Contact: Judy McDonough,
Compendia Music Group
615-277-1824
jmcdonough@compendiamusic.com
IVAN NEVILLE SIGNS WITH COMPENDIA RECORDS
SCRAPE to be released in September
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (July 21, 2003) – Performer Ivan Neville — whose work over the past 25 years as a multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter has added substantially to the musical legacy of the Nevilles, one of the most distinctive American music families in rock — has signed with Compendia Records. Michael Olsen, president of Compendia Music Group, made the announcement today.
Neville’s upcoming project on the Compendia label, SCRAPE, is scheduled for a September 2003 release, with the first single, “What You Want From Me,” released to radio in August.
“The opportunity to work with Compendia is an opportunity for these songs to be heard,” said Neville. “I think this music is very healing - heavy on funk and R&B and very uplifting. Compendia understands where I’m coming from and that’s always something you’re looking for as an artist.”
“We’ve been speaking with Ivan Neville about working with Compendia from the time he went on the road with Joan Osborne’s band,” said Walt Wilson, general manager and vice-president of Compendia Music. “Ivan is an ‘artist’s artist’ – as is proved by the strength of guests he has on SCRAPE. This album is diverse, well-crafted and distinctive; Ivan Neville and SCRAPE are completely in keeping with the type of artists and releases that our label continues to attract.”
A recent article in New Orleans’ Times-Picayune states, “Ivan Neville was blessed not only with a pedigree and last name that are golden in the music world, but also the skills to back them up.” His critically-acclaimed 1988 debut album, IF MY ANCESTORS COULD SEE ME NOW, mixed modern pop with the funky rock and soul of his Neville roots. His second solo album, THANKS, featured contributions from fellow musicians and friends such as Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt and Branford Marsalis. His reputation as a brilliant multi-instrumentalist has made him an in-demand sideman for a variety of performers, including the Rolling Stones (contributing to their DIRTY WORK and VOODOO LOUNGE albums) and Richards’ X-Pensive Wino band, Raitt, The Spin Doctors, Robben Ford, Sonia Dada and Compendia artist Joan Osborne.
Recently, Neville has been touring extensively with the Neville Brothers, working with his new band Dumpstaphunk (which the Times-Picayune describes as “a New Orleans soul-funk hybrid”) and finishing work on SCRAPE. SCRAPE contains elements of the SATURDAY MORNING MUSIC project that Neville completed for Uptop Entertainment, but that was available only in very limited release. SCRAPE finally allows this heartfelt project - featuring side work from Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Womack, George Duke, Robben Ford and others, and including a new live performance of Ivan’s “What You Want From Me” - to be available at retail nationwide.
“The songs on SCRAPE are about the road I’ve been down,” Neville explains. “They are about the pitfalls and highlights of life. I ended up falling down but I was able to get up clean. Writing these songs came out of necessity for me. It was a way for me to come to a better acceptance of this part of my life. A definite part of my healing process.”
Ivan Neville is also one of the featured performers in “The Blues”, an ambitious, highly-anticipated seven-part film series — guided and supervised by Martin Scorsese — that will air on PBS in late September.
About Compendia Music Group
Compendia Music Group, a division of Compendia Media Group (www.compendiamedia.com), is an independent record company structured as four “parent” labels – Compendia Records, Light Records, Life² and Intersound Music – in addition to a distribution arm, Compendia Distribution Group. These labels, each with a separate staff and musical focus, produce and distribute a wide variety of music, including rock, R&B, soul, pop, gospel, lifestyle/inspirational, country, Christian and classical.
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