Aaron Neville

Aaron Neville

Aaron Neville: The Natural
A physically imposing figure with a sweetly sentimental croon, Aaron Neville leads a double life as a vocal artist. A featured member of the New Orleans funk insitution the Neville Brothers, the 62-year-old singer is also a popular solo artist. Neville released two albums in 2003: Believe, a gospel project, and Nature Boy, a set of American Songbook standards complete with an all-star jazz support team. The soul legend tells it like it is to Ted Panken about his career-juggling talents.

Barnes & Noble.com: It seems almost like you could pair Nature Boy and Believe in a certain way. In both instances you're covering a broad range of material in each area. Is singing gospel a very different experience for you than covering the type of music you do on Nature Boy?

Aaron Neville: On both, it's like the experience of praying. I read a sentence once, "He who sings, prays twice." Thanking the Lord for what he gave you.

B&N.com: What made you decide to do a standards record at this point?

AN: Well, me and my brother Charles have been talking about doing something like this for a while, and I guess it was in the air, because at the same time, Ron Goldstein went into my management. He'd heard me sing "These Foolish Things" on The Grand Tour album, and he thought it would be great for me to sing some more songs like that. So everybody thought it was a great idea.

B&N.com: When you were coming up, people didn't really separate the genres that much, did they?

AN: In New Orleans, it was like a mixture. It was a gumbo. Anywhere you went, you could hear some of everything. Like, the first band I played with, the Hawkettes, with Art and them, they used to play jazz tunes like "Little Red Top" and stuff like that. Charles was always a bebop man. He turned me on to Charlie Parker and all of that. And I was into Ella Fitzgerald because my mom liked her. Billie Holiday later on.

B&N.com: Your trademark over the years is your beautiful falsetto. Was that something you worked to develop, or was it always there? Was it your voice?

AN: I had it, but I had to work to develop it. Back in the day, when I was a kid, Art would bring home all this stuff by the Flamingos and Pookie Hudson and the Spaniels, and Clyde McPhatter, who was one of my very favorite singers, and Sonny Till and the Orioles. All these groups had the bass singer, they had the harmony stuff, and they had the guy hitting the high notes. I wanted to be all of them. I wanted to sing each note. And I could at the time!

B&N.com: "'Nature Boy" is associated with Nat King Cole, and there's a certain elegance of approach that this date brings up.

AN: When I was a kid, I thought I was Nat King Cole, too. My dad and mom were his biggest fans, and they had everything he ever recorded. I used to sing my way into the movies or the basketball game by singing "Pretend" or one of them songs like that.

B&N.com: What do you mean you'd sing your way in?

AN: I mean whoever was on the door, they'd let me in if I'd sing them a song.

B&N.com: So you were always marked as the singer.

AN: Oh yeah. Well, I found out I could get in the movie free. Well, hey!

B&N.com: How long does it take you to inhabit a song? Are you someone who can go into a studio and just a read a chart and get it and feel it, or does it take you a while?

AN: Well, no, it didn't take a while. Because [arranger] Rob Mounsey put the music down, and that was the carpet for me to sing on. I just followed him, and just did what I do. It's hard to explain. He made it so easy for me. I wanted to be true to the songs. I didn't want to go off the path. I did want to put my signature in it some kind of way, but I didn't want to take nothing away from the song itself. I was doing "Cry Me a River." I had heard Sam Cooke do it, and he had kind of went off on his own thing on this song, and I was following him, but [drummer] Grady Tate was telling me the note to hit. It was like a labor of love working in the studio with these guys. I didn't even know Grady Tate was a singer. But he's bad.

B&N.com: You duet with Linda Ronstadt on ""The Very Thought of You." What do you think are the qualities that make you so musically compatible over the years?

AN: There's a respect thing. Linda once said, "I believe we once sang together in a different life. Our voices was married!" When she sings about stuff, she can belt out a tune, sing real hard, but then she can come down and be tender. It's like two voices intertwining with each other.

B&N.com: I know the Neville Brothers is a different entity, but is there a similar feeling when you play together?

AN: Oh yeah. Well, we've got our own thing. We never have to say, "Well, you take this and you take that." We all know what note we take from the jump. It's like we was born in that order.

B&N.com: Do you think you'll be doing more jazz albums in the future?

AN: I think so, yeah. I like the genre. It gives me a chance to stretch out.

B&N.com: Why do you think it's happening at this time? Is it something personal in you? Is it something that fits with the tenor of the times?

AN: I guess it's a little bit of both. You've got a lot of disrespectful stuff out there on the radio, you know, and I want to sing respectful stuff. With this record, I can sit down with my grandmother and my granddaughter and listen to this music and won't be offended.

B&N.com: When I talk to a lot of jazz musicians who came up in the '40s and '50s, they say that the most important thing, more important than even your technique on your instrument, was to be an individual, a distinctive voice. Was that the case for you?

AN: I never was trying to do that. It just happened. I'd be in the studio sometimes, and they'd be trying to tell me, "Don't do those trills" or "Don't do those runs" -- but I couldn't help that. That's just the way I sing. Then I'd hear somebody else trying to copy it and do it. I'd say, "Hey, man, they're telling me don't do it, and these guys are getting over on it."