The New Orleans music legend Cyril Neville’s first gigs were as a teenager in the 1960s, playing French Quarter clubs with his brother’s R&B outfit, Art Neville and the Neville Sounds. That group later recorded with Allen Toussaint and became The Meters – the founding fathers of New Orleans funk – and then evolved into the Neville Brothers and became musical royalty.

After working with those groundbreaking bands, playing with everybody from Bob Dylan to Bono to Joan Baez, and doing solo material, Neville has most recently found a home in the blues-rooted but adventurous Royal Southern Brotherhood.

“The beautiful part about this is that I can do all that stuff right here,” Neville said last month as the band was coming off of rapturously received performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. “That’s what’s made it the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” Continue Reading.