Funeral arrangements have been set for Art Neville, a New Orleans funk icon who died Monday of natural causes. He was 81.
A memorial visitation service is scheduled for Tuesday, July 30, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Rhodes Funeral Home in Uptown. Neville's casket will not be displayed.
A second line is scheduled to begin outside the funeral home at 3:30 p.m.
Neville, the eldest member of the city’s first family of funk, founded and performed with seminal music groups the Meters and the Neville Brothers.
Through 2018, Neville continued to perform, even while battling health problems. “You can bring me there in the ambulance, roll me onto the stage, give me a microphone, and a mirror where I can see the people,” he joked in a 2013 interview with Times-Picayune/Advocate music writer Keith Spera. “I’ve been doing this all my life. I enjoy it. Even the bad parts of it, the parts I didn’t like…I found out that’s the way things go sometimes. You’ve got to go along with them.”
In December 2018, Neville, who was nicknamed “Poppa Funk,” announced his retirement from performing as health problems took their toll. Earlier that year, Neville and his fellow Meters earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Neville did not travel to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony, however. That same year, his brother Charles died.
Read Neville's full obituary here:
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