Aaron Neville
“Struttin’ On Sunday”
I inherited the house in Maine that I had grown up in. It sat empty for a long time until the Pandemic hit. I was on tour in Europe. Suddenly all my shows were cancelled. The airport in Lisbon was in chaos. It felt like the fall of Saigon. There were long lines to change flights, and when you got to the front of the line they would send you home unless you had a flight scheduled for that day. There was some question as to whether or not the United States would allow its citizens to return home. Portugal was shutting down. I called my travel agent in London and asked him to book me on any flight to the USA. I landed in Newark a few days later and drove to Maine. It seemed like the safest place to be in the midst of the fear and uncertainty of the Coronavirus overtaking the world.
I’m tall, but since I was the youngest son, I got the smallest room, barely longer and wider than I am tall. Because of that, I learned to love small beds and small rooms. Maybe they make me feel safe and enclosed.
I had a radio by my bed and would listen to music all night long. I discovered the music of New Orleans. Have you been there? There is no city like it. It was owned by France at one time, and before that, Spain. The cultural mix of Cajun, Black, White, and Creole cultures, is a beautiful mezcla. The food, the music, the architecture, the fact that it is six feet below sea level, alongside the Mississippi River, held back by a levee, always threatening to flood the city, as it finally did with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
I read the back of album covers and discovered the genius New Orleans producer/songwriter/pianist, Allen Toussaint. He wrote and/or produced many of the hits coming out of New Orleans throughout the '60s and beyond, including "Right Place, Wrong Time” by Dr. John, “Lady Marmalade” by LaBelle, “What is Success” by Bonnie Raitt, “Southern Nights”, “Working in the Coal Mine” and a lot more. When I left home I went straight to his studio and knocked on his door with a tape of my songs. Aaron Neville and later, Johnny Adams recorded my song, “Struttin’ On Sunday.”
I had written it with my friend Andrew Kastner. We ended up writing songs for Chaka Khan, Jennifer Warnes, Nicolette Larson, and more. His brother Stanley had a bar in Portland, Maine called The Sun Tavern. I performed there, all my early songs, along with blues and RnB covers. Andrew was playing guitar on the RnB circuit in Natalie Cole’s band and with Barry White! He came to visit Portland and I had my first co-writing experience. My co-writing is very different from the songs I write alone. My solo songs are much more introspective and detailed, but co-writing has taken me places I wouldn't have gone on my own. It’s a social activity, and meeting people always opens new doors.
I lived in a townhouse in Portland, 27 West Street to be specific. There were 8 rooms, and between 8 and 16 of us living there depending on who was in a couple situation at the moment. I studied the Berklee Guitar method books and lay on the long couch in my room dreaming up lyrics. Love came calling occasionally on that couch. How naive and inexperienced I was in not fully appreciating the beauty and tenderness being offered me. Youth is wasted on the young. I’ll quote the song “Mona Lisa”: “Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep, they just lie there and they die there.” Ah, but matters of the heart are complicated at any age, no end to the songs being written on this timeless subject.
“Struttin’” is a very simple song lyrically. Whatever charm it has is based on the groove and the spirit of New Orleans it evokes. It has been on hundreds of compilation albums and was used in the HBO series “Treme.”
In my later songwriting, I have tried to incorporate both the elements of groove and Irish poetry, hopefully successfully.