The Meters: The Funkiest Band in the City That Invented Funk

The Funkiest Band in the City That Invented Funk

The Meters were formed in New Orleans in 1965 by four musicians who would quietly revolutionize American music: Art Neville on keyboards, Leo Nocentelli on guitar, George Porter Jr. on bass, and Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste on drums. They started as the house band at Allen Toussaint's Sea-Saint Studios, backing artists like Lee Dorsey, Dr. John, and Labelle. But The Meters were too good to stay in the background.

Their instrumental singles in the late 1960s and early 1970s — "Cissy Strut," "Look-Ka Py Py," "Chicken Strut," "Hey Pocky A-Way" — defined New Orleans funk. "Cissy Strut" in particular is one of the most sampled and covered songs in music history. The groove is so deep, so perfectly locked in, that musicians have been trying to replicate it for over fifty years and nobody has quite gotten there.

The Foundation of Everything

What made The Meters special was the space between the notes. Modeliste's drumming was syncopated in ways that defied conventional rhythm theory. Porter's bass lines were melodic and hypnotic. Nocentelli's guitar was sharp and percussive. And Art Neville's organ held everything together with a warmth that made the whole thing feel like a living organism. They played together with a telepathic communication that only comes from years of performing in the same city, breathing the same rhythms, and growing up on the same music.

The Meters influenced every funk, hip-hop, and jam band that came after them. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Phish, A Tribe Called Quest, and hundreds of other artists have cited them as a primary influence. Their music has been sampled on countless hip-hop tracks. They are, by any reasonable measure, the most influential band to come out of New Orleans — and in a city that produced Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, and Lil Wayne, that's saying something extraordinary.

The Funky Meters and Beyond

The original lineup broke up in 1977, but the music never stopped. Art Neville and George Porter Jr. continued performing as The Funky Meters for decades. Porter still performs regularly in New Orleans. The Meters' legacy is written into the DNA of modern music — every time a drummer plays a syncopated funk beat, every time a bassist finds the pocket, every time a band locks into a groove so tight it feels like gravity, they're playing music that The Meters invented on the streets of New Orleans.