Hey Hey, All Together

Ivan Neville’s Touch My Soul is his first solo album in 19 years

BY BRETT MILANO

If you’re a renowned New Orleans artist and you want to write a song about the need for everyone to get along, it will probably come out funky and uplifting. But if you’re Ivan Neville, you can also pull out your address book and get a dream team of guests to perform it with you.

The song is “Hey, Hey, Hey,” which is indeed funky and uplifting. Neville’s soulful voice and keyboards are immediately recognizable, and so are the other voices—that’s Bonnie Raitt, Michael McDonald and the Revivalists’ David Shaw answering each other’s vocal ad-libs; and Trombone Shorty and Theresa Andersson making instrumental cameos. And that’s the very distinctive voice of his dad Aaron Neville taking the song out. Since the chorus is “Hey, hey, all together” the mix of voices adds to its communal spirit.

Neville says he carried the song around for a couple years before getting it right. “It was inspired by me thinking of how far apart we’ve grown as a people. Especially in this country, where religion, politics and other things make us focus on our differences instead of our similarities. And that got me thinking about growing up in New Orleans, where you’ve got that vibe of friendship and camaraderie among your neighbors. I was thinking about how that’s not really present anymore, and thought I’d maybe get a few friends to sing on it.” Parts of the all-star session happened virtually while shutdown was still in effect, though McDonald was in town to record. Getting his dad in was a big thing, since Aaron formally retired two years ago and hasn’t been on a record since his own Apache in 2016. “I just told him, ‘I need a few of those classic Aaron Neville yodels. Gimme four or five of those.’”

When he brought that song to the Mascot label (which also handles his band Dumpstaphunk) they said great, we’ll take the whole album. Only trouble was, there wasn’t an album yet—so that’s how Ivan Neville wound up making Touch My Soul, his first solo album in 19 years. It’s definitely not a Dumpstaphunk record, even though the whole band appears on various tracks. But it gives him a few chances to slow down, open up vocally, play some acoustic piano and express some more serious thoughts that might not fit into a funk workout.

And he certainly had a few things to think about. During 2020 he had an especially scary experience with COVID-19, which he caught during the first month of the pandemic (He had recently played a virtual benefit concert in New York, where a few musicians who shared the same piano had gotten infected—Jackson Browne and Paul Shaffer among them). He was in the danger zone for a number of weeks, with a 103-degree fever, pneumonia in both lungs and an oxygen tank at home. And music ultimately played a part in his recovery, with the Piano Sessions that he livestreamed from home. After recovering he also did a couple of the first Tipitina’s webcasts with Dumpstahunk and the occasional supergroup Dragon Smoke—but before that, things were looking a little dodgy.

“It was a serious low ride I took. Talk about being afraid of the unknown. Nobody knew what to do about that shit. I got a lot of help from physicians, but everybody was guessing because nobody knew for sure. It got pretty gruesome and frightening. I started doing the livestreams while

I was still sick. We have a little room in my house called the sunroom, and that’s where I started writing some of the music on this record. I’d do a livestream for as long as I was able, about an hour—and it turned out that the singing was really helping my lungs to heal. So unbeknownst to me, doing the music was making me stronger.”

A couple of songs on the album seem to refer to his recovery—notably “Blessed” when he sings “The sky is bluer than I’ve ever seen.” That line was actually meant literally, since Neville had cataract surgery just before it was written. But he admits the album found him in a bit of a reflective mood: He turned 60 around the time he got sick, and it wasn’t all that long ago (a mere couple decades) that he pulled himself out of a life-threatening addiction to drugs and drink. So, if there was a good time to feel blessed, this was probably it.

“[Getting sick] was maybe in the back of my mind. But you grow older and find you’ve been through a lot of stuff. I had some dark years in my life, made some bad decisions and I survived and came out the other side. And surviving the COVID was kind of a kickstart. You can really start to think about your mortality when you have those little oxygen tubes up your nose. But I was also thinking about growing up in my life, what it means to find acceptance, and what I can maybe do to help. And when I’m thinking of something other than myself, the day gets a little bit better. And I thought about being grateful to be alive, still doing something that I love for a living. That comes out in a lot of messages in the songs—some of them subtle, some maybe not so subtle.”

The album’s one surprise cover, Talking Heads’ “This Must Be the Place,” ties in with that idea. Though it’s often interpreted as a love song, to Neville it meant something a little deeper. “I’ll tell you I was hitting a brick wall with the next song I was going to write, that can happen sometime. My creative juices were getting dried up, then I heard that song randomly—and I said, ‘Fuck, I love this tune.’ Not that I was a big Talking Heads fan but some of their songs struck me as unique and very musical. And whatever David Byrne was thinking when he wrote it, it had me thinking of where I was, right there and then. Everybody thinks about ‘I could have gotten more. I could have lived differently.’ But you know what—where you are can also be pretty fuckin’ cool. So, this must be the place.”

The album’s guest list also underlines the fact that while Neville still lives and works in town, he moves in some pretty impressive circles. As a regular member of Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos he’s part of rock ’n’ roll royalty, and his list of recorded guest appearances would fill a good couple of pages. “I got a few friends that I’ve made over the years. When I started living life good and stopped burning bridges, I found I was friends with a lot of people. I love it when people call me to do what I do, which is to be a complimentary musician. I’m always down to do that.”

One guy who’ll always get his phone calls answered is Richards, who reconvenes the X-Pensive Winos whenever he feels like it’s time (most recently, they played three songs at a New York benefit show in March of last year). Neville’s ready and willing, but at the moment Richards is tied up with his other band. “It’s always wishful thinking, you know; you’re always hoping that happens. Because Keith is my man, he’s been a good friend to me for as long as I’ve known him. I was thinking of trying to get Keith on this record, but the Stones are getting busy, probably going to tour again. And those guys are hitting 80 soon—we’re all getting older, and you always want another chance to play with your friends while they’re still around. But I’m still in a band called Dumpstaphunk, and we still love making the music we make.”

In fact, Dumpstaphunk celebrates a milestone this year: It was Jazz Fest 2003 when they first appeared under that name, originally as a pickup group but inaugurated as a fulltime band soon afterward. All but one of the original members—guitarist Ian Neville, bassist/guitarist Tony Hall, and bassist Nick Daniels remain in the lineup. They’ve added a horn section, but the only other changes have been in the drum chair—which has been taken by Raymond Weber, Nikki Glaspie (now with Nth Power), Alvin Ford Jr. and currently Deven Trusclair. All four drummers will be present for their closing-night show at Tipitina’s during Jazz Fest, when they’ll play songs from the band’s full history. “We’ve evolved over the years; you have to if you want to stay in the band this long. We love each other but if you’re going to keep at it, you’d better have a serious creative incentive.”

Another hat he’ll wear proudly is as a keeper of the family musical legacy. Since he’s been a member of both the Neville Brothers and the funky Meters, he’s got no problem keeping that music going (Dumpstaphunk has a Meters set that they’ve played with George Porter, Jr. during Trombone Shorty’s recent tours). “We do some pretty good renditions of that music, and I love that I get to do it. Because Art influenced me and taught me so much so playing it with my uncle Cyril, George and Leo sometimes is a blessing. I’m still listening to that music 50 years later, and still hearing stuff I never heard before. Sometimes I’m saying ‘That’s what Artie was doing? Shit! I never heard that one little note that he put into that piece, and I’ve been playing it my whole life.” O