Ivan Neville Celebrates Release In Nashville With Finally Friday

Odes in song to New Orleans are pretty common and when they come from a visitor/pilgrim’s perspective they can sometimes be a bit cringy. But you believe every word when Ivan Neville sings that his native city is “the greatest place on Earth” on his new album Touch My Soul. It’s Nashville and WMOT’s good fortune that the important singer, songwriter and keyboard player is celebrating the record’s release right here, first at Finally Friday and then with a full show at Analog in midtown.

Ivan is the son of the multi-platinum soul singer Aaron Neville, making him nephew to Art, Charles and Cyril of the legendary Neville Brothers. That clan remade and updated New Orleans R&B starting in the 1970s, and Ivan has paid that legacy forward working as a sideman with Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt and others, while developing his own celebrated streetwise jam band Dumpstaphunk, formed in 2005 and famous for its twin electric basses.

Yet possibly more than any of his instrumentalist uncles, Ivan’s been a successful solo artist too, releasing his debut If My Ancestors Could See Me Now in 1988. And it wasn’t just a blip. It produced a top 30 hit with the single “Not Just Another Girl,” and a duet with Raitt called “Falling Out Of Love” that also charted. Still Touch My Soul is his first solo album since 2004, marking a welcome return. “It’s both a love letter to the Crescent City and a celebration of his emotional and spiritual journey as an artist, a father and a man,” says the project’s bio. “Dance Music Love” with guitarist Doyle Bramhall II bops with Princely 90s funk. The title track’s a piano ballad about staying open and vulnerable.

In an interview in Glide, Ivan talked about the influence of his family on his musicianship: “They all taught me different stuff. I learned from all of them and my dad equally in different aspects, because I played in the band with the Neville Brothers. I was around all of them and I saw what they would get from each other. And obviously, Art being the keyboard player, playing with him and listening to him while I was playing, learning in the early days, was a big deal, and that influenced me a lot. To this day, I’ll harken back to something that will remind me or I’ll hear something new in something that they had laid down a long time ago. I’ll say, why didn’t I notice that? So it is a beautiful thing to just be still learning. You know, just stay open-minded and you will keep learning, you know?”

Neville plays at 3rd & Lindsley 12:45 pm, but come early and stay late for a full slate of Finally Friday artists. At noon, The Woods bring 21st century hippie folk with rich Laurel Canyon vocal harmonies. They’re a relatively new trio featuring industry veterans Dan O’Rourke, Raquel Cole, and Leland Rooney. Then at 1:30, catch John David Kent, alum of the local brew, sing songs from his new album Patina.