Aaron Neville

Aaron Joseph Neville (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer renowned for his distinctively smooth, vibrato-heavy tenor and a genre-crossing career that spans R&B, soul, gospel, jazz, country, and pop. He gained national prominence with his 1966 single "Tell It Like It Is", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

As a solo artist, Neville achieved three consecutive RIAA platinum-selling albums in the 1990s and topped the Billboard Jazz chart with Nature Boy: The Standards Album. He has earned four Grammy Awards, four Top 10 Gospel albums, and a Grammy nomination for Best Male Country Vocal Performance for his 1993 cover of "The Grand Tour". His duets with Linda Ronstadt, including "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life", both topped the Adult Contemporary chart and won Grammy Awards. He has also performed the United States national anthem at the Super Bowl on two occasions, including a 2006 rendition alongside Aretha Franklin and Dr. John.

In addition to his solo work, he is a founding member of the Neville Brothers, alongside his brothers Art, Charles, and Cyril. Neville contributed to notable compilations such as Rhythm, Country and Blues (with Trisha Yearwood) and The Bodyguard soundtrack. In 2023, he won his fourth Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for "Stompin' Ground", a collaboration with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. That same year, he was named one of Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

The first of Neville's singles that was given airplay outside of New Orleans was "Over You", released in 1960. His first hit single was "Tell It Like It Is", released by local musician/arranger George Davis, a friend from school, and band-leader Lee Diamond. The song topped Billboard's R&B chart for five weeks in 1967 and also reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (behind "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees). It sold more than one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.

Neville released his first solo album since the late 1960s in 1986 with the independent release Orchid in The Storm. In 1989, Neville teamed up with Linda Ronstadt on the album Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind which included four duets by the pair. Amongst them were the No. 1 Grammy-winning hits "Don't Know Much" and "All My Life". "Don't Know Much" reached No. 2 on the Hot 100, and was certified Gold for selling a million copies, while the album was certified Triple Platinum for US sales of more than three million.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.