The Neville Brothers anxiously looked up at a capacity crowd in College of the Redwoods’ big band music classroom.

Promotional poster for the Sept. 30, 1977 performance. | Photo submitted.

One of the premiere music families of New Orleans were in Eureka, California to play a concert at that city’s Old Town Bar and Grill on Sept. 30, 1977, along with the Wild Tchoupitoulas. At College of the Redwoods (CR), a community college just south of Eureka, they’d be speaking at a free music clinic the afternoon before the show.

My friend Harry Duncan, who lived in San Francisco, was co-managing the Nevilles with his New Orleans-based partner, Rupert Surcouf, Jr.  They had co-managed The Meters, which included two Neville Brothers — keyboardist/singer Art and percussionist/singer Cyril.

When that highly influential New Orleans funk band broke up in the mid-‘70s, Art and Cyril joined forces with their brothers, vocalist Aaron and saxophonist Charles, to form the Neville Brothers in 1976. Aaron had a huge hit on the pop charts in 1966 with his ballad “Tell it Like It Is.”

The brothers were brought together to provide vocals and instrumentation, along with The Meters, for an album with their uncle George “Big Chief Jolly” Landry, the leader of the Mardi Gras Indian tribe, The Wild Tchoupitoulas.

Landry claimed Choctaw Indian Heritage. It was a natural fit to form his own ceremonial Mardi Gras Indian tribe. According to Wikipedia, the Mardi Gras Indian subculture emerged during the late 1880s. It was a form of cultural resistance when Blacks were not allowed to partake in Mardi Gras celebrations. 

The Blacks formed Mardi Gras Indian tribes where they created elaborate, multi-colored costumes adorned with beads, feathers and sequins. They composed and sang their own songs, and created unique dances. In addition to Mardi Gras, the tribes perform annually at a variety of New Orleans events.

The self-titled album, “The Wild Tchoupitoulas,” contained joyous, second-line, Afro-Cuban percussive grooves with feisty vocals. The lyrics focused on traditional Mardi Gras customs and dances. The record garnered critical acclaim and excited fans of New Orleans R&B.

At the time, I was playing in a Humboldt County band, the Rockhouse Street Rhythm Band, which played quite a few New Orleans dance music tunes including Wild Tchoupitoulas songs like “Brother John” and “Hey Pocky A-Way.” We were the first local band playing these songs. People loved the rhythms.  (For Humboldt County readers, Rockhouse included Don “White King D” Hunter, Dick Koenig, Charles Horn, Dan Vineyard, Leonard Crawford and later Chuck Garrett.)

Bringing the Wild Tchoupitoulas to Eureka

Harry called in the summer of 1977. He said he had booked the Neville Brothers and The Wild Tchoupitoulas at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September. “I’d like to book some Northern California nightclub dates, including the Old Town Bar and Grill,” he said. “I’d like you to promote it. I’ll have posters designed and mailed to you.”

I was excited to help bring a band I loved to Humboldt for the first time. I was anxious since I’d never promoted a show on my own. I’d put up hundreds of posters for my bands around town in store windows and stapled flyers to telephone poles. That was the main way bands promoted shows in the pre-social media world.

It was an all-analog world.

I needed to learn how to write a proper press release and send it to newspapers, radio and TV stations. I sought out local journalist Sid Dominitz, who taught me the press release basics. I was off and running promoting the show.

A few weeks before the concert, Harry called. He told me to try to book the Nevilles for a mid-day music clinic at CR and ask for $200 for the band. He said to call his partner Rupert Surcouf to work out the details.

“Rupert, before I try to sell this to my music professor at CR, tell me how this music clinic would work,” I asked Surcouf during a phone conversation.

“Brah, Charles Neville (the brothers’ saxophonist) has led many clinics like this,” Surcouf said. “He can talk about how the Nevilles use traditional New Orleans jazz, rhythm and blues and second-line rhythms to create their music. They’ll know what to do.”

For the past year I had been taking jazz improvisation classes from CR Music Professor Jack Wheaton. I approached him about a possible Neville Brothers clinic. A teacher primarily of music theory, swing and bebop jazz, Wheaton had never heard of the group.

I told him what Surcouf said about Charles and the band discussing the history of jazz, R&B and Afro-Cuban rhythms in their appearance. They were experienced in these kinds of presentations, I said.

Wheaton said yes and we set the clinic for one o’clock in the afternoon, a few hours ahead of their Old Town Bar and Grill shows. I promoted the concert and clinic heavily with a few hundred posters, press releases and photos in newspapers and announcements on radio and TV stations. Interest in both events was running high.

About a week before the show, Surcouf called me at home. He was on the road with the band.

“Hey brah, what should the brothers talk about at their clinic? They’re getting nervous about it,” Rupert said.

That made me nervous, too. “Rupert, you told me that Charles knew what to do – talk about the brothers’ musical link to early New Orleans jazz, R&B and Afro-Cuban rhythms.  Tell them to talk about that.”

“All right brah, it’ll be cool,” Rupert said. I was not reassured.

When the day of the show arrived, I was riding high. Ticket sales — $3.50 — for the two shows at the Bar and Grill were strong. Around the CR campus and in the community, people were excited about the free clinic.

I met Professor Wheaton in CR’s music rehearsal room about 30 minutes before the clinic was to begin. The room had a wide bottom floor where the professors taught. They shared the space with a baby grand piano and a drum set. The room went up four wide steps where chairs were set up at each level for different musical sections to play or for an audience.

With 15 minutes before the clinic was to start, a standing-room-only crowd waited for the Nevilles to walk through the door. Wheaton walked up to me wearing a stern face.

“Where are they Paul?” he asked impatiently. “I don’t know, Jack,” I answered. Without cell phones, it was impossible to know. “I’ll go outside and look for them.”

I paced in front of the music building looking up and down the road. A few minutes before one, their white van pulled up. Rupert, who was white, stepped out of the van by himself walking  toward me.

“Rupert, it’s late, we need to get them in there now,” I said.

“We have a problem,” Rupert said. “They see all these white people and it’s making them nervous. And they’re really high. They’ve been smoking some of your Humboldt bud.”

“They will be welcomed as heroes,” I said. “These people love their music. Let’s go!”

They slowly walked out of the van one by one, with their heads down looking at the ground. When they entered the room, the crowd broke out in applause. The brothers and their uncle, “Big Chief Jolly,” gathered on the bottom floor.

Professor Wheaton introduced them as a great New Orleans jazz and rhythm and blues band.  He handed the mic to Art, the eldest Neville. He looked up and surveyed the audience, taking his time.

“Well, what we’re trying to do …  is figure out … what we’re trying to do,” he said. Wheaton shot me a look of pure disgust. Charles Neville, the supposed veteran of music clinics, never said a word.

I spoke up immediately trying to save the day. “Art, I have an idea. Let’s set up the instruments and have you guys play some music. Then we can ask you questions afterward.”

He liked that idea. With the piano and drums already there, we moved guitar amps into place and set up a few vocal mics. The guitarists gathered the instruments from the van. They played a few New Orleans funky grooves and then paused to take a few questions.

“How do you incorporate jazz into your style,” someone asked. 

Art, now fully engaged, said, “We’ll play a second-line groove, ‘Hey Pocky a-Way,’ add in Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Night in Tunisia’ and Hank Williams’ ‘Jambalaya on the Bayou.’”

Sure enough. They kicked off the second-line medley with “Jambalaya on the Bayou,” segued into “Night in Tunisia” and finished with their own “Hey Pocky a-Way.”

When they stopped, they received huge applause. Someone asked Art — still not a word from the quiet Charles — if Aaron would sing his hit “Tell it Like It Is.”

When Aaron finished his soulful rendition, he received a standing ovation. Art introduced his uncle saying that Landry played a vintage New Orleans-style piano style similar to the great Professor Longhair. Landry, playing solo, knocked the crowd out with his rollicking, percussive style.

Someone asked if they could see the Wild Tchoupitoulas’ handmade Mardi Gras Indian outfits that they would be wearing at that night’s concerts. Rupert retrieved a couple of them from the van.

Wheaton closed the top of the piano and Rupert laid out the kaleidoscopic-colored outfits. He encouraged the audience to come down and take a close look at them, but not to touch the stunning handiwork. Many oohs and aahs followed.

After their hour-long clinic ended, they received a standing ovation. They headed out to their old white van to get ready for their shows on Second Street in Eureka.

Professor Jack Wheaton looked at me, shook his head and smiled.

As the brothers were walking away, I asked Art what “Hey Pocky A-Way” meant.

“If you don’t want to play then get the hell out of the way,” he said. 

The Neville Brothers, New Orleans show business veterans, had delivered one of the most unusual and fun music clinics ever presented in Humboldt County to that point.

Those who were there never forgot it.