Our friends at Real Gone Music have released their September 2016 release schedule and let me tell you, brothers and sisters, they’re getting into the funk in a big way! First on the slate is a two-disc compilation covering the Crescent City’s favorite sons, the Meters. Scheduled for release on September 2, 2016 A Message From The Meters – The Complete Josie, Reprise & Warner Brothers Singles 1968-1977 is a forty-track monster that includes the A and B sides of every single released by the legendary band on the aforementioned record labels, providing the listener with a motherlode of great music! The set was re-mastered by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, the studio wizard working from the original master tapes for all but five of the singles…no mean feat considering the age of many of these tracks. Music historian Bill Dahl provides in-depth liner notes for the set that include quotes from Neville, Nocentelli, and Porter.
The Meters formed in 1965 with keyboardist and singer Art Neville up front, guitarist Leo Nocentelli shredding the strings, bassist George Porter Jr. and drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste holding down the bottom end. Art’s younger brother Cyril (currently of the Royal Southern Brotherhood) joined the band in 1970. The Meters were musician, songwriter, and producer Allen Toussaint’s house band for his Sansu Records label, backing performers like Lee Dorsey and Dr. John, among many others, on a bunch of hits. The band released its self-titled, Toussaint-produced debut album in 1969, scoring a Top 30 single out of the box with the infectiously funky “Cissy Strut.” Mixing elements of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and jazz with deep grooves and fluid rhythms, the Meters defined the sound of New Orleans funk.
An impressive slate of critically-acclaimed albums followed – 1970’s Look-Ka Py Py and Struttin’, 1972’s Cabbage Alley, 1974’s Rejuvenation, and what many consider the Meters’ best, 1975’s Fire On The Bayou. Real Gone’s A Message From The Meters includes classic tracks like the aforementioned “Cissy Strut,” “Sophisticated Cissy,” “Hey Pocky A-Way,” “Look-Ka Py Py,” and more, offered in their original versions. The Josie label singles are represented by the original mono singles mixes, most of which have never made their way onto CD (in fact, the first disc of A Message From The Meters is entirely in mono, with the Reprise/Warner Brothers label singles on disc two in stereo). Art and Cyril Neville left the band in 1977 after the release of the New Directions album to form the Neville Brothers, and the Meters officially broke up in 1980. They would later reunite in 1989, renaming themselves the Funky Meters, but the original band left behind eight albums, a slew of fine single releases, and an enormous musical legacy.
Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The Meters' A Message From The Meters
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