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Swept away
Cyril Neville, still angry in Katrina aftermath, says he'll stay in Texas

10:37 AM CDT on Sunday, October 9, 2005

By THOR CHRISTENSEN / The Dallas Morning News


AUSTIN - Many of the performers at "From the Big Apple to the Big Easy" last
month talked about love, hope and the need to rebuild New Orleans.

But not Cyril Neville. The youngest Neville Brother walked onstage at
Madison Square Garden wearing a silent message on his T-shirt: "Ethnic
Cleansing in New Orleans."

Two weeks later, his anger is matched only by his resolve never to move back
to the city where the Nevilles are called the "First Family of New Orleans."

"New Orleans is dead, man. It's dead," the singer-percussionist says,
sitting on a red couch in an otherwise drab South Austin apartment complex
where he has lived for the last month.

"Don't get me wrong. I love New Orleans. But the New Orleans I loved was
gone long before the storm hit."

Music has long been the pulse of New Orleans' culture. But now musicians are
scattered across the country. And no one can predict how many will return
and how many will stay put in Austin or New York or Nashville, where Aaron
and Art Neville are now living.

If too many of them stay away for good, the funky vibe that defines New
Orleans may never be the same.

"The main thing is to bring everybody back, because that's the ambience of
the city," said Irma Thomas, the queen of New Orleans soul, during the "Big
Easy" concert.

R&B legend Allen Toussaint agreed, telling The New York Times "as soon as
the powers that be say it's OK, I'm going to be on the first thing smokin'.
Give me a hammer. I'm ready to do my part to rebuild New Orleans."

But then there's Cyril Neville, 56, who says he's giving up New Orleans for
Austin permanently: "The gumbo has spilled into the chili," he says.

It seems almost inconceivable that the Nevilles - New Orleans' "Professors
of the Uptown Funk" - would pull up stakes from the city they've been so
associated with all their lives.

Singer-keyboardist Art Neville, 67, had his first hit when he was still in
high school, "Mardi Gras Gumbo" (1954). Muscle-bound, angel-voiced Aaron,
64, became a star in 1966 with the smash "Tell It Like It Is."

And Art and Cyril helped invent New Orleans funk in the Meters, which
started in '67 and evolved into the Neville Brothers 10 years later with the
addition of Aaron and saxophonist Charles Neville, 66.

Today, the Neville Brothers are hometown deities, cheered on by tens of
thousands who flock to see them play Jazzfest every year. And unlike Harry
Connick Jr. and Wynton and Branford Marsalis - who moved to New York after
they got famous - most of the Nevilles have stayed put in New Orleans.
(Charles lives in Massachusetts.)

That's about to change. Cyril says he's not sure if Art and Aaron will move
back or stay in Nashville. But he's definitely dropped anchor in Austin, a
city both he and his wife, Gaynielle, have loved for years.

She fled here when Hurricane Katrina hit, while Mr. Neville was out on tour.
Today, they're busy scouting South Austin to find a place similar to their
flood-ravaged home in New Orleans' Gentilly area.

"In New Orleans, I was living ghetto-fabulous," he says. "I was still in the
'hood, but we had a pool in the yard and a basketball court, so every kid in
the neighborhood was at my house."

His current Austin digs are a far cry from that. His family is one of dozens
from New Orleans living in Woodway Square, a cookie-cutter complex across
from a boarded-up Wal-Mart in an industrial strip near the airport.

He shares a second-floor apartment with his wife and their son, Omari, 17,
and their daughter, Liryca, 23. They've tried to spruce up the place with
posters of Bob Marley and Duke Ellington, and incense burns during the
interview.

But the homey touches can't hide the fact that this cramped space is more
fitting for college students than New Orleans music royalty. The family pit
bull whimpers on a balcony because there's no room for him inside.

For now, however, it's home. A half-dozen of the singer's in-laws have
landed in Austin, as have two of his children from a previous marriage. Also
in Austin are Aaron's grandson, Jaron, and his son Ivan, who plays with the
Neville Brothers.

When Mr. Neville talks about New Orleans, he speaks in the past tense.

"Truth is, I was planning on leaving even before the storm hit, because I
was so ashamed of the city. ... Living there was just too hard," he says.

"The school system was shot. Talking to city hall about the needs of the
needy was like talking to deaf people. And I didn't want to watch the news
anymore because night after night it was murder after murder and anarchy and
chaos. The second I'd get back to the airport, I felt like I was in a
pressure cooker."

He stayed because Omari had one year left in high school. But the
post-hurricane carnage was the final straw.

"I'm pissed and I feel betrayed, but I'm not surprised. Everybody -
including the mayor, the governor, everybody in Washington - knew this was
coming. They all knew which parts of the city were most vulnerable, and it
happened exactly the way everyone said it would happen.

"New Orleans is a crime scene filled with forensic evidence that shouldn't
be swept under the rug," he continues. "Everyone that lost a loved one
should have a class-action suit for wrongful death against the city, the
state, the government and FEMA."

He admits he got flak for wearing the "Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans"
T-shirt. But he says he'd wear it again.

"Everybody knows that if those people's complexions were different, the
reaction would have been different," he says. "Most of the people I know
from New Orleans slapped me on my back and said, 'Man, somebody needed to
say something!' "

Yet as glad as he is to be out of New Orleans, he already misses his
friends: He was tight with musicians and cultural groups in historic black
neighborhoods such as the Treme in the Sixth Ward: If those areas are torn
down, the city will never be the same, he says.

"The essence of New Orleans is the Mardi Gras Indians, the second-line
clubs, the social and pleasure clubs in the 'hoods where the tourists never
go. But the city doesn't care about that.

"They're only interested in tourism and rebuilding the city in this
'crime-free, drug-free' image the mayor keeps talking about on TV, which
means no black people."

And though he knows the music scene in Austin is very different - less jazz
and funk, more twang and Tex-Mex - he's ready to trade the new for the old.
He has friends in Austin, old ones such as Marcia Ball and more recent ones
such as Eddie Wilson, owner of Threadgill's. He's been performing there
weekly with Tribe 13, a side project that includes his wife on vocals, and
Austin singer-guitarist Papa Mali.

And he already has jobs doing commercial studio work - gigs he says were
rare back home.

"I've worked more in the last two weeks in Austin than I had in the last two
years in New Orleans," he says, laughing at his good fortune.

If he has second thoughts about leaving the city he's called home for 56
years, he doesn't let on.

"I like it here in Austin; musicians here look out for each other and people
treat us the way we were supposed to be treated in New Orleans but weren't.
The good thing that's come out of all this is I'm now in a city that
actually cares about musicians."

E-mail tchristensen@dallasnews.com  ¶ 10/21/2005 06:45:00 AM