NEW ORELANS (WGNO)- He’s the guitar wizard and original member of the legendary Meters, but Leo Nocentelli’s humble beginnings as a musician happened by way of a piano his dad brought home.
We spoke to Nocentelli this week, and he told us that this was the start of his love of music. Nocentelli recalled, “I couldn’t have been no more than 8 or 9 years old, and I started figuring out chords, different chords that he didn’t know, and I would be on it all day man, and that really I think instilled the passion in me for the future.”
A short time later he switched to guitar, and while most of his young peers played ball and other games, Nocentelli shed on his guitar, eventually landing in a band called Art Neville and the Neville Sounds. That same band became The Meters.
In addition to playing Meters funk, Nocentelli also had a hand in writing many of their classics.
He recalled one occasion that delivered a ‘strut’, “There was a melody that was constantly haunting me in my head for years. I said let’s find another song to open our set with, and we started playing this melody, and that particular melody turned out to be ‘Sissy Strut.”
After years with The Meters and laying down grooves on a host of Allen Toussaint productions, Nocentelli needed a change and moved to the West Coast.
He says, “Every city has its own mentality, and I felt like I outgrew the mentality here, what was going on musically.”
After 33 years, Leo Nocentelli is back home. We’re happy he’s here, and so is he.
“I wanna spend the rest of my life in a place and surroundings where I feel comfortable. Even now the euphoria of being home is overwhelming,” says Nocentelli.
The Welcome Home Leo Nocentelli party is Thursday night at Tipitina’s.
Click here for ticket info.