Artist: Cyril Neville (percussionist and vocalist for The Neville Brothers and The Meters)
Hometown: New Orleans
Sound: Funk, blues, soul, reggae
Fact: Co-wrote “Jah Love” with Bono on The Neville Brothers’ Brothers Keeper album
Project: Touring in support of his solo album, Brand New Blues, and closing out the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with his brothers
More: myspace.com/cyrilneville

MUSICAL GUMBO
I’ve got a habit of comparing the music to food, and I feel like the blues is the root of the American musical gumbo. You can go back to the first recordings by Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Martin, King Oliver. All of them [were] some type of blues. The word “jazz” didn’t come along till later on and it was infused into the culture from the outside.

DISCOVERING REGGAE
I heard a group called Cymande, and the pictures I saw of them were these brothers with dreadlocks. This was the first time I ever saw that before. But they were in England. And I was trying to put that together — “Wait a minute! How are these brothers from England?” Then I started doing some research about Brixton and Rastafarianism and how many people were migrating … so, it just piqued my interest.

This is the part one of Erik’s interview with Cyril Neville. Check out next week’s Morning Sessions for more with the New Orleans veteran

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