Charmaine Neville Bio

Were Charmaine Neville a baseball player, "triple threat" would be the phrase most bandied about. In this instance, multi-talented is an understatement. This brilliant singer, dancer, actress-comedienne is as sure to blaze a path to glory in the world of entertainment as the immortal Babe Ruth was to do in baseball.

Make no mistake, Charmaine will be long-remembered in her chosen world. From her cameo appearance in Taylor Hackford's Warner Brothers motion picture Everybody's All-American to Time Magazine's accolade as "best pair of lungs in New Orleans," to the PBS Lonesome Pine Special which featured her for the show's entire one hour duration, to a splashy photo layout in Vogue, to appearances in TV commercials ranging from Levi's 501 jeans to the crusty old New Orleans Times-Picayune, Charmaine is running all of the media bases.

Charmaine comes from one of those ubiquitous New Orleans musical families, in this instance the world-renowned Neville Brothers (her father is saxophonist Charles Neville.) But she is no mere flash in the genetic pan, for her world has included much study, careful thought, hard work and a dues card nearly ready to be stamped "Pain in Full."

"I always knew what I wanted to do," she recalled. "The first time that I sang before an audience--I was three years old and serious about it then--that's when I won by first trophy, singing some crazy little song. I knew what I wanted to be from listening to people like Barbara Streisand, Doris Day, Sarah Vaughan, Ella and Aretha, Diana Ross and Betty Carter--no one scats like Betty Carter and no one dances like Tina Turner!

"Actually, I'm lying...I didn't want to be a singer, I wanted to be a comedienne; I really did. But I knew it was going to be some kind of show business. Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball were my idols.

"When I was a kid, when the Flintstones would come on TV, I never watched the show, I just wanted to hear the music because they were be-bopping and I thought their theme was just the greatest thing I ever heard in my life. That and Woody Woodpecker. I got "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't, Baby" from watching Tom and Jerry. A lot of what I do I got from cartoons--from Peanuts to some of Hanna-Barbera --it just seemed to be the greatest stuff I ever heard in my life!

"I was probably in the third or fourth grade when I became serious about music. My first teacher tried forcing opera on me and that didn't work. I thought she was trying to turn me into my mother, who sang opera, and that was something I neither liked nor understood. Little did I realize that such things as Carmen and Madame Butterfly were quite wonderful, but at that early age, they were just plain boring to me.

"I was born in New Orleans on March 31 (of a very good year) and moved to Austin, Texas, when I was quite young. I attended Palm Springs Elementary School and Round Rock Junior High. I played my first gig when I was twelve, opening for Kitty Wells at a sure 'nuff Texas rodeo! I moved back to New Orleans when I was in my early teens. It was at that time that I learned, for the first time, that I was a part of the musical Neville family. At the age of sixteen, I went back to Texas where I entered the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in music and art--but I took a minor in math, just in case I didn't make it in show business."

At this stage of Charmaine's fast-paced career, that possibility seems most unlikely.