Tell it Like it Is

Neville, Aaron

album cover

A '60s Soul Classic

On one of his first trips to a recording studio in 1965, the New Orleans singer Aaron Neville transformed an ordinary doo-wop slow dance called "Tell It like It Is" into a platform for some of the most heartfelt vocalizing ever to grace a jukebox. The folks at Par-Lo Records, a small local label, knew they had something special. They talked up the song to R&B stations in the South (and then the nation) and within months, the song became a national number 1 hit.

Neville maintains that this success never did him much good financially: When he returned from his first big tour, he discovered that Par-Lo had gone bankrupt. Like so many other young artists who were exploited at the time, he found himself in a tight money situation. He began painting houses, and driving a delivery truck around New Orleans. Though he recorded intermittently (including, alas, several pale rerecordings of "Tell It like It Is"), it took more than a decade for Neville to support himself fully through music again.

Incredibly, this all-time-great single isn't the only thing worth hearing on the long-neglected album of the same name. Like many New Orleans entertainers, Neville grew up singing blues and up-tempo stuff as well as ballads, and the original songs commissioned for this date showcase his versatility. Highlights include a cannily harmonized bit of up-tempo soul, "A Hard Nut to Crack," a sultry ballad in the style of Bacharach and David, "You Think You're So Smart," and a grooving blues called "Jailhouse" that approaches the intensity of the great Sam Cooke's R&B hits. Though not every tune is stunning, several of them stand as missed opportunities, hits that should have been. The happy ending: After playing informally at Mardi Gras parties for years, the members of Neville's family got serious about making music together, and since the mid-1970s, the Neville Brothers have become a kind of national treasure. They're the only family outfit whose nightly repertoire includes New Orleans parade marches and ridiculously funky jazz and, of course, the poignantly quavering voice of Aaron Neville singing "Tell It like It Is."

Genre: R&B
Released: 1965, Par-lo
Key Tracks: "Tell It like It Is," "She Took You for a Ride," "Bet You're Surprised," "Hold On, Help Is on the Way."
Catalog Choice: The Neville Brothers: Fiyo on the Bayou.
Next Stop: Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club
After That: James Hunter: People Gonna Talk
Book Pages: 547–548

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