The Meters: Struttin' [JACKPOT]

Why you'll love it

A limited Jackpot Records reissue of the Meters' third album, the one that gave the world "Chicken Strut", a number 11 R&B hit. Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn produced it at Cosimo Matassa's studio in New Orleans, and it's also the first Meters LP with Art Neville singing, on "Wichita Lineman", "Darlin' Darlin'" and "Ride Your Pony".

This edition

• Limited edition reissue from Jackpot Records
• Stereo mix of the 1970 Josie Records album
• 12 tracks, including all three Art Neville vocal cuts

About the album

By 1970 the Meters were already the house band New Orleans called whenever a record needed a groove that sounded like it had been marinating since breakfast. Art Neville on organ, Leo Nocentelli on guitar, George Porter Jr. on bass and Zigaboo Modeliste on drums played behind half the city's soul singers for Allen Toussaint, and on their own records they boiled that sound down to its bones: tight, nimble and a little off-kilter in the best possible way.

Struttin' keeps the instrumentals coming ("Liver Splash", "Joog", "Britches") and opens the door to vocals for the first time, with Neville taking a sly run at Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" and Lee Dorsey's "Ride Your Pony". Robert Christgau liked the way they swung with a second-line lilt rather than a big-band polish. Fifty-odd years on, the chicken is still strutting, and so, we've noticed, is anyone within earshot of the shop speakers.

The New Orleans M.G.'s swing, but not smoothly, the way a big band does.
Robert Christgau

Tracklist

Listen

Out September 4, 2026 on Jackpot Records (cat# JPR088), a reissue of the 1970 album.