By the time Ivan Neville rolls into Sebastopol on Dec. 7, then glides over the hill into Mill Valley on Dec. 8, the man will have effectively turned the Bay Area into an annex of New Orleans.
Not that he’d put it that way—Neville is far too grounded for grandstanding—but spend five minutes on the phone with him, and it becomes clear: He carries The Big Easy in his bones.
Neville is hitting HopMonk Sebastopol first, appearing with Dragon Smoke, before joining an all-star lineup at Mill Valley’s Sweetwater Music Hall for Music Heals International’s “New Orleans Meets Haiti” benefit, a fundraiser bringing music education to kids in Haiti, India and Venezuela. The Sweetwater show pairs Neville with Jackie Greene, Jay Lane, Paul Beaubrun, Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, Elliot Peck and others, plus a pop-up New Orleans dinner courtesy of the Brothers Rosenthal.
It’s a lot of energy in two nights for anyone—except, apparently, Ivan Neville.
“The only hard part is the traveling,” he tells me with a laugh. “The work is the planes and vans and buses. Then you go play music for a couple hours—that’s the easy part.”
That ease is earned. Neville’s résumé is a syllabus in American music: generations of Neville bloodlines, ferocious funk with Dumpstaphunk and high-profile stints with everyone from Keith Richards to Bonnie Raitt. He’s also just released Touch My Soul, his first solo album in nearly 20 years—a record that reveals a man who’s lived long enough, and hard enough, to mean what he sings.
And what he sings, this time, is clarity.
“I was experiencing life,” he says. “Accepting where you are, trying to make the best of what your day could be, enjoying the moments along the way.”
Those moments bloom across the album’s tracks—the social plea of “Stand for Something,” the buoyant uplift of “Dance Music Love” and the Talking Heads cover, “This Must Be the Place,” which lands like a long exhale. Neville’s messages are unvarnished: Stay teachable; find purpose; act one’s way into right thinking. He’s reflective, the way people are after life has knocked a few metaphors into them.
“If I’m thinking about myself too long, I start walking into negativity,” he notes. “If I try to be of help, it puts me in a positive place.”
That ethos threads into the Sweetwater benefit. Music Heals International has been working for more than a decade to bring music education—and its corresponding resilience—to young people in Haiti and beyond.
“I’m always down for helping out as best I can,” he says. “I’m really glad to be part of it.”
As for his song, “Greatest Place on Earth,” which unabashedly crowns New Orleans as the global champion, I ask whether Sebastopol or Mill Valley might crack the top three, even temporarily.
He laughs. “Up there in the Bay Area, doing those two days? Absolutely. The Bay Area will be the place to be—and maybe the greatest place on Earth—for that time.”
Ivan Neville performs at 4pm, Sunday, Dec. 7, at HopMonk Tavern, 230 Petaluma Ave., Sebastopol (for tix and prices, visit hopmonk.com), and as part of the Music Heals International annual benefit concert at 7pm, Monday, Dec. 8, at Sweetwater Music Hall, 19 Corte Madera Ave., Mill Valley (for tix and prices, visit sweetwatermusichall.org).
