NEW ORLEANS, LA. (THECOUNT) — Art Neville, a member of one of New Orleans’ storied musical families, the Neville Brothers, and a founding member of the groundbreaking funk band The Meters, has died at age 81.
Neville’s manager, Kent Sorrell, said Neville died Monday.
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“Art ‘Poppa Funk’ Neville passed away peacefully this morning at home with his adoring wife, Lorraine, by his side,” Sorrell said in an email, reports KSLA.
The cause of death was not immediately available but Neville had battled a number of health issues including complications from back surgery.
The Neville brothers spent some of their childhood in the now demolished Calliope housing project in New Orleans and some at a family home in uptown New Orleans. They started singing as kids but then went their separate ways in the 1950s and 1960s. It wasn’t until 1977, that the brothers finally got together again and in 1978 they recorded their first Neville Brothers album.
The other members of the Neville Brothers included Charles, Cyril, and Aaron. Charles died in 2018.