LEO NOCENTELLI of the METERS, Hour One in #2 of the 'Spiritual as Music' series
MUSIC from the METERS, JOHNNY SMITH, SMOKEY JOHNSON, ALLEN TOUSSAINT, GRANT GREEN and IDRIS MUHAMMAD. And MUCH of warm and revealing TALK, including Allen's unexpected tribute-song "Anybody Seen Leo?"
This Post is meant to be ENJOYMENT as balancing counter to the ‘Guilty Actors’ and their ‘Mandates’ and ‘Poisons’ slammed (I hope) in the “Prosecute ‘Em” Song and Post.
Several readers of this Substack have written about how music and culture of New Orleans has lifted them. I’m with you!
The Interview with LEO was recorded at the Let’s Live Radio studio in New Orleans East and then edited with its accompanying Tracks. Both the Interview and Editing were done with KELLY ROBERTS ABNEY (photographed below with ROGER LEWIS and KIRK JOSEPH).
You might want want to check out, too, MARIO ABNEY, composer, bandeader, trumpeter, and Mario’s many fine Tracks!
ALL of the 22 Hours of Interviews and Music that make up the still-ongoing ‘SPIRITUAL AS MUSIC’ series are UP—over there—yes, that’s them—on the WeAreRevolutions and YouAreHereToShine website.
Both Hours with LEO can be found over there as well.
Here WE go! You can listen on Bandcamp.
Leo Nocentelli, Hour One
The composer, guitarist and bandleader talks with Don Paul about the Meters, 1940s' 1950s'--1960s'--1970s' New Orleans, Black Indians, Smokey Johnson, Allen Toussaint, and more.
Listen to Hour One on bandcamp here.
0:00 Leo on segregation in 1950s' New Orleans compelling him and his Auntie to enter through the Orpheum Theater's side-door and watch from the Balcony. He talks also about his Sicilian grandfather and Blackfoot grandmother, the latter a speaker of fluent French.
4:50 "Hey Pocky Way", the Meters
Leo on Second-Line beats and Art Neville's culture being one generation earlier in New Orleans than his and on the distinguishing "syncopation" and "interplay" among the Meters
13:00 "Cherokee", Johnny Smith
On practicing in his bedroom to Johnny Smith and more while schoolmates were on the street.
17:25 "It Aint No Use", the Meters
29:15 How "It Ain't No Use" came to gel. The players make the team make the song. This one with some "melancholy", yes, but "soaring" and "marvelous."
It wouldn't be what it is without the musicians," Leo says.
33:00 "It Ain't My Fault", versions 1 and 2, Smokey Johnson
"I can't even start to say what Smokey Johnson meant to me." Leo talks about his and Smokey Johnson's and George French's recruitment by Joe Jones from New Orleans to Detroit, circa 1962, when the label that became Motown was Hitsville and Berry Gordy using their and particularly Smokey's music for "Baby Love", "Where Did Our Love Go?" and more hits.
41:30 How Allen Toussaint was always"laying back" to let the Meters create and evolve but still making sure their sound was as sharp and grand as it should be.
42:30 Allen's song, "Anybody Seen Leo?", is presented as a surprise at the 2015 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Leo says: "It brought tears to my eyes, man ... "
Leo sings Allen's lyrics. "Has anybody seen Leo? / Which way did he go? / He left a funky, funky trail around the world / ... / He walked the walk / And he talked the talk / He lived and breathed music / ..."
Leo recalls. "I had no idea he felt that way about me. It messed me up to this very second."
50:40 "Ease Back", Grant Green with Idris Muhammad
58:30 Leo is touched again by the "respect" intrinsic in Grant Green's and Idris Muhammad's recording of the Meters' song, 1969.
Decades later, he hires a young relative of Idris Muhammad’s and Idris'niece Elizabeth Dunams, for a band in Los Angeles. Again, New Orleans goes round the world and makes the world a small place.