{"id":3204,"date":"2011-08-09T02:10:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3204"},"modified":"2011-08-09T02:10:19","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T09:10:19","slug":"aaron-neville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/aaron-neville\/","title":{"rendered":"AARON NEVILLE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

AARON NEVILLE<\/h1>\n

Knocked down by tragedy, the sweet-voiced legend bounces back to spread the gospel<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed Aaron Neville\u2019s New Orleans home. Two years later his wife of almost 48 years, Joel, died after a long bout with lung cancer. A pair of blows like that would\u2019ve tested the faith of many men, but not Neville. \u201cMy faith never wavered,\u201d says Neville, who relocated to Nashville after the Katrina disaster. \u201cI never questioned God. My wife, even when she got cancer, she never questioned either. Prayer carried me through. That\u2019s one thing about the New Orleans people\u2014you can knock \u2019em down, but they can come back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those experiences led Neville to make his first new album in four years, I Know I\u2019ve Been Changed<\/em>, a musical testimony to his long-held spirituality. As a child, he was nursed on the sounds of gospel groups like the Brooklyn Allstars and the Blind Boys of Alabama. He admits that whittling down the track list for his own new addition to the gospel tradition was a challenge. \u201cIt was hard at first,\u201d he says. \u201cThere were a lot to pick from. We all talked about the music that we thought would work best.\u201d\u00a0I Know I\u2019ve Been Changed<\/em> was recorded over five days in Los Angeles, with producer Joe Henry behind the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a reunion in the studio\u2014so many great musicians and background singers,\u201d Neville says. \u201cA lot of \u2019em I\u2019d been working with since the \u201960s.\u201d Among those longtime friends was pianist Allen Toussaint, who grew up near Neville in New Orleans and produced his first solo recordings. \u201cIt was cool working with Allen again,\u201d he says. \u201cWe recorded together from \u201960 to \u201964, and then again in \u201970 and \u201971. Right now we\u2019re working on a poetry book. A lot of the songs on here have come from me writing poetry and sending it to Allen.\u201d In addition to their musical collaborations throughout the years, Toussaint and Neville founded the charitable organization New Orleans Artists Against Hunger and Homelessness\u00a0(NOAAHH) in 1985.<\/p>\n

As he celebrates 50 years in the music business, Neville is confident that he has chosen the proper musical course for this moment. \u201cGospel is what our world needs to hear right now,\u201d says the singer, who will turn 70 in January. \u201cIt\u2019s uplifting. In today\u2019s music there are a lot of formulas. I don\u2019t want to get pigeonholed\u2014I want to do more doo-wop and country too. But gospel is what\u2019s most important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Blake Boldt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AARON NEVILLE Knocked down by tragedy, the sweet-voiced legend bounces back to spread the gospel Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina destroyed Aaron Neville\u2019s New Orleans home. Two years later his wife of almost 48 years, Joel, died after a long bout with lung cancer. A pair of blows like that would\u2019ve tested the faith of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2329,1175,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3206,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204\/revisions\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}