Touch My Soul Ivan Neville

• 1Hey All Together03:41
• 2Greatest Place On Earth04:53
• 3Might Last A Lifetime04:52
• 4Dance Music Love03:45
• 5Touch My Soul04:43
• 6Stand For Something04:48
• 7Blessed04:20
• 8This Must Be The Place04:58
• 9Pass It All Around04:49
• 10Beautiful Tears03:03
• Total Runtime43:52

Info for Touch My Soul

As a standard bearer for the musical culture of New Orleans, Ivan Neville takes his anointing as seriously as the swamp water that courses through his veins. From the ferocious funk he makes with his bandmates in the dynamic Dumpstaphunk to his high- profile gigs with Keith Richards and Bonnie Raitt, he embodies the irrepressible spirit of New Orleans.

Touch My Soul -- Ivan's first solo album in almost 20 years -- is tough-minded but also tender, filled with joy, beauty, and pain. It exudes an unmistakable New Orleans ambience and breathes new life into his singular sound. It's both a love letter to the Crescent City and a celebration of his emotional and spiritual journey as an artist, a father, and a man.

Touch My Soul — Ivan’s first solo album in almost 20 years — is tough-minded but also tender, filled with joy, beauty and pain. It exudes an unmistakable New Orleans ambience and breathes new life into his singular sound. It’s both a love letter to the Crescent City and a celebration of his emotional and spiritual journey as an artist, a father and a man. “I haven’t written any new material for myself in a long time,” Ivan explains, “so this project is very special to me. I made it up as I went along, a song here and there, in between my work with Dumpsta and my work with good musical friends.”

Ivan Neville holds the keys to the Crescent City at his fingertips. He can summon the barrelhouse mambo of Professor Longhair and the spidery intricacies of James Booker. He can play spooky, atmospheric chords like Dr. John. He can riff like Sly Stone with catchy, melodic chord progressions. Or he can throw intense, impulsive jabs when he jams with his brothers in Dumpstaphunk.

“Music is a way to make people feel better, it brings spiritual healing,” he says. “I take my job very seriously.”

Consider that Ivan’s bloodline runs through two of the most influential groups that New Orleans has produced and that he has played with them both. His uncle Art Neville was the vocalist and keyboardist with the Meters, who epitomized New Orleans funk and are among modern music’s most sampled groups.

Art also founded the Neville Brothers with Ivan’s uncles Charles and Cyril, and his father, the great balladeer and stylist Aaron Neville. The Nevilles’ musical range not only spanned generations but also idioms like carnival rhythms, pop, soul, R&B and jazz; their collective identity galvanized Black New Orleans’s cultural life to create a musical identity that focused their individual gifts with grace and grit.

Ivan is even more humble about his stature at the highest echelon of modern music. He has performed and recorded with the Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Don Henley, Robbie Robertson, Ani DeFranco and the Spin Doctors, among many others. He’s a charter member of Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos. He’s a founding member of the New Orleans Social Club and the group Neville Jacobs, in partnership with the songwriter Chris Jacobs.

The writing of Touch My Soul began with an epiphany. “When I was growing up,” Ivan says, “people interacted differently on the street. They acknowledged each other. There was a feeling of connection. Just a nod or a look that said, ‘Where y’at?’” “Hey (All Together)” brings that feeling back, with vocal contributions from Michael McDonald, Bonnie Raitt, Big Aaron, and David Shaw of the Revivalists, and instrumental sparks from Troy Andrews on trombone and violinist Theresa Anderson.

There is a sense of community-mindedness that extends throughout an album that’s alive with the pulse of the Crescent City. “Greatest Place On Earth” is an authentic slice of street corner soul, a deliriously Mardi Gras-styled salute packed with incisive rhythms, booting horn parts, and vocal fireworks.

Ivan constructed Touch My Soul around piano pieces that he composed in the picture- filled “sunroom” in his house in Uptown New Orleans. “The drum loops were inspired by the sounds I heard on Sly Stone’s Fresh album,” he says, “which was a big influence on me as a teen.”

“People try to warn us about the risks in life, but we want to learn for ourselves,” he says. “And we have a choice whether we want to learn from our mistakes. I believe the more we embrace our vulnerabilities, our imperfections, our insecurities, the better we become. That’s my goal: stay teachable.”

Two songs, in particular, speak directly to Ivan’s search for the touchstones that guide him today: the meaning of acceptance and surrender as a path to achieving peace of mind — and both sound like cinematic classics. “Blessed,” whose undulating guitar recalls the Isley Brothers’ scintillating mid-80s sound, reflects what it means to feel the presence of a universal spirit. And “Touch My Soul,” with its exquisite string arrangement, comes from “a new understanding of what it means to love, and be loved.”

“It’s taken me years to understand that it’s all about the journey, it’s not about the finish line,” Ivan says. “Everything serves a purpose. We just have to pay attention. So I look for blessings everywhere,” he concludes.

Ivan Neville
Aaron Neville
Bonnie Raitt
Michael McDonald
Trombone Shorty
Cyril Neville
Doyle Bramhal II

Ivan Neville
(born August 19, 1959) is a singer, songwriter, organist, pianist, and occasional guitarist. He has played with an assortment of bands from the Rolling Stones to the Neville Brothers. His songs have appeared in several movies, and he is known for his passionate, soulful vocals and funky keyboard playing. Neville’s strengths are his range of musical styles, his ability to create a flexible groove, and a voice capable of both sweet harmonies and down-home raspiness. Currently he leads the band Dumpstaphunk: it is considered the premiere funk band on the contemporary New Orleans music scene and combines the layered harmonies of Sly and the Family Stone, the politics of Funkadelic, the party groove of the Ohio Players, and the hometown funk of the Meters.

Ivan is the son of iconic singer Aaron Neville and the remaining Neville brothers are his uncles (Art, Charles, and Cyril); the legendary Big Chief Jolly (George Landry) of the Wild Tchoupitoulas was his great uncle. He grew up in the 13th Ward of New Orleans on Valence Street, the famed thoroughfare where all the Nevilles grew up. His father and Uncle Cyril first taught him how to play and exposed him to the music of the day. Neville’s first gigs came when he was in his teens sitting in with his father and Big Chief Jolly. He also played clavinet with the first incarnations of the Neville Brothers. Neville formed his first band, The Renegades, in 1977.

He played with the Neville Brothers band until 1981 when he left New Orleans to record Seal In Red with Rufus in Los Angeles. He then joined Bonnie Raitt as a session musician for her Nine Lives album and stayed with Raitt for five ears as her keyboard player. In this period, he recorded with the Rolling Stones (Dirty Work), Don Henley, and Robbie Robertson, then became part Keith Richards’ band, The X-Pensive Winos, and Keith Richards, with whom he toured and recorded Talk Is Cheap.

Neville’s first solo project was the album, If My Ancestors Could See Me Now (1988). The single “Not Just Another Girl” was a top 40 hit while the second single, “Falling Out of Love,” appeared on the soundtrack of the film Skin Deep; “Why Can’t I Fall In Love” appeared in crucial scenes in the movie Pump Up the Volume. He also joined the Spin Doctors for an album and worked with Delbert McClinton, Soul Asylum, and Paula Abdul.

After a long struggle with alcohol, Neville got sober in 1998 and began to focus on his solo career. He put out several acclaimed records including Saturday Morning Music (2002) and solidified his reputation as one of the nation’s most dynamic background vocalists and keyboard players.

The latest chapter in Neville’s career began with a solo turn at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazzfest) in 2003. He called upon some of his veteran musical compadres to fill out the band: Raymond Weber on drums, Nick Daniels on bass/vocals, Tony Hall on bass/guitar/vocals, and cousin Ian Neville on guitar to fill out the band. After a follow-up local tour, the band dubbed itself Dumpstaphunk: the funk is grounded in two basses, Neville’s organ and clavinet chords, rhythm guitar, while three-part vocal harmonies hold high above the instruments. , was successful enough that they started playing around New Orleans and assorted festivals. Dumpstaphunk has released three records, Listen Hear (2007), Everybody Want Sum (2011), and Dirty Word (2013). Dumpstaphunk has played the last several Jazzfests and now has a prestigious standing gig on the last Sunday night at Tipitina’s to close out New Orleans’ festival season.

Neville contributes to many causes and plays countless local benefits. Dumpstaphunk appeared on the tribute to Fats Domino (Going Home, 2008) that aided victims of Hurricane Katrina and played on the Headcount Participation Tour for voter registration. Neville sang a passionate and angry cover version of “Fortunate Son” on the New Orleans Social Club album (2006). Neville has also recently on albums by Jerry Lee Lewis, Dr. John, Ani Difranco, Galactic, and Trombone Shorty (Troy Andrews).

This album contains no booklet.