Sometimes a song comes to you, and it takes you some time to figure out where it came from. That was the case with “Beam Me Up,” my homage to Art Neville. While I understood from the beginning that it was a song to honor one of my musical heroes, it wasn’t until I reflected on the song that I realized why this was so important to me.
To get there, let’s step back to the summer of 1995. I was a full-time musician living in Annapolis, MD and playing with a number of bands. I had been to New Orleans for the first time a few years prior and it had been lingering in the back of my mind, funky echoes dancing like gilded splinters in my grey matter. My friend and fellow Annapolitan, Jamie Rephann, called me up one day and asked if I wanted to see the Neville Brothers at Wolf Trap, the nation’s only National Park for the Performing Arts. Jamie had picked up a gig working on the sound crew that night and knew how much I loved the band and the site of some righteous shows. To sweeten the deal, he offered to get me backstage (looking back at the date on the pass, this was likely related to the fact that the show was on my birthday). Before he could say jambalaya, I was in!
It seems destiny was calling that fateful day, because it was backstage that I met Art Neville and struck up a friendship, at least to the extent that he gave me his actual email address and we proceeded to exchange emails over the following months. Looking back, it was the fact that this stone cold music legend was so gracious and friendly towards a twenty-something kid he had never met before that made me think that New Orleans was someplace where I could be welcomed and have a future. I know I didn’t think in those exact terms at the time, but we often don’t recognize the reasons of our lives until later when we have the benefit of time and experience. By the beginning of the following year, I made the decision to move to the Crescent City and try my luck as a musician. It led to an incredible chapter in my life, one which provided me with opportunities to play with a number of my musical heroes while feasting on the bounty of a city like no other.
These little moments can be so consequential, yet for Art it probably felt like just another day. I wish he was still around so I could tell him how important he was to this critical life choice.
Now flash forward a few decades, and I was working on the idea that would become “Beam Me Up.” It all started with the knowledge that Art was a serious Trekkie and that I had a Meters-esque groove stuck in my head that I had to get out. I decided to lean into both things, imagining Art as The Captain (which is one of his nicknames) of a Star Ship that is powered by the unstoppable groove generated by a crew (or, in New Orleans parlance, a krewe) made up of some of the funkiest musicians who have passed to the Other Side. The Star Ship is named for the street that the Nevilles grew up on and where Art continued to reside for most of his life: Valence Street in Uptown New Orleans, the stomping grounds of the Wild Tchoupitoulas and the backdrop for a multi-generational musical family.
In my overactive imagination, this vessel will come collect us when our time on Earth is done and we will join in the musical magic that propels the ship ever forward. Once I established the premise, it was time to populate the Star Ship with a Who’s Who Krewe Funktastic Musical Review. At one point in the songwriting process, the list of prospective candidates had gotten unwieldy, so I had to make some tough choices about who to name-check. For many of those I included, I used the nicknames employed by family and friends. Recognizing this isn't something everyone will know, I'm doing a follow-up post that includes a glamorous glossary of sorts with a short bio about each cosmic krewe-member on the ship, because they all deserve to be known by as many people as possible. In that I'll also link to some recordings of theirs on YouTube because if you don’t already know their musical catalog, you need to do yourself a favor and check them out!
Beyond the lyrical devices, I wanted to honor Art's love of Star Trek with some nods to the show's music without (hopefully) being too heavy-handed. I had the very talented Abbie Palmer perform an intro that hints at the beginning of the original Star Trek theme song, with tinkling sounds that evoke the stars and space countered by a little earthy breathiness of the wood flute. The glissandi she plays on the harp as we transition to the main song are straight out of the Star Trek bag, which is when we dive headfirst into Meters-style funk. I provided another Star Trek reference when Abbie sang a short interstitial vocal part that again nods to the original television show theme, as we head into the bridge and a modulation from G to Eb. The final place I bring in a reference to the show is at the very end of the song, when the final word sung echoes and modulates ever higher, figuratively heading up into the heavens. This is immediately followed by a sound reminiscent of a transporter beam, indicating that we'll eventually move on to a funkier place.
I hope the song takes you on a journey, brings you some joy, and delivers some much needed funk to your life!