Neville Brothers - Brother's Keeper

By Andre S. Grindle

In terms of music that came out following the 1980's,this is quite different from what I could possibly have imagined. Known about this for a long time. Picked it up same day,same format and same price as I did the Neville's Fiyo on the Bayou. Decided as I often do to listen to the two together. I expected both albums to be excellent and interesting. And that they both are. But there's something on this particular album that is somewhat hard to put into words. It's a sort of flavor you get from that type of 1970's funk that stretched conceptually out beyond merely the latest dance or whatever. In terms of cultural,moral and spiritual understanding this album makes no apologies in showcasing the Neville's outlook on all of that both lyrically and musically all at once. It's nothing like their late 70's,early 80's sound at all. They evolved into something quite different.

Matter of fact,a good deal of these songs have a strong blues/country-soul vibe to them from "Steer Me Right",the Linda Ronstadt duet of "Fearless","Fallin' Rain" and "Witness" actually have more a potent combination that is closer to a country/soul/blues fusion somewhere around the middle since there's a lot of gospel overtones in their too. "Brother Jake" isn't exactly a heartwarming tale but at the same time it's one of my favorites here and showcases them modernizing their funk again. Only it's very much late 80's sounding. "River Of Life" and "Mystery Train" are very funk oriented but delve into the blues end of it a bit further,again telling some captivating stories that I won't spoil for anyone here. "Sons And Daughters" is goes right back to the West Indian style percussive rhythms of Congo Square,with Charles Neville delivering a spoken word lyric to the effect of politics being used as a force to spiritually bankrupt human kind to the point where there's only "free speech unless you say too much".

"Jah Love" again points to the Afro Caribbean spirituality of the New Orleans culture,lyrically and musically while the title song is contemplates the idea of brotherhood both literally and figuratively over some major chorded Crescent City type funk. The album ends with Aaron's "Bird On A Wire",the most sleek and 1990's style track on this album with it's (then) fully contemporary album. Even though one might not think of it in precisely these terms,this is a funk album. Not generationally perhaps or in terms of it's relation to the funk era of the 70's. But in terms of how it presents itself stylistically and rhythmically,especially on the lightly percussive opener "Brother Blood" there's a very diverse range of rhythms,grooves and messages here that somehow all coalesce into itself. Of course when one discuss New Orleans,funk of some sort or another is bound to come into the equation sooner or later since that is a very rhythmically diverse city in more ways than one. And in a nutshell I suppose that's the most important thing this particular album reflects.

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Neville Brothers - Brother's Keeper (A&M Records 75021 5312)
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Artist...............: Neville Brothers
Album................: Brother's Keeper (A&M Records 75021 5312)
Genre................: R&B
Source...............: CD
Year.................: 1990
Ripper...............: EAC (Secure mode) / LAME 3.92 & Asus CD-S520
Codec................: LAME 3.99
Version..............: MPEG 1 Layer III
Quality..............: Extreme, (avg. bitrate: 254kbps)
Channels.............: Joint Stereo / 44100 hz

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Tracklisting
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1. Neville Brothers - Brother Blood [04:34]
2. Neville Brothers - Brother Jake [04:47]
3. Neville Brothers - Steer Me Right [03:15]
4. Neville Brothers - Fearless [04:12]
5. Neville Brothers - Sons and Daughters [05:02]
6. Neville Brothers - Fallin' Rain [04:01]
7. Neville Brothers - Jah Love [03:22]
8. Neville Brothers - River of Life [05:19]
9. Neville Brothers - Witness [04:04]
10. Neville Brothers - My Brother's Keeper [03:36]
11. Neville Brothers - Sons and Daughters (Reprise) [04:09]
12. Neville Brothers - Mystery Train [04:31]
13. Neville Brothers - Bird on a Wire [05:01]

Playing Time.........: 55:57
Total Size...........: 102.39 MB

NFO generated on.....: 3/4/2015 8:56:09 AM


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