“Be honest, be nice, be a flower not a weed.”
― Aaron Neville
“’Yellow Moon’ was a poem. My wife at the time, Joel – she’s dead now – it was our 25th anniversary. She had the chance to go on a cruise with her sister. And I’m home with the kids and looking up, and I saw the big moon, and I just started writing.”
― Aaron Neville
“I was very surprised when I heard that I had been chosen to receive the James Cardinal Gibbons Award.”
― Aaron Neville
“It’s up to God to do the judging. You haven’t walked in my boots, so how are you going to judge me?”
― Aaron Neville
“Ain’t no place like New Orleans. It’s one of kind.”
― Aaron Neville
“You’ve just got to sing, do some kind of singing every day. Early mornings and cold weather can mess with that. I drink special teas with cayenne pepper, but I think you’re psyching yourself out, really.”
― Aaron Neville
“I buried Joel on our 48th anniversary. I had been with her since I was 16.”
― Aaron Neville
“Every day, some act of kindness comes my way, even if it’s just someone opening the door. It happens every day if you keep an eye out for it. Keeping an eye out, that’s the key.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I’m singing, I connect the dots with notes.”
― Aaron Neville
“God is waiting for us, to forgive us all, and what is broken, he’ll fix.”
― Aaron Neville
“If we were poor, we didn’t know it ’cause I guess you don’t miss what you never had. So, you know, we made do with whatever. We used to make our own toys, and we used to play with spinning tops and marbles. A pocket full of marbles, and you were rich – you didn’t worry about no money.”
― Aaron Neville
“I really like listening to music in my car.”
― Aaron Neville
“My favorite prayer is Footprints in the Sand. You know that prayer? I know the times that he carried me, you know? I kind of wore him out.”
― Aaron Neville
“Growing up my mother played Sarah Vaughan and Nat Cole in the house regularly.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I get down to Louisiana, I get to have a taste of some of that great food.”
― Aaron Neville
“I never left doo wop.”
― Aaron Neville
“I even done a doo-wop version of the Mickey Mouse march.”
― Aaron Neville
“It’s one of the greatest festivals in the world. New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest is the best all-around… It’s an honor to be closing it.”
― Aaron Neville
“I am very honored and excited to have ‘Devotion’ released as the first DVD Audio disc… surround sound is amazing… The music comes alive and is so vibrant – it’s unlike anything you’ve ever heard before!”
― Aaron Neville
“We used to play football on the levee, with no shirts on in the summer – August in New Orleans – and my skin would turn red. They’d call me Redskin, Red Apache, then it turned around to Apache Red.”
― Aaron Neville
“I always feel I’m blessed, you know. I thank God for letting me use his voice. That’s how I see it.”
― Aaron Neville
“I grew up singing Ray Charles and Jimmy Reed.”
― Aaron Neville
“My brothers and I would sit out on the park bench and harmonize.”
― Aaron Neville
“I used to always sing my way into the movies and the basketball games or whatever. I’d sing for whoever’s on the door, and they’d let me in. I used to think I was Nat King Cole back in the day, you know. So I’d sing something like, ‘Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have named you,’ and they’d let me in.”
― Aaron Neville
“I always loved Sam Cooke, because he seemed very versatile. He sang gospel, soul, blues, pop music.”
― Aaron Neville
“I think things happened the way they did for a reason.”
― Aaron Neville
“My friends and I were wild and we liked to joy-ride.”
― Aaron Neville
“When you were a kid, a day was a long time and a year was a long time.”
― Aaron Neville
“Every morning I wake up and thank God.”
― Aaron Neville
“If you had told me I’d be making 62 tomorrow, I’d say you were lying.”
― Aaron Neville
“I feel it was just a few years ago I was running around in short pants.”
― Aaron Neville
“I was raised Catholic, but my father’s people were Methodist, so we went to both churches.”
― Aaron Neville
“So now I have a collection of poetry by Aaron Neville and I give it to people I want to share it with. I’d like to publish it someday.”
― Aaron Neville
“I sing around the house, in the shower.”
― Aaron Neville
“I just sing. You have to use it.”
― Aaron Neville
“We lived together as kids, and now we’re taking care of each other as men.”
― Aaron Neville
“It’s a 360-degree sound experience. Like you’re in the middle of the band. A lot of people have the technology to play the format, so why not put it out there. It sounds great.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I record something, I’ll take a drive and just listen.”
― Aaron Neville
“The extras are a nice bonus feature, but the main incentive is the musical experience.”
― Aaron Neville
“Me and my partners had been stealing cars for a while.”
― Aaron Neville
“Until I went to rehab, I didn’t understand what it did.”
― Aaron Neville
“But I knew if I ran I’d never be able to sing, so I had to take my punishment.”
― Aaron Neville
“So I went in front of the judge, and I had my St. Jude prayer book in my pocket and my St. Jude medal. And I’m standing there and that judge said I was found guilty, so he sentenced me to what the law prescribed: one to 14 years.”
― Aaron Neville
“I always tell people I want to see the world through His eyes, and I want people to see Him in me.”
― Aaron Neville
“I owe it all to Jesus.”
― Aaron Neville
“Through the years, I found we had Native American blood in us. My great-grandmother came from the island of Martinique, and they hooked up with the Native Americans of Louisiana.”
― Aaron Neville
“I might see something on TV and get inspired to write about it. I can’t sit down and plan to write. It has to come to me in my head like someone telling me the words.”
― Aaron Neville
“The first time I recorded without Allen Toussaint, I wanted to do doo-wop. Everything I’ve done since then has got some kind of doo-wop essence in it.”
― Aaron Neville
“Doo-wop is the true music to me, man. Doo-wop was what nurtured me and grew me into who I am, and I guess even when I was in school, the teacher probably thought I had ADD or something every day, because I’d be beating on the desks, singing like the Flamingos or the Spaniels or Clyde McPhatter or somebody.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’ve done all different kinds of genres – doo-wop, pop, funk, gospel, country, jazz, you name it.”
― Aaron Neville
“I just sing what I feel in my heart. I ain’t trying to prove nothing, and I don’t think I ever did.”
― Aaron Neville
“Without faith, I don’t think I’d be here.”
― Aaron Neville
“I didn’t just get to 75 years by tiptoeing. I had to work hard sometimes.”
― Aaron Neville
“I never really got paid for ‘Tell It Like Is,’ but I look back at it and say God knew what he was doing; he probably figured that if I had got money back in them days, I wouldn’t be here now. That’s okay. I’m here. And I’m still singing the song.”
― Aaron Neville
“I write poetry on my iPhone. I’ve got about 100 poems on there.”
― Aaron Neville
“I eat a lot of fish to stay healthy.”
― Aaron Neville
“I balance with prayer and music. I sing every day.”
― Aaron Neville
“Sometimes in the middle of the night, I wake up with a song in my head, and I have to finish it so I can fall back asleep.”
― Aaron Neville
“People are living a lot longer these days and not preparing for it. I’m in the gym and, you know, using my voice.”
― Aaron Neville
“A lot of my solo albums were produced by different people who had their idea of what songs I should do, and they had me doing a lot of ballads.”
― Aaron Neville
“I worked with the Neville Brothers for 40-some years on the highway, and up and down since I can remember – funk from New Orleans.”
― Aaron Neville
“I think the Creator renews me.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’ve had problems with my throat over the years, playing with loud bands for years, and I’ve had bruised vocal chords and nodules.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’ll be singing with The Blind Boys of Alabama, which is a great joy to me. I’ve done some work with them before, and they truly are amazing.”
― Aaron Neville
“The gospel music and doo-wop is what has informed me personally.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’m here now because of my faith. That’s what got me singing and what has kept me singing. That is what I have: what has kept me doing right and has provided me with the chances and the attitude and the skills to do this.”
― Aaron Neville
“Singing is my entire life. I nearly lost that. I am so blessed to be able to do this. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.”
― Aaron Neville
“Don Was is a friend of mine; we’ve done projects together over the years.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I was growing in the Callope project, we had an oval parkway. Pavement ran around this whole thing. We’d skate or ride bicycles. There were benches and trees out there. It was paradise to us. They finished building it the same year I was born.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’ve been into every doo-wop there is. I think I went to the university of doo-wop-ology.”
― Aaron Neville
“My brother Art was a doo-wopper. He had a group that sat out on a park bench in New Orleans and sang harmonies at night, and they’d go around and win all the talent shows and get all the girls, you know.”
― Aaron Neville
“I started listening to gospel when I was a little boy and my grandmother used to rock me on her lap.”
― Aaron Neville
“My dad and my mom were big Nat King Cole fans, so they had everything he did.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I was living in the projects, I had a mop stick for my horse. I wanted to be Gene Autry or Roy Rogers, so I would ride my mop through the projects.”
― Aaron Neville
“That’s one thing you hear in my voice today. I could yodel from one octave to another octave. It always fascinated me.”
― Aaron Neville
“I know that God is good, and he saved me from hell and damnation.”
― Aaron Neville
“Age and numbers are a concept made up by man.”
― Aaron Neville
“I know the fact that I was born means I have to die, so my only aim is to reach out and help someone along the way.”
― Aaron Neville
“My drummer, bass player, and guitar player sing backgrounds. They play and sing. I can sing all the harmonies, but I can’t do it alone.”
― Aaron Neville
“There are so many songs in my heart and in my brain. I wake up at 2 in the morning, and I have to get up and sing them. There are so many of them, it’s ridiculous.”
― Aaron Neville
“The music of the Clovers and Spaniels and the rest was like candy to me. I couldn’t get enough; my teachers probably thought I had attention deficit disorder.”
― Aaron Neville
“My mother turned me onto St. Jude back in the days when I was wild and crazy. She took me to the shrine on Rampart Street.”
― Aaron Neville
“I think St. Jude helped me achieve some miracles in my life – that’s why I wear the medallion in my left ear and never take it out.”
― Aaron Neville
“I don’t want to be on the road all my life.”
― Aaron Neville
“Singing is a prayer to me.”
― Aaron Neville
“New Orleans will always be in my heart. New Orleans raised me – it’s in my blood.”
― Aaron Neville
“You try to do what you can to bring harmony wherever you go.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I’m singing, it’s a mixture of my innocence in the projects, my mom and dad. It’s all the good and the bad, the laughs and the frowns that I went through and seen other people go through. Then you be trying to write it. Whatever’s coming out, you try and make it all cool.”
― Aaron Neville
“Man, I was scared. I didn’t know what to think. All of a sudden, I got a record climbing the charts, and I’m out in the streets. You know, workin’ on the docks. And the first week, it sold something like 40,000 in New Orleans.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I sang, I couldn’t help making those little curves. People would say, ‘Why don’t you sing straight?’ But I have always had to put something in.”
― Aaron Neville
“Working with the brothers can put pressure on my voice, so I choose to do my own solo thing so I can save my voice. I couldn’t do both now. The Neville Brothers is a funk band; they play loud, and I have a strong voice.”
― Aaron Neville
“Beyonce is cool, and she can really sing.”
― Aaron Neville
“I dig Steve Harvey: he’s the suit man. I be checking him out.”
― Aaron Neville
“Being at the Apollo, I was always starstruck.”
― Aaron Neville
“I’m waiting for them to come up with a ‘Star Trek’ thing so they can beam me from my house to the gigs and back.”
― Aaron Neville
“When I first went out on the road with Larry Williams, there was also, like, The Coasters, The Drifters, and The Flamingos.”
― Aaron Neville
“I remember going up and doing ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ with Paul Simon, Santana playing up there with us.”
― Aaron Neville
“You never know how much time you got.”
― Aaron Neville
“In New Orleans, music is part of the culture. You’re raised with it, from the cradle to the grave, and all in-between.”
― Aaron Neville
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