The Meters

The house band

The Meters formed in New Orleans in 1965 around Art Neville on keyboards and vocals, Leo Nocentelli on guitar, George Porter Jr. on bass and Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste on drums. Modeliste, born December 28, 1948, had played in the Hawketts, a band led by Art Neville that became the Neville Sounds and then the Meters. They became the house band for Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn's Sansu Enterprises; a Songfacts entry says the pair found them at the Ivanhoe club, a detail we have from one source only. Cyril Neville joined later as percussionist and vocalist.

On Josie they put out "Sophisticated Cissy" (1968, number 7 R&B), "Cissy Strut" (1969, number 4 R&B) and, in 1970, "Look-Ka Py Py" and "Chicken Strut", and Billboard and Record World named them best R&B instrumental group. The albums on Josie were The Meters (1969), Look-Ka Py Py and Struttin' (1970). They moved to Reprise for Cabbage Alley (1972), Rejuvenation (1974), Fire on the Bayou (1975) and Trick Bag (1976), and made New Directions (1977) for Warner Bros. Island's compilation Cissy Strut (1974) gathered thirteen Josie songs; AllMusic gave it 4.5 stars and Christgau an A-minus.

On the road and after

In 1975 Paul McCartney invited them to the launch party for Venus and Mars aboard the Queen Mary, and they opened for the Rolling Stones on the 1975 American and 1976 European tours; Uptown Rulers: The Meters Live on the Queen Mary was recorded in 1975 and released in 1992. They appeared on Saturday Night Live on March 19, 1977. Art and Cyril Neville left in early 1977, David Batiste Sr. and Willie West joined, and Porter left later that year. The band was done by 1980.

Art Neville, Porter and Nocentelli reunited in 1989 with Russell Batiste Jr. on drums, and after Nocentelli was replaced by Brian Stoltz in 1994 the band became The Funky Meters. The original four played the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2005 and Bonnaroo and the Voodoo Experience in 2011. In 2012 Modeliste, Nocentelli and Porter began performing as The Meter Men with Page McConnell. Wikipedia dates the last show of the original four to June 25, 2017 at Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, while setlist.fm lists June 24. The Recording Academy gave them a Lifetime Achievement award in 2018, announced January 12, and the song "Cissy Strut" entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. Art Neville announced his retirement on December 18, 2018 and died on July 22, 2019; Russell Batiste Jr. died in 2023.

Brian Knight of the Vermont Review wrote that they defined the basic characteristics of the groove, and Robert Christgau called them totally original. Run-DMC, N.W.A, Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest sampled them, the Red Hot Chili Peppers covered "Africa" as "Hollywood (Africa)" on Freaky Styley (1985) and Primus covered "Tippi Toes" in 1992.