Famed guitarist Leo Nocentelli of The Meters showed off Another Side of his musicality in the early ’70s when he recorded a folk album that was never issued, went missing and was recently unearthed. Another Side, including lead single “Thinking Of The Day,” will finally get a release via noted archival reissue label Light In The Attic on November 19.
Nocentelli was backed by an incredible band on the project featuring pianist Allen Toussaint, drummer James Black along with Leo’s Meters bandmates bassist George Porter Jr. and drummer Zigaboo Modeliste. The 10-track album was recorded in his hometown of New Orleans at Cosimo Matassa’s Jazz City Studio between 1970 – 1972. “Another Side finds a young Nocentelli channeling his contemporaries in the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement (think Bill Withers, James Taylor, and Toussaint meeting up at Link Wray’s 3-Track Shack),” as per press materials announcing the LP.
Leo wrote nine of the 10 songs included on Another Day, which also features a cover of Elton John’s “Your Song.” The guitarist decided to focus his efforts on The Meters’ next album once Another Day was complete and stowed the tapes at Toussaint’s Sea-Saint studio. Hurricane Katrina flooded Sea-Saint in 2005. The new owner of the facility who purchased the studio from Toussaint boxed up what wasn’t destroyed and sent it to a storage facility in Southern California. Over a decade later, the materials salvaged were put up for a blind auction after the storage unit was foreclosed upon. Record collector Mike Nishita purchased the boxes of tapes at a swap meet, where the winner of the auction had sold them days later.
Nishita came across the tapes featuring Another Side and realized he had quite the find. “There was nothing else like it,” wrote journalist Sam Sweet in the liner notes for the set. “An acoustic album by the greatest funk guitarist who ever lived. It was the tape Mike would play for people to show them how special the collection was. The best album in the vault was something nobody knew existed.”
Light In The Attic will issue the previously unreleased and never-before-heard music in vinyl, CD, cassette and digital formats. Deluxe CD and vinyl bundles are available for pre-order via LightInTheAttic.net.
Stream Leo Nocentelli’s “Thinking Of The Day” below:
Watch a trailer for Another Side:
Another Side Tracklist
- Thinking Of The Day
- Riverfront
- I Want To Cry
- Pretty Mittie
- Give Me Back My Loving
- Getting Nowhere
- Till I Get There
- You’ve Become A Habit
- Tell Me Why
- Your Song
