Aaron Neville:
(New Orleans, 24 January 1941) is an American soul, R&B, gospel and country singer.
In 1960, Neville’s first single was released by Minit Records. This single, ‘Over You’, became a minor hit in the United States. Five years later, the global hit ‘Tell It Like It Is’ was released. This single was released by the record company Par-Lo. This record company quickly ran up a lot of debt, which meant that Neville did not receive a penny from ‘Tell It Like It Is’. Neville had his second worldwide hit in 1989. It was the single ‘Don’t Know Much’, a duet with Linda Ronstadt. In the intervening years, Neville made records with his brothers, sang with a few small gospel groups and toured the United States.
In the 1990s, the CD ‘Warm My Heart’ was released. This record was well received by the general public worldwide. Linda Ronstadt and George Massenburg produced the CD. During this period, Neville also received many Grammy Award nominations in the categories of country & western, pop, R&B and gospel.
We used to play football on the levee with no shirts on in the summer August in New Orleans, and my skin would turn red.
Aaron Neville is explaining where his old nickname “Apache Red” came from. As a boy, he’d play shirtless football with friends on the levees of New Orleans through the sweltering August heat. His fair, light-brown complexion would burn and turn red in the sun, and other kids started calling him “Redskin,” which evolved first into “Red Apache,” then settled as “Apache Red” — a nickname that stuck with him for life (and later inspired a song by that name).
Origin:
The quote comes from Neville recounting his own childhood in New Orleans, where football on the Mississippi River levees was a common pastime for local kids in his Uptown neighborhood. It appears widely in quote compilations (BrainyQuote, Citatis, and similar sites) as a piece of a longer reflection on his youth, though these sites don’t cite a specific dated interview or publication it was drawn from.
Author: Aaron Neville
— the New Orleans R&B/soul singer, best known for “Tell It Like It Is” and as a founding member of The Neville Brothers.
