Search - Meters :: Zony Mash

Great tunes from the funky meters!

souldrummer | Washington, DC United States | 10/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The Meters are at the top of my list of all time funk groups. Zony Mash has several great singles which did not appear on albums like "Message from the Meters", "I Need More Time", "Good Old Funky Music". The Meters are starting to get the polish they would have with their Warner albums but still maintain the raw sound of their Josie sides. The Meters still sound like a New Orleans version of Booker T and the MGs; they are just beginning to add some more vocals to the mix.Deciding whether to purchase this depends on how your collecting their stuff. If you've bought the two disc compilation "Funkify Your Life", this is not an essential purchase. You'll have the best tracks already and should look to albums like Rejuvenation and Cabbage Alley to fill out album tracks that didn't make that compilation. If you're a Meters completist whose been collecting the wonderfulr reissue series on Sundazed, this will be a nice purchase to round out the other fine releases and get some nonalbum tracks.--SD"

The Great Lost Meters Album?

J P Ryan | Waltham, Massachusetts United States | 12/07/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"By late 1967 The Meters were serving as producer Allen Toussaint's Sansu house band, deepening the grooves on discs by Betty Harris, Lee Dorsey, and numerous others. While a teenager Meters founder Art Neville had debuted with a classic, the Hawketts' 'Mardi Gras Mambo' (Chess). Neville spent the next a decade in the music industry working in the background, as session pianist/vocalist at Specialty and elsewhere (including distinctive vocal backup on Little Richard's 'The Girl Can't Help It'), releasing occasional solo singles for Specialty, Instant, Minit and Cinderella that displayed loads of talent and if not much success. Watching his brother Aaron hit big nationally with 'Tell It Like It Is' in 1966 led Art to focus on his own musical vision. With Memphis funk machine Booker T. & the MG's as his model Neville hand-picked his musicians and after stripping the seven-piece Neville Sounds down to a more manageable quartet, the Meters tightened up during a residency at the Ivanhoe. Allen Toussaint hired the group to play behind Lee Dorsey and Betty Harris for his Sansu productions in 1967, and within months the group had developed their own material and a fully formed sound that was both inspired by and distinct from the MG's, or anyone else. Toussaint helped them secure a deal with the Josie label, and it was at Josie that they issued their most influential work, revitalizing the Crescent City's national profile and creating an enduring, influential body of work - irresistable and seminal slabs of funk - until the label's demise three years later.

The Meters debuted in November 1968 with the slinky "Sophisticated Cissy", breaking out nationally early in 1969. In all Josie issued three fine Meters albums, "The Meters" (May 1969), "Look-Ka-Py-Py" (December 1969), and "Struttin" (June 1970), and a total of eleven singles - the last four released after "Struttin" and until now never collected together on a Meters album.

By 1972 Josie had folded and the band had signed with Reprise, debuting that spring with "Cabbage Alley." At the time it was seen as a radical departure with its range of rock, pop, soul, funk, and Caribbean influences, but what most people have noticed with the label change is the band's integration of vocals. This set gives the lister fresh perspective on the Meters' evolution as well as being a terrific party platter. "Zony Mash" is a fine album, collecting the group's last eight Josie single sides and five very enjoyable outtakes. Those last four Josie singles were released during the year leading up to Josie's demise. Consequently this is something of a 'lost' fourth album. "Zony Mash" provides a fascinating look at the group in transition between the mostly instrumental, seminal funk of the early work and the more eclectic Warner Bros. era. Intellegently sequenced and superbly remastered, the funk is hard and heavy on the terrific opening title track - issued as a single in September 1970 - a driving slab of hard funk featuring Nocentelli's post-Hendrix wah-wah over Porter and Modeliste's aggressive rhythm. One can chart the group's evolution with each new single. Much of the material here has a harder edge than the exquisite, almost minimalist funk of the early classics, and we hear evidence of the band drawing on influences such as Sly Stone, Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Funkadelic ( - or is it synchonicity?) and Norman Whitfield's early '70s work at Motown (especially for the Temptations). The structurally ambitious "I Need More Time" (June 1971) follows. The song begins as a slow and mellow ballad, Art singing along to his own organ and Porter's bass; the whole band comes in and slams down hard after 45 seconds, and one notices for perhaps the first time on a Meters record the addition of congas and other percussion - was Cyril Neville already playing on Meters sessions in 1971? "A Message From The Meters" (the flipside of "Zony Mash") is next, mid-tempo funk with socially concious lyrics written by Leo Nocentelli, featuring stinging guitar and, again, dense percussion. From February '71, "Stretch Your Rubber Band" is an upbeat dance track with Leo's heavy riffs doubled with what sound's like synthesizer from Art. Nocentelli wrote "(The World Is A Bit Under The Weather) Doodle-Oop" with Vincent Toussaint (Allen's brother), and this June 1971 single is a far tougher version than the one recorded for Reprise several years later. The band ended its tenure with Josie with "Good Old Funky Music" a slab of Modeliste driven funk/rock (ossued September 1971)with an almost halluncinatory mix, backed by a return to the band's instumental roots, the moody "Sassy Lady" (issued August 1971), a slinky, elegant track and the Meters' farewell to an era. These are all excellent singles that show the group both consolidating its instumental powers and moving in directions suggesting the Reprise era.

In addition, Sundazed includes those five recently discovered additional tracks, each worthy of inclusion on any of the group's first three albums, and I'm quite pleased these tracks are no longer languishing in the vaults. Each has something to offer, from Leo Nocentelli's Wes Montgomery-influenced take on "The Look Of Love" - given a smokey, late night ambience - to the irresistable "Funky Meters Soul", New Orleans' answer to Archie Bell & The Drells.

Like the best artists during what was a truly great era for black (and white) popular music, the Meters here are able to explore new territory and maintain their fundamental musical identity. Anyone who has the classic Josie albums, now available in superbly annotated and remastered editions on Sundazed, will find "Zony Mash" to be an excellent addition to the Meters ouevre."