Jul 11, 2015

RhoDeo 1527 Grooves

Hello, saw a fab Federer methodically take apart Murray who played excellent but simply not good enough, s0me amazing tennis there and I ain't that much of a fan. I wonder is this years yellow jersey cursed within a week 2 yellow jersey wearers crash out, it's on the shoulders of Chris Froome....


Today and these last weeks you'll get an American funk band that defined New Orleans funk, not only on their own recordings, but also as the backing band for numerous artists, including many produced by Allen Toussaint. Where the funk of Sly Stone and James Brown was wild, careening, and determinedly urban, the band were down-home and earthy. Nearly all of their own recordings were instrumentals, putting the emphasis on the organic and complex rhythms. The syncopated, layered percussion intertwined with the gritty grooves of the guitar and organ, creating a distinctive sound that earned a small, devoted cult during the '70s, including musicians like Paul McCartney and Robert Palmer, both of whom used the group as a backing band for recording. Despite their reputation as an extraordinary live band, The Meters never broke into the mainstream, but their sound provided the basis for much of the funk and hip-hop of the '80s and '90s.   ... N'joy

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Art Neville, the group's frontman, launched a solo career around the New Orleans area in the mid-1950s while still in high school. The Meters formed in 1965 with a line-up of keyboardist and vocalist Art Neville, guitarist Leo Nocentelli, bassist George Porter Jr. and drummer Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste. They were later joined by percussionist/vocalist Cyril Neville. The Meters became the house band for Allen Toussaint and his record label, Sansu Enterprises.

Throughout their career, The Meters were always led by Art Neville (keyboard, vocals), one of the leading figures of the New Orleans musical community. As a teenager in high school, he recorded the seminal "Mardi Gras Mambo" with his group, the Hawketts, for Chess Records. The exposure with the Hawketts led to solo contracts with Specialty and Instant, where he released a handful of singles that became regional hits in the early '60s. Around 1966, he formed Art Neville & the Sounds with his brothers Aaron and Charles (both vocals), guitarist Leo Nocentelli, drummer Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste, and bassist George Porter. The band grew out of informal jam sessions the musicians held in local New Orleans nightclubs. After spending a few months playing under the Sounds name, producer Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn hired the group -- without the vocalists -- to be the house band for their label Sansu Enterprises.

As the house band for Sansu, The Meters played on records by Earl King, Lee Dorsey, Chris Kenner, and Betty Harris, as well is Toussaint himself. They also performed and recorded on their own, releasing danceable instrumental singles on Josie Records. "Sophisticated Cissy" and "Cissy Strut" became Top Ten R&B hits in the spring of 1969, followed by the number 11 hits "Look-Ka Py Py" and "Chicken Strut" a year later. The Meters stayed at Josie until 1972, and during that entire time they reached the R&B Top 50 consistently, usually placing within the Top 40. In 1972, the group moved to Reprise Records, yet they didn't sever their ties with Sansu, electing to keep Toussaint as their producer and Sehon as their manager. Ironically, The Meters didn't have nearly as many hit singles at Reprise, yet their profile remained remarkably high. If anything, the group became hipper, performing on records by Robert Palmer, Dr. John, LaBelle, King Biscuit Boy, and Paul McCartney. By the release of 1975's Fire on the Bayou, The Meters had a Top 40 hit with Rejuvenation's "Hey Pocky A-Way" (1974), and they had gained a significant following among rock audience and critics. Fire on the Bayou received significant praise, and the group opened for the Rolling Stones on the British band's 1975 and 1976 tours.

In 1975 Paul McCartney invited the Meters to play at the release party for his Venus and Mars album aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California; Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones was in attendance at the event and was greatly taken with the Meters and their sound.[citation needed] The Rolling Stones invited the band to open for them on their Tour of the Americas '75 and Tour of Europe '76.That same year, the Meters recorded one of their most successful albums, Fire on the Bayou.

During 1976/77, The Meters embarked on the Wild Tchoupitoulas project with Art's uncle and cousin George and Amos Landry, two members of the Mardi Gras ceremonial black Indian tribe, the Wild Tchoupitoulas. The Meters, the Landrys, and the Neville brothers -- Aaron, Charles, Art, and Cyril -- were all involved in the recording of the album, which received enthusiastic reviews upon its release in 1976. Cyril joined The Meters after the record's release. Despite all of the acclaim for The Wild Tchoupitoulas, its adventurous tendencies indicated that the group was feeling constrained by its signature sound. Such suspicions were confirmed the following year, when they separated from Toussaint and Sehorn, claiming they needed to take control of their artistic direction. Following the split, The Meters released New Directions in 1977, but shortly after its appearance, Toussaint and Sehorn claimed the rights to the group's name. Instead of fighting, the band broke up, with Art and Cyril forming the Neville Brothers with Aaron and Charles, while the remaining trio became session musicians in New Orleans. Modeliste, in particular, became a well-known professional musician, touring with the New Barbarians in 1979 and moving to L.A. during the '80s.

The Meters reunited as a touring unit in 1990 with Russell Batiste taking over the drum duties from Modeliste. Four years later, Nocentelli left the band, allegedly because he and Art disagreed whether the band should be paid for samples hip-hop groups took from their old records; when Nocentelli left the group in 1994 they replaced him with guitarist Brian Stoltz, formerly of The Neville Brothers and renamed themselves The Funky Meters. (They were referred to as "the Funky Meters" as early as 1989.

The Funky Meters continued to play into the 2000s with Stoltz being replaced by Art Neville's son, Ian Neville, from 2007 to 2011 while he went to pursue a solo career. Stoltz returned to the band permanently in 2011. In 2000, a "big offer" enticed all four original Meters to reunite for a one-night stand at the Warfield in San Francisco; by this time Modeliste wanted to make the reunion a permanent one, but the other members and their management teams objected

In June 2011 The Original Meters along with Allen Toussaint and Dr. John played the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee. The six men performed Dr. John's album "Desitively Bonnaroo" which was originally recorded with the Meters, to a sold out crowd. On May 5, 2012 The Meters returned to New Orleans for a performance at the Howlin' Wolf. Tickets went on sale and sold out in one and a half hours.

Currently, The Funky Meters tour consistently performing songs by The Meters, while The Meters perform sporadically. The line up of Neville, Porter, Nocentelli and Modeliste typically bill themselves as The Original Meters to avoid confusion with The Funky Meters. When not performing with The Original Meters, guitarist Leo Nocentelli leads his own group, The Meters Experience which also performs the music of The Meters.

Confused ? Don't be it's greed doing its ugly thing... Meanwhile the Meters have been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times since becoming eligible in 1994: 1996, 2012, and in 2013. but all that strife..

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This is, undeniably, where everything started to go pear-shaped for the Meters. Take the opening track, "Disco Is the Thing Today," a four-on-the-floor pumper that sounds nothing like the Meters and everything like BT Express. For the rest of the record the Meters and producer Allen Toussaint don't necessarily prove that sentiment true, but they do strive to sound as mainstream as possible, turning out slick ballads, frothy dance numbers, and pop-funk without spine. There are a couple of exceptions to the rule -- "Mister Moon" is the one time when the glossy formula works and turns sultry, "(Doodle Loop) The World Is a Little Bit Under the Weather" nearly grooves, and their take on "Honky Tonk Women" has some real grit -- but this is record is pretty much a dead end, and a pretty dispiriting one at that, best evidenced by the crushing disappointment that's their flat reading of Earl King's classic title track.



The Meters - Trick Bag  (flac  395mb)

01 Disco Is The Thing Today 4:16
02 Find Yourself 4:08
03 All These Things 3:27
04 I Want To Be Loved By You 5:19
05 Suite For 20 G 4:29
06 Doodle Loop (The World Is A Little Bit Under The Weather) 3:48
07 Trick Bag 3:16
08 Mister Moon 3:58
09 Chug-A-Lug 3:18
10  Hang 'Em High 2:17
11 Honky Tonk Woman 2:33
Bonus Tracks
12 Love The One You're With 3:31
13 What More Can I Do? 2:47
14 Down By The River 9:02
15 Come Together 3:08
16 Big Chief 2:57

The Meters - Trick Bag (ogg 151mb)

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The title of the Meters' final album is hopeful, and New Directions does indeed represent if not a new direction, at least a shift from the disco dead end of Trick Bag. From the second "No More Okey Doke" kicks off the record, it's clear that the Meters are gritty again, kicking out some really funky grooves -- maybe not as dirty as their Josie recordings, maybe a little cleaned up, but still pretty funky. The slower numbers betray their era, but in a pleasing way, something that's also true of generic numbers like "My Name Up in Lights," which may have too much talk-box guitar, but still grooves effectively. That may not be a new direction, per se, but it is a welcome change-up after the dud Trick Bag. It wasn't enough to save the Meters and it's not really a lost treasure, but it's a far more dignified way to bow out.



The Meters - New Directions (flac 268mb)

01 No More Okey Doke 4:17
02 I'm Gone 4:25
03 Be My Lady 6:24
04 My Name Up In Lights 5:20
05 Funkify Your Life 5:38
06 Stop That Train 4:47
07 We Got The Kind Of Love 5:17
08 Give It What You Can 4:33


The Meters - New Directions (ogg 92mb)

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There are some good moments on this disc, culled from unissued material from the Meters's Josie heyday in the late '60s and early '70s, but there's too much filler.

 "Good Old Funky Music", for example, was issued in a two-and-a-half- minute mix on the final Meters single for Josie during the fall of 1971; Rounder includes an interesting, nearly five minute rough mix that has a unique sound and power of its own, a work in progress before the final editing and mixdown took place. Also the Leo Nocentelli guitar feature "Pickin' and Grinnin" has some impressive effects, though it runs out of steam after a couple of minutes, and has not been resurrected by Sundazed. The truly spooky closer "Voodoo" is the true gem, again yet to appear since the Rounder set, it sounds like nothing so much as the Meters meeting "On The Corner"-era Miles and Sun Ra head on, and at three minutes feels too short. "Voodoo" sounds like nothing else The Meters ever released. The tracks, arranged and produced by another New Orleans legend, Allen Toussaint, were recorded throughout the band`s career and have never been previously released.



The Meters - Good Old Funky Music (flac 201mb)

01 Good Old Funky Music 4:46
02 Rock'N'Roll Medley 5:05
2a Rockin' Pneumonia
2b Something You Got
2c I Know
2d  Personality
03 Riddle Song 4:12
04 He Bite Me 2:25
05 Pickin' And A Grinnin' 3:16
06 Jambalaya 2:44
07 What More Can I Do? 2:49
08 I'm Gonna Put Some Hurt On You 3:21
09 Heartache 3:38
10 Keep On Marching 3:32
11 Voodoo 3:02

The Meters - Good Old Funky Music (ogg 82mb)

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