Cyril Neville says blues supergroup Royal Southern Brotherhood bears close comparison to the Neville Brothers band.
RSB are about to release their fourth album Don’t Look Back: The Muscle Shoals Sessions recorded at Muscle Shoals studios, featuring new members Tyrone Vaughan and Bart Walker on guitars, who have replaced replace Devon Allman and Mike Zito respectively. They join founders Cyril, drummer Yonrico Scott and bassist Charlie Wooton.
Neville tells the Laughlin Entertainer: “Actually, it’s not much different because the Neville Brothers made a whole lot of different styles of music in one show.
“It’s definitely an extension of the Neville Brothers but it’s also an extension of what Charlie, Yonrico, Bart and Tyrone have been doing—and now that stuff is all boiling in the same musical pot.”
And he believes the lineup change hasn’t been a problem. “You can’t have a bad gumbo if you have the roux done correctly,” he says. “The fact that me, Charlie and Yonrico have been together for five years now makes a solid roux, so when you add the extra ingredients – Tyrone and Bart – it just adds to the flavour of the musical gumbo that was already established.”
The FAME Muscle Shoals studio is home of hits by Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Otis Redding and others. Neville says: “From the time we walked in the door, it was electric. Everybody picked up on it. Everybody has their own personal take on the place.
“All of us, collectively, grew up listening to the music made in that place, so to have this record done there just added flame to our fire.”
Don’t Look Back is released via Ruf Records on June 6.
