Features Disc of the day
The Meters
The Meters
(Josie, 1969)
Kings of Nawlins "fonk" go it alone. Cue incurable itch in sacroiliac.
A groove isn't, of itself, normally enough to make a song. There's all that harmony and melody stuff to consider, too. But that didn't stop The Meters, the New Orleans counterparts of Booker T & The MG's. While they perhaps lacked the extensive range of the Memphian instrumentalists (there's nothing in The Meters' canon like the deep, regretful sigh of Time Is Tight - although their Stormy comes close, and the transplanted Highland fling of Dry Spell outstrips Soul Limbo for sheer quirk) as pure groove merchants, they were easily their match. At this remove, it's the lead drums of Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste that most blow the mind. The rest of the chaps - Art Neville of that ilk on organ, bassist George Porter Jr and chicken-scratch axe maestro Leo Nocentelli - mostly stay out of his way, as if a half-decade as Allen Toussaint's house band has earned them an afternoon with a foot off the gas. Cissy Strut kicks off their debut album as headliners, and it prances like a Rue Basin dandy in a feather headdress, challenging you not to revel in every syncopated snare hit and half-open hi-hat tssssh. It's just one of any number of sampleable beat matrices in the Meters canon, a dressing-up box ransacked by 2 Live Crew, Black Eyed Peas and Amerie (remember her startling '05 smash 1 Thing, heavily in debt to The Meters' skeletizing of Stanley Walden's Oh Calcutta!?), but it would be a mistake to dismiss The Meters as the building blocks, not the building. These tunes drip with character and the joy of music making, instant remedies for creeping November Weltschmerz (we have found), and you never feel the lack of a Lee Dorsey or Betty Harris vocal on the irrepressible Art or the self-explanatory weed-sesh blues of Ease Back. The best R&B doesn't need a voice to have soul.
Danny Eccleston
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 06/11/2009
Further Listening
The Meters – Struttin’ (Josie, 1970)
Lee Dorsey – Holy Cow: The Very Best Of... (Charly compilation, 2005)
The Bees – Free The Bees (Virgin, 2004)
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Chet Baker - Deep In A Dream
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6:00 AM GMT 01/02/2010
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I saw the original Meters a couple of years back. GREAT SHOW! Leo Nocentelli has a great funky guitar sound. The whole band has some weird kind of telepathy. If you ever get the chance to see the Meters with the four original members, do it. I didn't really have the money (it was a tad expensive), but afterwards I knew it was the right decision.
Posted by wrecksracer at 8:15 PM GMT 06/11/2009 Report Abuse
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