[Cover photo credit to Michael B. Smith from The Historic New Orleans Collection]
Archival reissue label Light in the Attic (LITA) has announce the release of Another Side, a previously-unreleased, early ‘70s studio album by Leo Nocentelli of The Meters, due out on November 19th in vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital formats. The album is touted to show “a largely acoustic, more contemplative side of the legendary guitarist” who is better known for his “hard-edged funk licks”. The collection even includes a cover he did of Elton John’s “Your Song”.
Backing Nocentelli is the following all-star New Orleans lineup: Allen Toussaint (piano), James Black (drums), George Porter Jr. (bass), and Zigaboo Modeliste (drums) of The Meters. The collection’s first single “Thinking Of The Day” has been made public as well as a trailer for Another Side.
The album has apparently sat “untouched” for decades, surviving Hurricane Katrina and found in Southern California at a “swap meet” in 2018 by a record collector, Mike Nishita. The album’s journey is documented in liner notes by Sam Sweet (New York Times, Los Angeles Times), who spoke with Nocentelli and Nishita about the recording process and re-discovery of the tapes. The booklet of notes also contains hand-written lyrics by Nocentelli.
The first pressing of the vinyl edition will feature gold-foil treatment on cover and spine and it will be available in standard black wax, with color variants vailable exclusively at LightInTheAttic.net, including coke bottle clear wax.
More about Leo Nocentelli:
Long before he was considered to be among the world’s greatest guitarists, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award winner Leo Nocentelli was a busy session musician, who had been working since his early teens—backing up Otis Redding and playing on hits for the Supremes, Lee Dorsey and the Temptations. In the mid-60s, the New Orleans native co-founded The Meters, the highly influential originators of funk music. Over the next decade, the group became one of the most in-demand backing bands—performing on records for Dr. John, LaBelle and Paul McCartney, among many others, and sharing the stage with the Rolling Stones. A generation later, The Meters’ tight riffs would be sampled by countless hip-hop acts, including A Tribe Called Quest, N.W.A., 2Pac, and Public Enemy. At the turn of the ‘70s, however, The Meters were enjoying their first big breaks on Billboard’s R&B chart: 1969’s “Look-Ka Py Py” and the now-iconic “Cissy Strut”—a Nocentelli original which landed in the Top 5 and, years later, was inducted into the GRAMMY® Hall of Fame. Leo Nocentelli currently still makes music and resides in New Orleans.
