker 2: my mother and her brother Jolly was song and dance team.
Speaker 2: I mean they were the best dancers in the Organs
Speaker 2: and they had a chance to go out on the
Speaker 2: road with Louis Prima. My grandmother wouldn't let him go
Speaker 2: because of the Jim Crow laws. They say they wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been treated to night right, you know. So my
Speaker 2: mother said that she would never stop any of us
Speaker 2: from our you know dream, So she let Charles go
Speaker 2: out when he was fifteen. She signed for me to
Speaker 2: play in the French quarters when I was fifteen with
Speaker 2: a whole blind band, and they used to put on
Speaker 2: the show sometimes and I host in the project. The
Speaker 2: jolly would throw my mom over his back and between
Speaker 2: his legs, and Lindy happened all that, you know, and
Speaker 2: she taught us how to dance.
Speaker 1: Okay, when did you realize you could sing?
Speaker 2: Uh? My brother Ought said, when I was a kid
Speaker 2: in the in the crib by just staying fell asleep.
Speaker 2: So I guess I was trying then. But I used
Speaker 2: to mimic nating cool and I used to sing. I
Speaker 2: went to the movies. I was about eleven, something like that.
Speaker 2: I sang mona Lisa, pretend none of that songs. And
Speaker 2: he let me in, give me candy and all. And
Speaker 2: my brother Or had a do wop group. They would
Speaker 2: sit out on the park bench in the evening and harmonized,
Speaker 2: and they would go around and win the talent shows
Speaker 2: and get the girls and all, you know. And I
Speaker 2: used to run up to them and they'd run me away,
Speaker 2: get away to me my kids. You know. I just
Speaker 2: I was persistent. I kept on. He was odd. A
Speaker 2: guy named issacle Garden we called him easy cool. And
Speaker 2: a dude named Turk. And finally Isaul said, hey, Kevin.
Speaker 2: He called me Kevin. I don't know why, but I
Speaker 2: didn't care just love. He said, you hit this note,
Speaker 2: and he showed me the note. Then before you know it,
Speaker 2: they were showing me all the notes how to do
Speaker 2: the harmonies, which I had later on with the Mickey
Speaker 2: Mouse Morse. I'm doing all the background, but doctor John
Speaker 2: is playing the keyboard, Rob Watson and starg Us, I'm
Speaker 2: doing all the background. Uh, the thether Brothers, Uh, Bird
Speaker 2: on the wire. I'm doing all the background and from
Speaker 2: them teaching me.
Speaker 1: Okay, And at what point did you say, I want
Speaker 1: to make it this, I want this to be a career.
Speaker 2: I didn't know about a career and all that, but
Speaker 2: all I knew I wanted to sing. You know. I'd
Speaker 2: go to the movies and I look at the the
Speaker 2: Cowboys and I'd come out at the moving back in
Speaker 2: the project and I'd be yodling, and you know, had
Speaker 2: a mopstick named Pimo Sabi because my host and uh
Speaker 2: it was just and my brother Ought worked at a
Speaker 2: record shop and he used to bring along all of
Speaker 2: the records. But like the Clovers and Over the Sunny Tilon,
Speaker 2: the Oreos, the Hawk Tom's and different groups. Climac Fatter
Speaker 2: Clid mcfatter was one of my favorite inspirations. H besides
Speaker 2: nakink cold because Clyde had that high tenor, you know,
Speaker 2: and my brother Aught had had a real high tenor,
Speaker 2: like a strong high tenor. But I don't think they
Speaker 2: ever gave his voice the right you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, what was it like growing up in the projects?
Speaker 2: Man? It was like paradise back then. You know. It
Speaker 2: was like a village. You know, everybody knew everybody. And
Speaker 2: we had a big oval playground but concrete that went around.
Speaker 2: We could state on or ride a bicycle. We played football,
Speaker 2: We played at marbles and spinning tops and kites all
Speaker 2: in that in that space, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: it was just a great place.
Speaker 1: And you talk about football, were you a sportsman.
Speaker 2: Back in the days? Then I got to be a
Speaker 2: teenage I played sandlot football, you know, on the leveo,
Speaker 2: on the medium, on the neutral ground.
Speaker 1: Okay. You talk about hearing about heroin and wanting to
Speaker 1: try it, you know, I was growing up they had
Speaker 1: all these TV shows saying not to try it. So
Speaker 1: what was it like? And tell me about that experience.
Speaker 2: I heard all that, but not to try it. But
Speaker 2: I mean something inside of me was inquisitive, you know,
Speaker 2: I was inquisitive. You I'm fella. As soon as I
Speaker 2: got to be of age and I saw somebody else
Speaker 2: doing it, I said, hey, man, hook me up, you know.
Speaker 2: And it happened to be my brother with his gug Bob,
Speaker 2: and uh so I was playing music on the weekends,
Speaker 2: making you know, twenty dollars a night or whatever. That
Speaker 2: was big money back then. So I come to him
Speaker 2: and told him that I want to school, you know.
Speaker 2: So he got it and he taught me out of
Speaker 2: the first time. No, you you shouldn't do this, Okay,
Speaker 2: I ain't gonna do it next time. Next day, I said,
Speaker 2: didn't some more? I want to get some more and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do it. And I did it. And it
Speaker 2: was on that.
Speaker 1: And so you did it? How did you do it?
Speaker 1: Did you snort? Did you pop? Do you inject?
Speaker 2: Uh? Charles's girlfriend, Bob. She tied me up and caught
Speaker 2: me with the you know, my band. She said, oh,
Speaker 2: you got a million dollar bands. I hadn't never done
Speaker 2: that until, you know, there was a million dollar bands then,
Speaker 2: and uh hey, I fell in love with it. And
Speaker 2: it wasn't in love with me though, you know, And
Speaker 2: it didn't kill me that until late on.
Speaker 1: So it lived up to your thoughts of what it
Speaker 1: was going to be. Oh yeah, but many people say,
Speaker 1: like with any drug, you know it's good at first,
Speaker 1: and then you're always chasing that initial hide. It never
Speaker 1: lives up to it.
Speaker 2: That's what it called chased, the chasing the dragon, because
Speaker 2: you're looking for that first hit. You never get that
Speaker 2: in i' montell yo, d.
Speaker 1: So, okay, you have this girlfriend Joelle, but her family
Speaker 1: doesn't like you, so tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like this also when I was sixteen, I
Speaker 2: got this tattoo in my face. On my sixteenth birthday,
Speaker 2: I had been down in the night walk. My boy
Speaker 2: Melvin had just moved on the night once, so I
Speaker 2: went and the night wab was like, you know, a
Speaker 2: rough area because the guy back down there used to say,
Speaker 2: I'm from the nine and I don't mind dying. All
Speaker 2: kind of stupid ship like that. And uh so I
Speaker 2: had Melvin's uncle's pistol, wasn't it And we took taking
Speaker 2: goofballs and all the you know, abitious And I'm down
Speaker 2: in the Sweet Sweet shop looking at the recast record
Speaker 2: box and couldn't hold of sea and they have my
Speaker 2: hands in my pocket and I felt some hands on
Speaker 2: my shoulder turn me around. I thought it was Melvin,
Speaker 2: go introduce me to somebody, and this big tall guy
Speaker 2: turned me around and punched me out and knocked me
Speaker 2: back up against the recast box and I run my
Speaker 2: tongue across my teeth and he cracked my teeth, and
Speaker 2: that was the most. I didn't care about getting punched,
Speaker 2: but he cracked my teeth, and I come up and
Speaker 2: I shot him, and uh Me and Melvin left out
Speaker 2: the joint h and ran because I mean we were scared.
Speaker 2: I didn't want hill him, you know, But then we
Speaker 2: found out that he wasn't dead. And anyway said about
Speaker 2: my my wife's people. I had a tattoo. I had
Speaker 2: to get gold teeth in my mouth from that punch.
Speaker 2: You know, I had gold teeth. My hair was processed
Speaker 2: be call of the counk. So I looking at him,
Speaker 2: and I can I blame mister Rufe and I want
Speaker 2: me to come around his daughter, you know.
Speaker 1: So how did you convince them that you were okay?
Speaker 2: Because she let him know that she wanted to be
Speaker 2: with me, So you know, I'd go up there and
Speaker 2: sit on the sofa sometime, and I play a piano
Speaker 2: or whatever. When my dad would come home, he used
Speaker 2: to wait for his sister watching her ballroom, so he
Speaker 2: had to spoti five come on arm in the newspaper
Speaker 2: on the other arm, and he come in and said, hey,
Speaker 2: mister Route, and he said, all right, groll and he
Speaker 2: spanks up from being with me. But she, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I guess it was a bad boy
Speaker 2: in me. Whatever she liked, you know, well, we loved
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step. Tell us more about
Speaker 1: the dagger tattoo on your face.
Speaker 2: Well, back in the projects at cross right here or
Speaker 2: something or something here, one guy at a scull and cross.
Speaker 2: This is almost a scull and crossbond. I'm glad it wasn't,
Speaker 2: because my daddy would have commit murdered. So with this,
Speaker 2: he made me scrubbed with drill opad and out the
Speaker 2: consult and I look at him not and I have
Speaker 2: no idea why i'd done that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're telling me at the time to have
Speaker 1: a face tattoo was not that uncommon where you were living.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, And then as you continue to live your life
Speaker 1: to what the greeded people comment about that tattoo word
Speaker 1: judge you on that tattoo.
Speaker 2: Oh, they had all kinds of rumors out Bet. Later
Speaker 2: on they said, oh, that tatoos stopped even going on
Speaker 2: American Bandstand. I never was s gedully going on to
Speaker 2: American bands dance that I was just a rumor and
Speaker 2: when I go on showed they put makeup on him
Speaker 2: to cover it up or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: You also make the point about the spot above your
Speaker 1: eye that your mother said that the doctor said that
Speaker 1: he could have it removed, but you said, it's like
Speaker 1: one of the greatest She said no, and you said,
Speaker 1: that's one of the best things that's ever you know,
Speaker 1: been about you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad she didn't get it taken off. You know.
Speaker 2: It's like it's me And like when the guys used
Speaker 2: to call me in Melvin moble Face, and Melvin he
Speaker 2: thought I didn't they were dissing me. I said, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: mobile Face. You know after that, I used to say
Speaker 2: when I got to be friends. But some of the
Speaker 2: wrestlers bet Bet, the hit Man, Heart, Cactus Jack, h
Speaker 2: a bunch of them. I used to stay if I
Speaker 2: was gonna be in the wrestler that my Monica would
Speaker 2: be mole faith.
Speaker 1: But little kids or you know, can be really mean.
Speaker 1: When you were a little kid, did people bother you
Speaker 1: about the mool.
Speaker 2: No, not really No. I think it was something God
Speaker 2: put there for a reason. You know. It was like
Speaker 2: a beacon, you know, is the respect.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're growing up, you're growing in the projects.
Speaker 1: Did you feel what was the vibe in the world
Speaker 1: you were living in that you could break out and
Speaker 1: become rich and famous? Or it was about everyday life
Speaker 1: and just be happy where you are.
Speaker 2: Every day life, be happy like you. Oh, I know
Speaker 2: nothing about no riches than anything like that. Then they
Speaker 2: didn't cross my mind back in the project. Oh I
Speaker 2: was rich if I had a fact full of marbles,
Speaker 2: you know, and some candidate. I'm cool because like one
Speaker 2: of my first jobs at Saint Monica's Catholic School was
Speaker 2: cleaning the boys in the girl's bathroom and not keeping
Speaker 2: it with enough money to buy marbles and candid.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, Joe Well gets pregnant, you get married, you drop
Speaker 1: out of school. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we had went to the this movie. She
Speaker 2: told her mama was going to the movie, and uh,
Speaker 2: and people always bragging about how many girls didn't had
Speaker 2: and all that. Joy was the first girl I ever went,
Speaker 2: you know. But she told her mama was going to
Speaker 2: see a movie called Vera Cruz. And she got pregnant
Speaker 2: then and we went back in the Mama said, well,
Speaker 2: what the movie was about? He said, oh, very was cruising.
Speaker 2: Mom looked at a relations crazy but uh. And then
Speaker 2: nine months later, I haven't came up, but they turned it.
Speaker 2: He was there and then they turned him.
Speaker 1: And I, okay, what are her parents say when it
Speaker 1: turns out that Joel is pregnant.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but this it didn't say nothing to me.
Speaker 2: They probably said they wanted to rather beat her. I
Speaker 2: don't know her dad was, you know, because he's a
Speaker 2: rough character.
Speaker 1: But okay, so to what degree are you freaked out?
Speaker 1: You're student teeth.
Speaker 2: I'm not a freaking I love Joe and I wanted
Speaker 2: to marry. I tell my mom I wanted to marry
Speaker 2: because he got married on January the tenth, and the
Speaker 2: ship my mom assigned for me, I didn't make eighteen
Speaker 2: till January twenty fourth. I couldn't wait that long. I
Speaker 2: wanted to, you know, and Joe's parents didn't come to
Speaker 2: the wedding, and my friend Marvin Melvin was in penitentia,
Speaker 2: so Marvin was my best man, and uh, I think
Speaker 2: her friend and the army was up, made a made
Speaker 2: a minor whatever, and my parents were.
Speaker 1: At And that's when you dropped out of high school.
Speaker 1: And so how did you provide for the family.
Speaker 2: Well, I was working night it jobs like uh at
Speaker 2: one time, helping to build pre prefabricated houses. Uh. Me
Speaker 2: and my friend Varne and we started painting together, and
Speaker 2: uh later on I started working on the riverfront. But
Speaker 2: that was about later on, unloading cargo ships on the ducks.
Speaker 1: Okay, so Aaron is born, you get arrested, and the
Speaker 1: family changes his name to Ivan, right, tell us about
Speaker 1: getting arrested.
Speaker 2: Well, me and Marvin stagged league little Red and and
Speaker 2: Charles and a guy named Robert who was planning on
Speaker 2: going to this picnic that Joe's school was giving up
Speaker 2: and beat the spring Louisiana and uh so me and
Speaker 2: Marvin said we're gonna get a call to go out there,
Speaker 2: and Robert Blason, I'm gonna help my daddy called and
Speaker 2: so sure enough he came up and had his daddy's car,
Speaker 2: as we thought anyway, but me and Marvin had got
Speaker 2: one that night before and stashed it. So we all
Speaker 2: run up to the picnic and the whole while he's saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call after calling a A motors. Something happened
Speaker 2: be wrong my daddy call. He's gonna be mad because
Speaker 2: I was supposed to go and look for a job
Speaker 2: and blah blah. He's putting it in our heads, you know.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, something happened to the car, and me and
Speaker 2: Marvin have got in the ford and uh drove to
Speaker 2: driving to the fellow station and see if and get
Speaker 2: something to fix the chiproleet. And while we driving, some
Speaker 2: friends about passing the car, and Marma said catching, and
Speaker 2: I stepped on the gas and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: I looked up there and stopped that intersection and I
Speaker 2: hit break the brakes forward, I said, break the stuff,
Speaker 2: and we hit him and knock him by half a block.
Speaker 2: Then we told him said, look, uh, don't call the police.
Speaker 2: Were straighten up. We'll straighten up and we get back in.
Speaker 2: We could straighten up and anything, you know. So anyway,
Speaker 2: we made our story. We won't in the food was
Speaker 2: in the shiverlet and we walked down the highway and
Speaker 2: hit him. The police said, was all in that foot. No,
Speaker 2: we went in and Shivelet come to see by getting
Speaker 2: something to fix it. They left. They come back then,
Speaker 2: the two of them in the covered shotgun tot y'all
Speaker 2: say you're one in that damn car. Now we want
Speaker 2: to carkis to in this card. It brought us in
Speaker 2: the car, brought us a little jail house and uh
Speaker 2: so we still to our store. We want in the
Speaker 2: fobs and shiverlet police come here. You the driver. Driver,
Speaker 2: I'm I don't even have no driver less, he said,
Speaker 2: come out of there. I'm sitting in the car and
Speaker 2: the front seat he hit, hitting a little slapjack in
Speaker 2: his hand like that. And now I reme much you
Speaker 2: going on tell me the truth? I said, I didn't
Speaker 2: tell you the truth of it. And here on the radio,
Speaker 2: come on the Ford Bostos and solah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: the chepher that said, no, did you note that's Robert
Speaker 2: he's knowing no robber Blue did it? Cause I said,
Speaker 2: I told you, And suppose of them damn call us out.
Speaker 2: So that's how that went.
Speaker 1: Down, And how long Were you in jail that time?
Speaker 2: Six months?
Speaker 1: So now you talk about the state prison in Gola,
Speaker 1: it's being pretty rough. Were you in Angola at that point?
Speaker 2: No, I was in the New Orleans Spanish prison, and
Speaker 2: I looked like I was trying to get the Angola,
Speaker 2: but I never made it. My brother Charles did almost
Speaker 2: four years in Angola for two marijuana cigarettes. So, uh,
Speaker 2: the guy I did say, I'd be glad to start
Speaker 2: giving you all ten years of stealing the people. Cause
Speaker 2: so no, I went past prison.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what was it like being in prison?
Speaker 2: It was It was kind of fun. Really. The first
Speaker 2: night I was in there, I had a dream that
Speaker 2: I had broke out and I was having fun all
Speaker 2: around the Orleans and all of a sudden I had
Speaker 2: to get back in or something bad is gonna happen,
Speaker 2: and I'm trying every kind of way at them. I
Speaker 2: couldn't get back in. On open my eyes and saw
Speaker 2: the balls. I said, that was crazy. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: had had some assholes, and then some time that did
Speaker 2: be fighting over stuff like looking at the television at
Speaker 2: the Mickey Mouse Club. Uh, and and that show us
Speaker 2: my girl I was here before you. That's getting a
Speaker 2: fight about and that when they sell.
Speaker 1: It, so we hear you know all about prisons with
Speaker 1: fights and gangs and arguing over stuff. Was that your experience?
Speaker 2: No, that wasn't all. That wasn't like that all they had,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the tears was like stupid dead
Speaker 2: one tail called X. And then at one time they
Speaker 2: was calling it the house a shop because they had
Speaker 2: this guy in the urban Stell the stand and Crabby.
Speaker 2: There were two assholes. I mean they would they would
Speaker 2: be down there beating up dudes and they wound up
Speaker 2: going to penitentia doing the same ship. And uh I
Speaker 2: when I first went in, I got a reds of
Speaker 2: blad and I melted it down in a toothbrush to
Speaker 2: make a shame, which I never had to use. I'm glad.
Speaker 2: And we did a lot of singing. You know, everybody
Speaker 2: go to jail, they think they can sing. So you
Speaker 2: know they saw singing spirituals that they get the holy
Speaker 2: goes to ooh Lord here mercy.
Speaker 1: Okay, what does Joel say when you get arrested?
Speaker 2: Well, Christian say, I mean I'm going to jail.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's when they changed I have a name to from
Speaker 2: into having and it.
Speaker 1: You know, you make a big point about that in
Speaker 1: the book. Are you still pissed about it?
Speaker 2: No? No, I mean no, I got my understanding is
Speaker 2: way better than it was back then, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay. Another thing which you referenced in your story with
Speaker 1: a Ford and Chevrolet, is it you guys were stealing
Speaker 1: cars on a regular basis.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. It made it so easy. All
Speaker 2: you needed was sel a papery to stigarette, pack, ball
Speaker 2: it up and put it behind the next ignition on
Speaker 2: the three schools and put it in a loose in
Speaker 2: the study. I mean, you know, hey, who did something
Speaker 2: like that? So?
Speaker 1: Would you steal a car because you had to get somewhere?
Speaker 1: Or did you steal a car because like there's nothing
Speaker 1: better to do, let's go joy riding.
Speaker 2: This jar riding? You know, that's it? And uh, one
Speaker 2: time me and Melvine he kept one for about a month.
Speaker 2: They had a red Uh, but it was fifty one
Speaker 2: convertible Plymouth. We kept it for about a month. It
Speaker 2: was stash it and be washing it like it was ours.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Weren't you worried that someone was gonna be looking for
Speaker 1: the car?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, somebody's gonna be looking for it. And
Speaker 2: then you know the one time me and Melvin riding
Speaker 2: and the police pull up on the side and look
Speaker 2: in the car and didn't see no key. That right,
Speaker 2: pull over.
Speaker 1: Now you make a point in the book that you're
Speaker 1: constantly returning the cars in perfect shape.
Speaker 2: But let's say that must have cracked.
Speaker 1: You must have cracked up a few.
Speaker 2: Another, but just cracked that one up coming from the picnic.
Speaker 2: You know, Other than that, we bucked them close to
Speaker 2: the where it took them.
Speaker 1: And when did you get your first car?
Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy eight? It was the last of the
Speaker 2: big thunderbirds. It was like my pride and joy. It
Speaker 2: was silver and red.
Speaker 1: And how long did you have that car?
Speaker 2: A few years until because that was seventy eight, probably
Speaker 2: tell about uh eighty maen.
Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point in time, you're married, you
Speaker 1: get out of jail, you have a kid. What are
Speaker 1: you doing for work? Then?
Speaker 2: I had to work on the docks on I worked
Speaker 2: grand boats. I had coffee boats, what else, rubber, cotton,
Speaker 2: you name it all. I'm down the river. It never
Speaker 2: was in the same spozzy, you know. That's that made
Speaker 2: it so cool and they paid good.
Speaker 1: But that's backbreaking work. That's really hard work.
Speaker 2: Thing about it, I said, if another man can do it,
Speaker 2: I can't do it. But that fact a how I
Speaker 2: messed my backup back then, because you know, we want
Speaker 2: I didn't know know about using your legs and all that.
Speaker 2: We just bent over and manhouding, which is actually man
Speaker 2: holding us. So but because the older guys they had
Speaker 2: a niche to but it didn't make the thing. They
Speaker 2: had one initial lift and the rest of the time
Speaker 2: it's gotten, just gotten it, you know. And they made
Speaker 2: it easy and we caught on later on, But before
Speaker 2: that was breaking our back.
Speaker 1: But you go on that you have had back problems
Speaker 1: as a result of that.
Speaker 2: Probably that and other I don't know what else, but
Speaker 2: I'm not I never used my legs to bend over
Speaker 2: and pick up heavy you know, coffee sacks and the
Speaker 2: earl drums, turning them and and they had this hook
Speaker 2: and the club on one hand, and one time I
Speaker 2: took the hook all them right through my wrists. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was you're.
Speaker 1: Thankful And to what where are you singing at this point?
Speaker 2: Well, since you said that, I'd be down in the
Speaker 2: ship old singing, and the guy said, man, you think
Speaker 2: gonna have been just being in the ship, oh you know,
Speaker 2: to be on TV even uh this or that, you know?
Speaker 2: And I said, no, man, I got a family see it,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna be down in the ship. Will one
Speaker 2: day I'll get out, you know.
Speaker 1: And how do you ultimately make records back then? Yeah?
Speaker 2: How did you get your deal?
Speaker 1: You ultimately do? Tell it like it is? How much
Speaker 1: recording enough.
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 1: Tell me, like to tell me the story.
Speaker 2: When I got out of jail in nineteen sixty, that's
Speaker 2: when Lara Williams came down and another distract named Lara McKinley,
Speaker 2: and they hooked me up with many records with Alan
Speaker 2: Tuccent and I got to recall my first record, alln
Speaker 2: Tu Cent Rover Uncle over You. I wrote running the
Speaker 2: in the Paris prisonal call every day about knowing I'm
Speaker 2: dreaming of the dead, that I'll be home soon. Every
Speaker 2: day long about three I'm dreaming of the dead. I'll
Speaker 2: be free. You know. That was my first record, and
Speaker 2: that's when I went on the road with Lead Williams.
Speaker 1: Okay, you make the point that even though that was
Speaker 1: a gigantic kid, you got almost no money.
Speaker 2: No money. Well, I mean the first one they was
Speaker 2: telling me that, uh, you know, go get the bat
Speaker 2: and rude or something like that. You know, it's that
Speaker 2: fine over you. Was on the Charice on the R
Speaker 2: and beach charts. Anyway, it might have been on the
Speaker 2: regular shot our remembers, but a while back. But uh,
Speaker 2: I went on the road, and I remember Rachelle was
Speaker 2: telling me he'd be able dubb that song over you.
Speaker 1: So let's just go back before you're on the road
Speaker 1: to what degree is racism or problem? And we're in
Speaker 1: New Orleans when you're growing up.
Speaker 2: But what racism, Well, I mean, you know, think about
Speaker 2: it relected to bothers. It was a place where you know,
Speaker 2: you could go on places you know you wasn't supposed
Speaker 2: to go, you know, but uh we went sometimes vented
Speaker 2: in the place we weren't supposed to go. And uh
Speaker 2: like like to say, uh, sometimes you go in the
Speaker 2: grocery store and buying something and you get a personal money,
Speaker 2: they throw your chains back at you or something like that,
Speaker 2: and you know, and like in the project, I didn't
Speaker 2: know anything about no racism. You know, there's only white
Speaker 2: people I saw. Really was the priests and the nuns
Speaker 2: at the school or the grocery man would have you know.
Speaker 2: And most of the guys around the project they were cool.
Speaker 2: But you know, you on Balance after they moved on
Speaker 2: Balance Street there Lebruso's grocery. This guy, he was nice.
Speaker 2: The majority of them, they they didn't want to touch
Speaker 2: your hand and ship like that. You know.
Speaker 1: And but you you talk about the police stopping you
Speaker 1: for no good reason and putting you in jail for
Speaker 1: seventy two hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that was the thing, that a thing called
Speaker 2: pendent investigation. So me and my bothers be you know,
Speaker 2: just hanging it. One time the police jumps out and
Speaker 2: my mama's step His name was Turtle, and uh, he said,
Speaker 2: aarone coming in the car, he said, man, when I'm
Speaker 2: going to jailer he said, oh, well, thank you something
Speaker 2: by the time we get to the priest, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And uh. They had one night in
Speaker 2: the alley between two ballrooms, me and my brother Cyril
Speaker 2: and a guy named Jake who I made the song
Speaker 2: Brother Jake about. His name was Alfred Rudolph. The police
Speaker 2: had come there, told I'm just standing in front of
Speaker 2: the front of the bar and so I said, man,
Speaker 2: I'm tired of being like a roach. Every time the
Speaker 2: light come on. We gotta run. And so Jake pulled
Speaker 2: up there and I went out to tell them to
Speaker 2: come on the joint. And the police must have just
Speaker 2: popped around the corner to come foop right around it.
Speaker 2: So me and Jake and Cyril went back in his
Speaker 2: alley and one of them stood by the gate. Let
Speaker 2: me tell you their now, Barroard Marie. Marie stood by
Speaker 2: the by the gate, and Bararard came in and for
Speaker 2: summer reason, he hit Cyril. With Cyril and Jake. They
Speaker 2: were militant, you know, they were like the cyril name
Speaker 2: was Umbuku and uh. He hit her with that big
Speaker 2: long flashlight and I saw a color I had never
Speaker 2: seen before. It was like called the mom and the truth.
Speaker 2: I grabbed this guy's hand and if he's alive today,
Speaker 2: he got my fingerprints in his in his wrists. And
Speaker 2: I looked a him. I could see the man at
Speaker 2: the gate sent playing please note because he saw what
Speaker 2: I was gonna do. I was gonna grab the gun,
Speaker 2: I said, hit my brother back in. He said, you're
Speaker 2: all gonna die in this fucking alley, you know, and
Speaker 2: he was trembling, and and suddenly that god was there.
Speaker 2: Gods didn't know him, going on, go to jail and
Speaker 2: get the ship over you know. So I told a certainly, come,
Speaker 2: let's go down and get out and go to jail,
Speaker 2: go to central locker. They put us in the car,
Speaker 2: brought us to Napoleon and Britannia. There about seven cars
Speaker 2: the police waiting. If I wouldn't have been there, they
Speaker 2: probably killed Jake and Cyril with the man howling and
Speaker 2: pulling him out the car. They took her and get
Speaker 2: out the car. They know who you are and all
Speaker 2: that shit, you know. And so I told something said,
Speaker 2: may be cool, let's go to jail and get the
Speaker 2: ship over with. So we did, and that's when Jake
Speaker 2: we got out. Jake started in the song. I said
Speaker 2: he had to ride the rail because he was started
Speaker 2: hit shiking, I mean, catching freight trains around the country.
Speaker 2: And when all the way around, come over down to Florida,
Speaker 2: come back to New Orleans and went around one of
Speaker 2: the score places, and the dude caught him off golden
Speaker 2: and hit him and knock him down and head hit
Speaker 2: the curve and he died. And uh so, me and
Speaker 2: Cyril we had went to New York. But y'alls and
Speaker 2: we come back. We're in the ballroom here the police
Speaker 2: coming in Sam too. I said, okay, we're gonna get
Speaker 2: this ship over knock. They had a wine out for us,
Speaker 2: you know. So we get in the car and went
Speaker 2: down there and just squashed the ship. But and while
Speaker 2: we're in the car, bro looking at Aaron Nelt, Cyril Net,
Speaker 2: Alfred Rudolph d o a y'all was glad to hear that,
Speaker 2: said say, yeah, you probably had another one that that's
Speaker 2: just still Please cool it, man, Let's go down and
Speaker 2: get this ship over with. And so we did. But
Speaker 2: it was one of them things, you know, like John
Speaker 2: there for seventy two hours, and every time the ship changed,
Speaker 2: they bring the central lock up and pushing in front
Speaker 2: of the lineup. And if you happen to look like somebody,
Speaker 2: you can wind up with a charge on. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was that was part of my growing up, you know.
Speaker 1: So the people you grew up with, your friends, how
Speaker 1: many are still alive and how many died before their time?
Speaker 2: Most of them died before the time. Marvin is still here.
Speaker 2: Don Hobbard is still here. Pitt It Pat the one
Speaker 2: I'm talking. He's got cancer up. But I talked to
Speaker 2: him every day to lift his spirits and all. But
Speaker 2: that's about it. You know. Another one just died. He
Speaker 2: wasn't in the game and he's just it's time to
Speaker 2: get out of here, you know. But most of them gone.
Speaker 2: I saw him fall by the wayside.
Speaker 1: So you're in New Orleans. Facts dominoes from New Orleans.
Speaker 1: He's gigantic in the fifties. To what degree were you
Speaker 1: aware of the musicians were successful? And to what degree
Speaker 1: did you come to know them? Doctor John, Allen Tussain
Speaker 1: all these other people.
Speaker 2: Well fast Domina. I thought he was the you know,
Speaker 2: Ris or whatever, and uh, doctor John. He and I
Speaker 2: ran the space together back in the day. Is you
Speaker 2: know the first time I went in the studio. He
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do some background on somebody who's recalling all Onta.
Speaker 2: He recorded all my face stuff on Miny Records from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty to about sixty full stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Well, Alan and Mac were you know, these are icons
Speaker 1: in America and the rest of the world. Were they
Speaker 1: icons in New Orleans?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: They spent okay, so Alter, you're on sure with Larry
Speaker 1: Williams based on your head. Eventually you go to Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: You fly there because Larry Williams is gonna help you
Speaker 1: make it. Larry Williams has some success, but he turns
Speaker 1: out to be a crook almost for sport.
Speaker 2: Well he was. When we was on the road, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm fat of being temped out here. That's what we
Speaker 2: call it. See, I'm going on pimp and back to
Speaker 2: LA And he did so. When I got up there,
Speaker 2: he picking that from the airport. He stopped off at
Speaker 2: a one of his little hotels, like told to one
Speaker 2: of his women, and I can hear him up, you know,
Speaker 2: speaking louds of whatever. And I'm sitting in the car
Speaker 2: and the police pull up. Guys said, hey, it was polite.
Speaker 2: Say how he said, who are you? Said, aaron Nevia
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. So what do you to, mister Williams.
Speaker 2: I said, it's gonna be my manager, Your manage it.
Speaker 2: What do you you know you'll stick a man a
Speaker 2: burglar or what a pimp? I said, No, I'm a singer.
Speaker 2: He said, okay, well they call me Red. I move.
Speaker 2: I'm out of Wilsa district. So I see you over there,
Speaker 2: and a few days later I saw red over there.
Speaker 2: He said, told you and that that it was on
Speaker 2: every time we left the the house that get picked
Speaker 2: up half the time.
Speaker 1: Now ultimately you get arrested and join a firefighting crew.
Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well that happened on I had done maybe with three burglars.
Speaker 2: This is the third one. It's on Sunset Boulevard. And
Speaker 2: a guy rant at a step in van with the
Speaker 2: sliding doors, and it was a man's clothing store and
Speaker 2: it was next to a woman's clothing store. The man's
Speaker 2: clothing store at a Burgerlon. So they popped the lock
Speaker 2: on the woman's store, went through the wall had a
Speaker 2: hole this big, but you can walk, walked through the
Speaker 2: arm little suits, so it looked like somebody that saw us.
Speaker 2: And everybody left. It went different spots, and me and
Speaker 2: a guy named Steve set out on this bench on Sunset.
Speaker 2: So he said everything quieter would check out, so he went.
Speaker 2: He stood. I said, must be all right, so I
Speaker 2: went back. As I was coming towards the truck, I
Speaker 2: heard some talking, so I slipped the door open, the
Speaker 2: guy in and slid the door back closed, and I
Speaker 2: could hear him as they getting closed, and guy, Michelle,
Speaker 2: someone's in the place. And I'm high, I had hair
Speaker 2: on and we eating coke, so I had to do
Speaker 2: that to be done that dumb shit. So I'm all
Speaker 2: kind of visions gone through my head. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: pitch it, and the guy out, hey, what are you
Speaker 2: doing that? And I said, man, be clean enough, leave
Speaker 2: us alone. And the lady said, I didn't hire nobody
Speaker 2: to clean up my police, and that shit was so
Speaker 2: funny than me. I was tumble standing back of the
Speaker 2: food in that damn truck, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: I heard Larry come out and they got in the squabbling,
Speaker 2: and Larry hit to do it and knock him down.
Speaker 2: The woman started screaming. The parking lot felled up. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to get the door open, and it would not
Speaker 2: open nothing. It would not budge until the Sheriff of
Speaker 2: Hollywood and all them that. Then they slid up like
Speaker 2: it was greased. I sat on the running board a
Speaker 2: little cigarette and just waited, you know, And he come
Speaker 2: up and said, what's that. I said, I guess I'm busted,
Speaker 2: you know. But they ran Larry and them all through
Speaker 2: the Hollywood heels and uh put me in the car
Speaker 2: over the hand because behind my back from about that
Speaker 2: was about ten o'clock till about three in the morning
Speaker 2: while they calm in the hills, and right now I
Speaker 2: got to click my thumb to get it right from
Speaker 2: that handcuffed being so tight on my wrists and uh anyway,
Speaker 2: the man asked me who was there. I'd give him
Speaker 2: some phony names. He knew I was lying. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna send you to Saint Quentin. I said, I
Speaker 2: guess that it was Saint Quentin, and uh Larry got
Speaker 2: me out in a bond, got me a lawyer, and
Speaker 2: the lawyer talked to the probation department and all that.
Speaker 2: So uh I went to court sound guilty on two
Speaker 2: cons at second degree burgers and then let me go
Speaker 2: home for about a month to you know, well, come
Speaker 2: back and do my time. So when I come back,
Speaker 2: uh Larry had set it up for me to hang
Speaker 2: out with these two girls then Audie and Kim who
Speaker 2: ill called Chuckling and Vanilla, and uh I was hired.
Speaker 2: I don't know what all happened at that, but they
Speaker 2: were giving me a send off a party, and I
Speaker 2: was trying to get hired, and start could feel them
Speaker 2: and I got the jail. When I got in front
Speaker 2: of the judge. It was supposed to be Judge brand
Speaker 2: who my mom and Joe that wrote letters to and
Speaker 2: all that he was supposed to go light and instead
Speaker 2: Judge Brandt was on vacation and Start as I was
Speaker 2: in there giving out time like it was free ice
Speaker 2: water or something five to lfe, ten to twenty, you know,
Speaker 2: all that kind of and I'm thinking about running and
Speaker 2: I kept saying, no, it's run. You ain't gonna be
Speaker 2: the same. So you got to take you issue. So
Speaker 2: I stood in front of judge. I felt like I
Speaker 2: was about two feet tall, and he said, Aaron Never's
Speaker 2: found guilty of two counts to second green burglar. I
Speaker 2: finally sent you with the love prescribe. He been saying
Speaker 2: that to everybody. You know, my heart just sunk. He said,
Speaker 2: one of fourteen years of Saint Quentin. And he said
Speaker 2: but when he said but, I was holding on to
Speaker 2: a piece of kite through it. But what he starts
Speaker 2: to spend that time to put you on a three
Speaker 2: year provision, providing you do the first year for the County.
Speaker 2: Thank you Johanna, thank you Saint Jude, you know. And
Speaker 2: uh so that was cool, you know. And I got
Speaker 2: that to the central I mean not central lot to
Speaker 2: Elie County and they had my hand because of this
Speaker 2: black dude from Kelp from Texas. Told lanky dude to
Speaker 2: walk around like he's the baddest line in the jungle.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody come get out of my say, man,
Speaker 2: you better freeze that ship man. And then we're walking
Speaker 2: through the to the Ellie conneck. They got about ten
Speaker 2: guys together and some dude and them, so take that
Speaker 2: fucking hat off and the whole god, I didn't even
Speaker 2: have no hell say tell your mama to take I
Speaker 2: had a sucker and you know, I'm ready for whatever.
Speaker 2: So the first thing the man say, well do you
Speaker 2: want to do your time inside outside? That's a no brainer, man,
Speaker 2: I'm want too much time outside. Okay. So I went
Speaker 2: to the wayside on the Rancho close to Pasadena up
Speaker 2: in the and what the mouth there was anyway, they
Speaker 2: had a forest forest fire camp with a T shirt
Speaker 2: to fight forest fires, and the place was like a
Speaker 2: little town. It had like, uh fit the barracks on
Speaker 2: one side, fit the on my side with yeah library
Speaker 2: or uh where you eat and everything in the middle
Speaker 2: and on the end there where you trained for the
Speaker 2: forest fires. And I try to suck up everything and
Speaker 2: try to learn it to the utmost so i'd be safe.
Speaker 2: And this guy, Robert, he walking down the walk with
Speaker 2: get out of my way, and he messed with a
Speaker 2: couple doing had him hand up against the building and ship.
Speaker 2: It didn't detern though, until we got to Camp eighteen,
Speaker 2: which was we locked up and got officers barracks when
Speaker 2: bricks and had the state of the old gym, cafeteria
Speaker 2: and everything. All the rest of the camps are like shacks,
Speaker 2: wooden shocks. So Robert, still acting stupid, he messed with
Speaker 2: the little white dude, I'm gonna take the food or something.
Speaker 2: Dude had him turn upside down. So he went to Siberia.
Speaker 2: That's what they call the hole. You don't go to Siberia.
Speaker 2: So we never seen him in the more and one day,
Speaker 2: I'm the sergeant took a liking to me. He said,
Speaker 2: what you doing in place like this? I said, I've
Speaker 2: done some stupid shit, man, I gotta pay for it,
Speaker 2: you know. And one day I was he got me
Speaker 2: at the buffe his office, you know, with the buffer machine,
Speaker 2: and one of my records came on and the man
Speaker 2: said that was mister Aaron never so I said, no,
Speaker 2: you mean missed sixteen nine fifty five. We left, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so he was cool. Man. I was glad I was there.
Speaker 2: And the forest fires back then wasn't like they are
Speaker 2: the day though to day they on steroids.
Speaker 1: So how depressing was it to be in the work
Speaker 1: camp with your record on the radio and having been
Speaker 1: on tour as a singer.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the person at all. I figured I was
Speaker 2: in the right place. I was satisfied. I wasn't getting
Speaker 2: no visitors. But this this guy from Mena and Louisiana,
Speaker 2: his family would come up and his mother would call
Speaker 2: me out, you know, to sit with them. I mean
Speaker 2: I was. I was. I mean his too. Chicana dudes one.
Speaker 2: Then Pedro and John we worked out together and I
Speaker 2: was looking at the Hawk. I was like, man, I
Speaker 2: love this, you know, building my body up, and uh
Speaker 2: so when I came out there, I was like, my
Speaker 2: clothes wouldn't fit me.
Speaker 1: So this is when you first started to work out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Now it seems from the outside the youth continue to
Speaker 1: work out the rest of your life. Is that true?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, man, sir, I worked at twice this morning,
Speaker 2: so you know, at least full time of the week.
Speaker 1: And do you like the process or you like the
Speaker 1: way it makes you look or the way it makes
Speaker 1: you make strong? What about it is appealing to you?
Speaker 2: Everything? The feeling of the iron, you know, and even
Speaker 2: the stuff when you're running or doing cody and stuff.
Speaker 2: But I liked all of it because I know I'm helping.
Speaker 2: I feel it, you know, even when if it hurt,
Speaker 2: it's good.
Speaker 1: Hurry, Okay, you go back to New Orleans after you
Speaker 1: do your time? Is this when Joel essentially kicks you
Speaker 1: out of the house.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. It wasn't that I know when I go
Speaker 2: back from doing my time. Is nineteen sixty four, and
Speaker 2: my daughter I understand his bond.
Speaker 1: And uh.
Speaker 2: So we moved in in a house on Chestnut Street,
Speaker 2: and uh let's see sixty five, Hurricane Betsy came and
Speaker 2: uh me and Melvin started doing roofing work after that
Speaker 2: because his dad knew what it was a roofer and
Speaker 2: we made money doing that. That ran out and this
Speaker 2: guy named Sydney and Uh, George came by with a
Speaker 2: big bag of weed. They wanted to use my house
Speaker 2: to you know, bag it up manicure. But if they
Speaker 2: do with it, my children are at school. Joe was
Speaker 2: at work, said, yeah, have all come up. So they
Speaker 2: gave us a big cake pan full of weed and
Speaker 2: then gave us a bag with the stems. He got
Speaker 2: a letther cake pan out and kid was good. So
Speaker 2: we're selling dollars joints, you know. And I went uptown
Speaker 2: where George used to live and uh, selling dollar joints,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, this guy dropped the handkerchief
Speaker 2: to the narcotic agent that tangle I Red was on
Speaker 2: the corner. He was a dope pusher and tangled Red
Speaker 2: has just got in the car and pulled off by
Speaker 2: me being red like, they jumped down on me. And
Speaker 2: I had about twenty joints, and I'm thinking, wow, I'm
Speaker 2: going there and go. Charles already up there doing five
Speaker 2: years to two joints and he was cutting sugar cane
Speaker 2: or it was dean in humane. Later on, anyway, my
Speaker 2: daddy got my lawyer and he came up with something
Speaker 2: like motion to suppress the evidence, and I got me off,
Speaker 2: got me off, and you know, wow.
Speaker 1: But how does your wife end up moving out of
Speaker 1: the house?
Speaker 2: That wasn't until after that was like seventy two, that
Speaker 2: was later.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what was happening between this thing with getting
Speaker 1: arrested with the twenty joints and uh then uh, your
Speaker 1: wife moving out? You moving to New York? What were
Speaker 1: you doing in that period? Working on the docks singing music?
Speaker 2: What I was working on the docks singing recording? Uh,
Speaker 2: I worked the painting houses, driving the truck. I worked
Speaker 2: with both brothers constructing where they would uh, putting cables
Speaker 2: under the ground, you know, underground cables. They did some
Speaker 2: hard weight, but they paid. The riverfront paid the best.
Speaker 2: If you got three days on the riverfront, you had
Speaker 2: a good payday. And uh, that's what I was doing.
Speaker 2: I didn't mind. And when I went to the hiring
Speaker 2: hall in the morning, had you know a lot of
Speaker 2: hundreds of people out there trying to get work. And
Speaker 2: the guy would always have me because you know what,
Speaker 2: I came to wait because some guys would get out
Speaker 2: there and doing the rain dance. You know, as soon
Speaker 2: as they get on the gate, man, I sure we
Speaker 2: shoul rain so I can go home, said, well, why
Speaker 2: did you come out of there brought somebody else could
Speaker 2: have who wanted to work for the air their job,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So tell us about ultimately going to New York.
Speaker 2: Well that was after let's see, seventy Joe left. Jason
Speaker 2: was born in seventy and one. Joe left around seventy three,
Speaker 2: and uh me and Cyah went to New York to
Speaker 2: be with Charles Taker. We could, you know, do some
Speaker 2: music stuff up there, which we did do some music
Speaker 2: stuff we did, like a trio called Myself the Wild
Speaker 2: Chappe of Tulis, which is my uncle John's Indian drive.
Speaker 2: And uh we played clubs we did we didn't want
Speaker 2: called catch a rising Star with Richard Bells, a comedian.
Speaker 2: He was in See and he told the people when
Speaker 2: these guys came up, we thought this coming in the robbers,
Speaker 2: but give him a listener, give really sound good. I
Speaker 2: mean we were jamming. I was playing keyboard and singing.
Speaker 2: Syriah was playing his gum dad and singing. The show
Speaker 2: was going on singing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you go back to New Orleans and you
Speaker 1: end up working with your uncle Joly.
Speaker 2: Well with let me see nineteen seventy six. Well, first
Speaker 2: of all, I got another story. Then nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: This guy, he was a singer all in his name
Speaker 2: little Sonny, and he's coming to me and my brother
Speaker 2: lawn lug it. Hey, man, you score me some coke? Man,
Speaker 2: I know. The guy had, of course tell him no,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know when that brother, you know,
Speaker 2: he kept on. I gave in and I scored some
Speaker 2: coke on. I did it a couple of times, and
Speaker 2: he brought his boy, Freddy, and I scored for Freddy
Speaker 2: twice and the mother with you know you didn't hear
Speaker 2: the mother with hunted since you I didn't pay attention
Speaker 2: to it. And when I did pay attention that it
Speaker 2: was too late, because uh Freddy called me on the phone,
Speaker 2: say you get some more that. I said, no, man,
Speaker 2: the man going out of town. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know i'd get some hair on. When he said that,
Speaker 2: my heart just I knew what the hell it was. Said,
Speaker 2: no brain, no dealing man. And I was helping a
Speaker 2: so called friend out, you know. So I hung up
Speaker 2: and Pooshi passed and I tell him about it. He
Speaker 2: gave me a giant and I smoked it and laying
Speaker 2: he just waiting because I knew something's gonna happen. The
Speaker 2: last thing I know I heard, I'm running through the alley,
Speaker 2: bang on the door, and I got them walked through
Speaker 2: and I had to look small window like opening, saw
Speaker 2: Freddie out there with a steal gray suit with a
Speaker 2: star skin husch gun on him. Say it Freddy out
Speaker 2: of posse. Ain't no ready, that's office to see. That's
Speaker 2: when I went to the court again. And first of all,
Speaker 2: just my lawyer said, just pray you don't get this judge.
Speaker 2: As soon as I got my papers, Judge Edward G. Boyl,
Speaker 2: the hanging judge. So me enjoy going My mama's dead then,
Speaker 2: so we enjoyed was going to the steps on our
Speaker 2: knees at Saint Anstraine and gone to Saint Jude and
Speaker 2: saying our prayers. And I went to the court and
Speaker 2: was so found guilty of too uh sales and arcotics.
Speaker 2: The agent and the man told me that sends you
Speaker 2: the one to fifteen years in the federal penitentiary. And
Speaker 2: you said, I don't know why I'm doing this, but
Speaker 2: I'm gonna spend that sentence and put you on a
Speaker 2: three of probation. Say thank you, honor, but I had
Speaker 2: to go in a battle for about six months after that.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm walking out the courthouse and this black
Speaker 2: dude who was the Federal Marshal, his pistolf, He said,
Speaker 2: I don't know you had in this courthouse, but these
Speaker 2: shackles was for your ass. You ain't got me now,
Speaker 2: I ain't coming back in your no more. And that
Speaker 2: was it. But the judicial system.
Speaker 1: So you had to be clean for six months. What
Speaker 1: was going on with you and the dope after that?
Speaker 2: Well, I was still in my six months up. I
Speaker 2: went back again. I mean I was kind of dead.
Speaker 2: I was like doing time right then.
Speaker 1: So tell me that it's after that you work with
Speaker 1: your uncle johny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he called out of love his down Shall was
Speaker 2: still in the yoke and aught and cereals with the Meters.
Speaker 2: So he called us nice, said I wanted to do
Speaker 2: my Indian music with me, and so we went in
Speaker 2: the studio and set in nineteen seventy six and then
Speaker 2: the Wild Chappatola's album with the Meters and the Nether
Speaker 2: Brothers and a guy named Willie Harper helping us do
Speaker 2: the background. And I mean we went there. We didn't
Speaker 2: have to tell nobody what note to take it. It
Speaker 2: was just and we had never been together, all four
Speaker 2: of us, and had been two of us or three
Speaker 2: of us. You know, this is all four of us together,
Speaker 2: and it was just so easy and the album playing
Speaker 2: out so good, and he said, well, we wanted to
Speaker 2: do the Nether Brothers because Joall has said that that
Speaker 2: her mama and our mama had told him that she'd
Speaker 2: like to see all of us together. So said, yeah, man,
Speaker 2: that's a good idea. So in nineteen seventy seven we
Speaker 2: started rehearsing and stuff, and we got to deal with
Speaker 2: Capital's Records to make album that Jack Niche produced, and
Speaker 2: uh came out in nineteen seventy eight. That's when I
Speaker 2: was able to buy my seventy eight Thunderbird, and Uh,
Speaker 2: I guess that was the start of the Never Bros.
Speaker 1: Okay, from that point, is it pretty much go up
Speaker 1: and up and you're working on the road or is
Speaker 1: it dipped down again?
Speaker 2: Uh? It wasn't. It was working. I didn't I had.
Speaker 2: I didn't have to go back on on the river
Speaker 2: front anymore after that because we started working regular and
Speaker 2: h it was like to eighty one when we were
Speaker 2: playing at Tippetinas and Bett Midler came in and I
Speaker 2: was singing telling like it is, and She's just slid
Speaker 2: down off us stool like it was.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She dug it and she asked us did we have
Speaker 2: a contract, cause that was just the one one record
Speaker 2: deal with Capitol Records. He said, no, we don't have
Speaker 2: a record. She called Jered Morrison, herb alphat at the
Speaker 2: A and M Records. Man, check these guys out, you know.
Speaker 2: So she set it up so we had a chance
Speaker 2: to do an album for A and M Records. That
Speaker 2: was nineteen eighty one. Joe Down was the producer. And
Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying, man, it's time for me to
Speaker 2: get off the pot, you know. So I was ready.
Speaker 2: I was scared, you know. It was like the kid
Speaker 2: in me, you know, just I know about the streets,
Speaker 2: but I don't know about no rehab and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But the manager at the time, his name was Bill Johnson.
Speaker 2: He set it up for me to go in this
Speaker 2: place called DePaul, which used to be a sanitarium. So anyway,
Speaker 2: we had to go do this album in New York
Speaker 2: called Fire on the Bayer and I's brought them up
Speaker 2: drugs up there to hold me to come back. But
Speaker 2: I'm scared because I'm you know, I don't know when
Speaker 2: the rehab he is. And it was like the little
Speaker 2: kid in me. It was like, you know. So one
Speaker 2: one morning, about three o'clock in the morning, I'm in
Speaker 2: the in the room and this guy named Elliott, he
Speaker 2: was a writer. He was doing the story on us,
Speaker 2: so he was in. I'm playing the piano. My friend
Speaker 2: John Brenners from Petaluma, California, he had had let me
Speaker 2: his recorded tape recorder, and I'm playing Sam Cook and
Speaker 2: the soul said, were you there when they crucified the Lord?
Speaker 2: And he's so wonderful? And I had to stand up
Speaker 2: in front of my class in the sixth grade and
Speaker 2: Reppe recited a poem called Lovely Lady Dressed in Blue
Speaker 2: teach me how to pray? And I started playing like
Speaker 2: somebody told me how to play it and how to
Speaker 2: sing it. And I recorded on one of my albums.
Speaker 2: But that was like the little kid in me. I
Speaker 2: have a that that recording. I called him my my
Speaker 2: inspiration up tape because I could hear the frightened Aaron Neville,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, if you want to send it
Speaker 2: to you. Uh. Anyhow, I had a lot of things
Speaker 2: happened on that on that session. Matter of fact, Whitney
Speaker 2: Houston and my mom sang background on some of the
Speaker 2: songs on Fire on the Buyer, and Uh, Keith Richards
Speaker 2: said that to him, that was the best album of
Speaker 2: the year, and uh, the strength I was doing Mona
Speaker 2: Lisa and Joe Donn got Leon Pandorvis he is a
Speaker 2: keyboard player for Saturday Night Live. And Water was there,
Speaker 2: who was out friend from New Orleans has done a
Speaker 2: lot of Alan Tuson and stuff, a lot of bunch
Speaker 2: of other people stuff and Joe was hip Tim. So
Speaker 2: Joe asked him and said, well, what else do you
Speaker 2: need a piano in your run? He said, no, I
Speaker 2: just need a tune in folk. So he wrote the
Speaker 2: Choice with a tune and folk. And while we're in
Speaker 2: the studio, uh, the New York String session, they played
Speaker 2: Leon's person that was killer Man and they snickering at
Speaker 2: at whatever, like he's a country bumpkin and stuffing. You know,
Speaker 2: he gets put the put the music out there, and
Speaker 2: they played it and after that they had to get
Speaker 2: up and hit their pons on the on the music
Speaker 2: stand and give him his problem. I had tears him, asking, man,
Speaker 2: get that man is proper, you know. And I was
Speaker 2: dedicating that song to my mom and dad and it
Speaker 2: was a very special recording for me.
Speaker 1: What did you learn in rehab?
Speaker 2: Well, I learn that dope it's not your friend, and
Speaker 2: that when you take it, it's attacking your organicize, you know.
Speaker 2: And when you get that good feeling and there's just
Speaker 2: no good feeling, it's doing something you kidney or you
Speaker 2: liver your pankers or some shit, you know, and h
Speaker 2: but uh, it didn't stop me. I stopped, Yeah, stopped
Speaker 2: when that time and the next time, but I had
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, we went on the road the Nevils
Speaker 2: doctor John Arma Thomas. We went to Japan and Australia,
Speaker 2: New Zealand. First night I turned in the bed and
Speaker 2: I tried to turn back my back. I wouldn't turn.
Speaker 2: Aller to do is roll out the bed, crawl to
Speaker 2: the phone and call it the road man, say John's
Speaker 2: come get me. Middle wheelchair. Got to go to the hospital.
Speaker 2: He came and got me, and they they didn't know
Speaker 2: what was wrong, and I could. They didn't understand what
Speaker 2: I was staying. I don't know what they were saying,
Speaker 2: or I was staying pain hurry, pain hurry. It was
Speaker 2: hurting everywhere, and they was giving me vaca and the
Speaker 2: ship and massages and whatever else they do, but none
Speaker 2: of it work. So we over there like a month.
Speaker 2: If I would have left, the gigs would have folded
Speaker 2: because my record was hit over there. It was everybody
Speaker 2: plays the fool. And so I would tell tell him
Speaker 2: to rule me to the stage in the wheelchair and
Speaker 2: put a chair out on the stage and I stand
Speaker 2: up and I hold hold my thighs because this felt
Speaker 2: like they was opening up with the side of the
Speaker 2: you know, and I had to walk and I sat
Speaker 2: down on a chair and once I st to singing,
Speaker 2: I didn't pay attention to the paint. I looked at
Speaker 2: the audience and it was in. It was cool until
Speaker 2: the gig was over, and then the paint come back
Speaker 2: and hurt everywhere. So that was like a month. I
Speaker 2: came home. I went to one doctor said, oh, we
Speaker 2: got to go in. I said no, I think I'll
Speaker 2: get another second opinion, and went to another doctor said
Speaker 2: the last thing we want to do, said, uh, said,
Speaker 2: he had had his back operator on and he sent
Speaker 2: me to stress relief chiropractice and he told him to
Speaker 2: do a lot of walking, but also give me in
Speaker 2: the Viking and you know, so you get hooked on him.
Speaker 2: And uh. So that was ninety one. I was off
Speaker 2: and on it, you know. And then about two thousand
Speaker 2: and two I went into a re have another rehab,
Speaker 2: the same one I haven't had been in.
Speaker 1: So you went to rehab that time. What was different
Speaker 1: about going other than you were in different drugs? What
Speaker 1: was different about going to rehab the second time?
Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the guys, Drew Pinsky, and you
Speaker 2: probably heard him, of course, he said he said one's
Speaker 2: too many and the thousands not enough. Said, damn, that
Speaker 2: makes so much sense. Once too many and a thousand
Speaker 2: not enough. And you know they give you all the
Speaker 2: history of it too, what it's doing to your thing,
Speaker 2: you know. So I got out at and I was off.
Speaker 2: That was like like two thousand and two. Two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, My wife Joelle had had this call and
Speaker 2: she worked at the hospital, and she said, I am
Speaker 2: going to adopt. I know most of the day, you know,
Speaker 2: and our friend next door doctor Chris Boom. I said, Chris,
Speaker 2: did you come over here and take a look at
Speaker 2: at Joel? And he came over and he checked out
Speaker 2: and he said, Joel, I think you get a cat scan.
Speaker 2: So she went to get a cat scan and the
Speaker 2: doctor said, wow, she had small cell lung cancer right
Speaker 2: close to a trick. So it was inoperable. And doctor,
Speaker 2: so she had three months and something punched me in
Speaker 2: the heart. Joe said, so in other words, you give
Speaker 2: me the death sentence. I said, oh no, that was
Speaker 2: I came up. I can't explain that feeling, you know.
Speaker 2: So me and her and my sister we started having
Speaker 2: a prayer vision with all the churches and prayer and
Speaker 2: and Joe lived by another three years.
Speaker 1: So now that's a big factor in your life. Religion
Speaker 1: and seeing Jude. Will you ever question your faith or
Speaker 1: you're always a believer.
Speaker 2: Always a believer that people say will get mad and Joe,
Speaker 2: this is God's will. You know, I get mad at
Speaker 2: as Joel. Look God, I say, unless she's going to
Speaker 2: heaven because I watched them go through hell.
Speaker 1: But you also talk about going to pray at the shrine.
Speaker 1: Do you pray today? And do you go to church today.
Speaker 2: I pray I've been doing since the pandemic. I've been
Speaker 2: doing it on TV. I say rose every day and
Speaker 2: watched the Mask and I just got prayers that I say.
Speaker 2: I got a little altar, little peel and kneel on
Speaker 2: and stay prayers looking at at the at the trees
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, you in the book, you go on
Speaker 1: and on how much you love Joel and you don't
Speaker 1: talk about any third parties. But were you faithful all
Speaker 1: these years?
Speaker 2: That's the meeting known for you to find out. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you about the the two girls that.
Speaker 1: That time out to.
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened because I was I was inegraated,
Speaker 2: So just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So now you know, fire on the bio comes out,
Speaker 1: Bill Graham becomes your manager. So you know, do you
Speaker 1: feel like you really admitted because you were frustrated before?
Speaker 1: What's he experienced?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: You mean when Bill Graham came in? Yeah, well he
Speaker 2: was knocking doors down for us. You know, it was
Speaker 2: like he was showing us off. You know, this this
Speaker 2: is the nevils how much tell to check him out?
Speaker 2: You know, the Great of Dead Huey Lewis, Santana, Uh
Speaker 2: build his tongue that we went on the Amnesty toil
Speaker 2: with you two and Peter Gable Stinging, John Bias, Miles Davis,
Speaker 2: old bunch of people's on that.
Speaker 1: So you were on tour, you know, constantly, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times with Household and Nemax, you know, the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, et cetera. Did you hang with these people?
Speaker 1: Did you become friends or did you pretty much just
Speaker 1: hang with your brothers now?
Speaker 2: Because I was friends at all the man Keith's still
Speaker 2: friends and you know he coporeduced my album, My True Story,
Speaker 2: and Santana. He's like a brother Huey Lewis, you know
Speaker 2: with his name is Jared Goliah He he and I
Speaker 2: used to talk together.
Speaker 1: And how did you meet Linda Ronstaff?
Speaker 2: Well, the nether brothers were playing at the World's Fair
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty four in New Orleans. We were playing
Speaker 2: at Pete Fountains Club on the ground and the Welfare
Speaker 2: and she was Linda was there with Nelson Riddle's band
Speaker 2: at the Amphitheater and after her show she came somebody
Speaker 2: told him that her never brother was playing, so she
Speaker 2: came to see us. Somebody told me she was an
Speaker 2: audience and I dedicated a song to and I call
Speaker 2: up on stage, but she told her. She told the
Speaker 2: press that she don't usually do nothing imprompt like that,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't gonna say no there I never and
Speaker 2: we sang some duop together and all the after the
Speaker 2: expo autograph she stayed to Aaron Love, I'll sing with
Speaker 2: you anytime, any place, anywhere and any key. And it
Speaker 2: was on then. So that was eighty four. Eighty five. Men,
Speaker 2: Alan Howson was starting a thing called New Orleans Artists
Speaker 2: Against Honger and Homelessness, and I asked her to come
Speaker 2: down and do the benefit but she so sure, so
Speaker 2: and the manager Peter Ashley, came down and we were
Speaker 2: down at two Cents Studio and the first thing we
Speaker 2: thought to sing together because we both came up Catholic,
Speaker 2: was ive Maria and we sang that in harmony and
Speaker 2: uh peter A said yeah, should do it record together.
Speaker 2: I said, hey, I'm paying for that, and Linda was damned.
Speaker 2: So you know, that was eighty five, So it took
Speaker 2: a couple of years, but it was right on time,
Speaker 2: you know. When she called me to do the four
Speaker 2: songs on Cry like a Ryan Stone, and we did
Speaker 2: don't know much And I told her Mesh at the Grammars,
Speaker 2: I was joking, but not joking because it was that
Speaker 2: great of a song, you know, And sure enough, so
Speaker 2: I still missed up. We talked, you know, every a
Speaker 2: few days a week or something like that.
Speaker 1: So what was it like having that level of success
Speaker 1: after all these years?
Speaker 2: That was great? Man. I was able to do a
Speaker 2: lot of Joel and kids and all, and you know
Speaker 2: that right them and the wrongs and life is good.
Speaker 1: So is this all instinctive? You don't have to rehearse?
Speaker 1: You can just show up and sing no problem back then?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 1: So then you're working with your brothers, you ultimately make
Speaker 1: solo albums. Do you feel at this end that you've
Speaker 1: gotten the respect and achieved the success you deserve?
Speaker 2: I think so, you know, I'm not. I appreciate the
Speaker 2: people that bought my records and came to my constrations
Speaker 2: and all. And I ain't got no regrets, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know you're on your brother the road with
Speaker 1: your brothers. The money has to be split, you know,
Speaker 1: four ways, never mind the other players. How are you,
Speaker 1: how did you do? And how are you doing financially?
Speaker 2: But it did good, I mean, you know it as ways.
Speaker 2: But I's done the record with Lenda that opened a
Speaker 2: lot of doors. So it's you know, then when I
Speaker 2: did the Judge Johnson granted that open Country people, you know,
Speaker 2: and m we did good, you know, and like I
Speaker 2: feel like I played but the baddest band in the land,
Speaker 2: the Neville Brothers. Like this guy named Eric Copp used
Speaker 2: to be a tech man and played keyboard it. He
Speaker 2: used to announces the New Orleans the Mighty Mighty Never
Speaker 2: brother They used to run a chill when they say
Speaker 2: that because we were in Mighty Mighty Never Brothers.
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's a hit you get performing
Speaker 1: live you can't get sitting here your living room. So
Speaker 1: what was the key to winning the audience over? What
Speaker 1: do you mean you show up on stage, you get
Speaker 1: big applause. How do you make sure the audience is
Speaker 1: with you and lift the audience up through the show.
Speaker 2: Just don't go fake and be you be real? You know,
Speaker 2: do what you do. This is what I do. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna tap dance and jump up and down. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna say, you know, and I'm gonna make my voice
Speaker 2: touch you say something in you because it touches something
Speaker 2: in me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you start to gain success everywhere you go, do
Speaker 1: people recognize you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, well man, heyp and so you like that
Speaker 2: or do you not like that? It's cool? You know
Speaker 2: when when we're living in the city, we'll be walking
Speaker 2: down the street and all of a sudden you might
Speaker 2: hear somebody hit the bridge legend, oh she and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. You know, that's that's cool.
Speaker 1: And how about ultimately being on TV and in movies?
Speaker 1: How did that come about?
Speaker 2: And did you enjoy that? I did? Uh? I think
Speaker 2: the first time I did was with Dennis Quid and
Speaker 2: John Goodman and Jessica Lang and Timothy Hutton on Everybody's
Speaker 2: All American, which they did done in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 2: Then I did it one in New Orleans but uh,
Speaker 2: Zander Lee but who was it? J Ryan Hull and
Speaker 2: Nicholas Cage and I forget the latest name. Anyway, I
Speaker 2: played a bartime in that one. I played a jail
Speaker 2: a jail cell buddy with Mickey Rope in a movie
Speaker 2: called The Last Ride. So you know, it was all cool.
Speaker 1: And then Joel dies, But ultimately you meet your new
Speaker 1: wife who's a photographer. How does that happen?
Speaker 2: How does that happen? Joe died January fifth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven. And I was a basket case. The doctor
Speaker 2: gave me some kind of nerve pure for my nerves
Speaker 2: and stuff, and every time I laid on it felt
Speaker 2: like little things creatures were scurring around on the bed. Said,
Speaker 2: now I can't take this. But meanwhile, Joelle had all
Speaker 2: this narcotics, said that she didn't want to take. She
Speaker 2: had morphine, the uh percose perkadan, but the other one
Speaker 2: is that I can't think of the name of it.
Speaker 2: But anyway, she had all this drugs. So I went
Speaker 2: to that because that's it was familiar. And then but
Speaker 2: that ran out. I would get the doctors the right prescription.
Speaker 2: I could get them on this street, you know. And
Speaker 2: uh so two thousand and eight, you know, I was
Speaker 2: I had to go on the road. Nobody else knew
Speaker 2: what I was going through. You know. That was my
Speaker 2: my solo. Uh that was just for me. And uh
Speaker 2: let's see it get kind of emotional, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the Nevills was going back Joell after after she was
Speaker 2: diagnosed with the cancer. Hurricane Katrina came in two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, so we moved to Nashville, and that's where
Speaker 2: she died in Nashville. And uh, like I said, took
Speaker 2: all those drugs and May. Matter of fact, I met
Speaker 2: Dreell in May, and I met Sarah and two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight people magazines sent out to to photograph the
Speaker 2: Nevels for their return to the Jazz best since Katrina.
Speaker 2: And we did it at the Nevile's office up on
Speaker 2: the balcony, and when I saw something about it, I
Speaker 2: just I don't usually do that, but it's just my
Speaker 2: eyes caught hers and I just never stopped looking at
Speaker 2: the whole time she was taking it. She was so professional,
Speaker 2: you know she and she got pictures just right. And
Speaker 2: after the session was over, everybody else left and I
Speaker 2: stuck around until she had never heard of never Bro.
Speaker 2: So I'll give up a copy on my book and
Speaker 2: I give let her hear some of the music and on,
Speaker 2: and I asked my phone numb. She gave me an
Speaker 2: office number, and I waited a couple of days and
Speaker 2: I called and it was cool. And also I started
Speaker 2: calling every other day and we got start getting closer,
Speaker 2: and so I'd go up to New York and be
Speaker 2: with them. By that time, I moved from Nashville to
Speaker 2: coming to Louisiana. That's like about on a half from
Speaker 2: New Orleans across the lake. And so she would come
Speaker 2: there sometime and I backs and forwards and the next thing,
Speaker 2: and it's talking about moving together and uh, and were
Speaker 2: trying to make sure we could, you know, buy something
Speaker 2: together and all. And so I want to check my
Speaker 2: credit and stuff. And she'd look at the credit and
Speaker 2: my credit was down in the dumps. And I thought
Speaker 2: everything on up and up, but she started looking and
Speaker 2: finding all kinds of discrepancies. Uh, things getting was missing.
Speaker 2: A lot of money was missing, and the business manager
Speaker 2: we had to wind up sewing to get some of
Speaker 2: the money back. And so anyway back and forth from
Speaker 2: New York. One time she was in Coventant and was
Speaker 2: getting ready to go out to dinner, and I want
Speaker 2: my pocket to get the cookies and and pull the
Speaker 2: cockies out of about ten vikings fell on the ground
Speaker 2: and Sarah she had and Data is a guy who
Speaker 2: who was the drug addict before, and she knew what
Speaker 2: it was about. She said oh no, not this ship again. No,
Speaker 2: So I had to make a choice. I gave her
Speaker 2: had about two hundred pills and gave U she's just
Speaker 2: this caught it. That was it number over. So here
Speaker 2: I am. But this November we'll be married thirteen years.
Speaker 1: Wow. Great story. Let's go back to New Orleans. To
Speaker 1: what degree is New Orleans although you don't live there
Speaker 1: anymore the same or is it different? After Katrina?
Speaker 2: It was different? I mean it was like that water
Speaker 2: is sit there for so long and then telling them
Speaker 2: what was in that water from all of the like
Speaker 2: they have these train cars out on the facts with
Speaker 2: all these different chemicals in it and all that everything
Speaker 2: people had under this, you know, under cleaning, under the
Speaker 2: sink and dead folks, all that was in that water.
Speaker 2: I had that friend of mine who still lived on
Speaker 2: that they she had never had an allergy, but now
Speaker 2: she had to get a shot alleges shot every month.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: And what about your kids? What are your kids up to?
Speaker 1: And to what degree do you have a connection and
Speaker 1: support them?
Speaker 2: They talk all the time. Well, you know I haven't.
Speaker 2: He's on the road a lot, my son Jason, him
Speaker 2: and his wife, they have a band Jason nevan Is
Speaker 2: Funker Stole Band. They do a lot of new all
Speaker 2: and stuff, but they did that sound too. They was
Speaker 2: just in somewhere in Mexico or a son airon. He
Speaker 2: does some kind of jobs. My daughter in the staying
Speaker 2: seat waits for the Civil sheriff Department.
Speaker 1: Okay, Aaron, I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking time with my audience. You know, these stories are
Speaker 1: amplified and they're a lot more in his book, which
Speaker 1: is very easy to read. So once again, Aaron, thanks
Speaker 1: for taking the time to tell your stories.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Bob, you bet. Until next time. This is Bob left
Speaker 1: sets
Speaker 2: Sh