Ian Neville
Ian Neville is a Grammy-winning New Orleans guitarist, producer and founding member of Dumpstaphunk, a band that has helped carry the city’s deep funk tradition into a new generation.
Music runs through Neville’s family. He is the son of Art Neville, the celebrated keyboardist of The Meters and The Neville Brothers, and cousin of musician Ivan Neville. But Ian’s career stands on its own. He has developed a distinctive presence as a guitarist while remaining connected to the musical traditions that made the Neville family an important part of New Orleans music history.
In 2003, Ian helped form New Orleans funk band Dumpstaphunk with Ivan Neville, Tony Hall and the late Nick Daniels III. What began around a New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival performance grew into one of the city’s enduring contemporary funk bands. Dumpstaphunk’s music draws from funk while moving through rock, jazz and soul, extending rather than simply recreating the Neville and Meters musical legacy. The band’s current official biography continues to list Ian on guitar and as one of its founding members.
Ian also became part of a project devoted to documenting that larger musical inheritance. He served as a producer and performer on Martin Shore’s Take Me to the River: New Orleans, the 2022 documentary that brought together generations of New Orleans and Louisiana musicians. The film explores the cultural roots, resilience and cross-generational collaborations behind the city’s music; Ian appears alongside members of his own family and many other New Orleans artists.
The project later added a Grammy-winning chapter to his career. The Recording Academy lists Ian Neville with one Grammy win and one nomination connected to “Stompin’ Ground,” the Aaron Neville and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band recording that won Best American Roots Performance at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
In the World Footprints podcast, Ian joins Grammy-winning filmmaker and Take Me to the River director Martin Shore for a conversation about New Orleans music, Hurricane Katrina, the Neville family’s musical legacy and the relationships that help keep a living culture alive.
Listen to our conversation with Ian Neville and Martin Shore in Take Me to the River: New Orleans — Inside the Music, History and Living Legacy.
Ian Neville appears in
Martin Shore and Ian Neville explore the music, history and living cultural legacy behind Take Me to the River: New Orleans—and the Grammy-winning recording that followed their World Footprints conversation.
