Aaron Neville Biography

Aaron Neville (born January 24, 1941 in New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American soul and R&B singer.

Aaron Neville has had a career as a solo artist and also as one of the Neville Brothers. Of mixed African American and Native American heritage, his music also features Cajun influence.

Aaron is noted for his unusual vibrato singing style, which he says was inspired by Gene Autry's yodelling.

With his solo career, Neville is best known for his Grammy-winning 1989 duets with Linda Ronstadt, "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life," as well as his first - and to date his biggest - hit, 1966's "Tell It Like It Is," which was successfully covered by Heart in 1980. His other hits have included "Everybody Plays The Fool," his successful 1991 cover of the 1972 Main Ingredient soul classic; "Don't Take Away My Heaven"; and "Can't Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)." Neville's biggest solo successes have been on the Adult Contemporary chart, where "Don't Know Much," "All My Life," and "Everybody Plays The Fool" all reached Number One.

Neville's son Ivan Neville is also a musician and released an album, If My Ancestors Could See Me Now, in 1988, which yielded a Top 40 hit with "Not Just Another Girl." Ivan has also performed with the Rolling Stones and Bonnie Raitt, and played bass for Keith Richards on his first solo tour.

Neville—his high pitched, dramatic singing style in particular, as well as his penchant for Cocoa butter moisturizer—is parodied on Saturday Night Live, portrayed by Horatio Sanz. One example is on the February 19, 2005 episode, in which "Judge Aaron Neville" sings his verdicts and repeatedly applies cocoa butter moisturizer to his skin. He was also parodied on Family Guy when Peter bought an Aaron Neville megaphone which transformed his voice into Neville's singing style. He has also been parodied on Scrubs. In episode #304 "My Lucky Night" Dr. Chris Turk imitates Neville's singing voice into a tape recorder. Standup comedian Pablo Francisco also does an impersonation of Neville, claiming his voice sounds like someone "trying to find a radio station".

In August 2005 his home in New Orleans was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; he evacuated to Memphis, Tennessee before the hurricane hit. Neville performed Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" during NBC's A Concert for Hurricane Relief on September 2, 2005.

In 2006, Neville sang The Star-Spangled Banner, alongside Aretha Franklin at Super Bowl XL in Detroit. His rendition was extremely slow and performed in his unusual vibrato stylings, which many listeners found unpleasant. Fox Sports pop culture columnist Dayn Perry complained that "Aaron Neville was ridiculously off-key for a first few bars".

Aaron signed to SonyBMG's new Burgundy Records label in late 2005 and recorded an album of great classic soul songs by Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke and others for Bring It On Home…The Soul Classics, released on September 19th, 2006. The album, produced by Stewart Levine, features collaborations between Aaron and Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, Chris Botti, David Sanborn, Art Neville, and others. The album's first single was a remake of The Impressions' 1963 classic "It's All Right."

Aaron made a guest appearance on an episode of the soap opera The Young and the Restless on October 27, 2006. He sang the classic hits "Stand By Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine", from his new album, Bring It On Home…The Soul Classics.

Aaron Neville has a sword tattooed on his left cheek as well as others on more conventional, covered parts of his body.

Neville is a practicing Roman Catholic with a deep, undying devotion to St. Jude, whom he credits with "saving" his life through his most difficult times.