The Meters “Rejuvenation” (Reprise, 1974)

After blueprinting the minimalist funk style that triggered hundreds of hip-hop samples on their self-titled debut album, New Orleans foursome the Meters laid down a heavier, busier brand of funk five years later on their consensus late-career peak, Rejuvenation.

Produced by the sainted Allen Toussaint, who also arranged horns, Rejuvenation finds the Meters refining and beefing up their funk to the more stringent demands of mid-’70s ears and butts. The starkly funky “People Say”—which has been sampled 25 times—sets the tone with Leo Nocentelli’s chicken-scratch guitar, George Porter Jr.’s thrusting bass, and Ziggy Modeliste’s precise, deceptively complex beats. And while Art Neville sings with adequate power and soulfulness, I still think that the Meters truly excel as a strictly instrumental unit. Whatever the case, the Meters sound lean and muscular in their second prime.

Covered by Joe Cocker, the gospel-tinged soul ballad “Love Is For Me” is not the Meters’ forte, but they acquit themselves well here nonetheless. In a somewhat similar lane, “Loving You Is On My Mind” is lush R&B that angles hard for radio play. To put it bluntly, this is not what I come to the Meters for. Rather, it’s for classics such as “Just Kissed My Baby,” merely one of the funkiest pieces of music humanity’s ever laid down. No wonder it’s been sampled about 70 times, including by Public Enemy, EPMD, Mobb Deep, and Dream Warriors. Porter’s bass and Nocentelli’s guitar generate so much lubricious friction, as Neville boasts, “I feel like a king, yeah, ’cause I just kissed my baby.” Speaking of babies, many of them were probably conceived to this scorcher.

If you dig gritty funk in the War and Mandrill vein, “What’cha Say” will satisfy, with some of the Meters’ most intricate in and interesting vocal arrangements. Even better is “Jungle Man,” sick dub-leaning funk that sounds like Jimmy Castor Bunch jamming with Sly & Robbie. The segue into “Hey Pocky A-way,” with its humid and wonderfully slack rhythm, is perfect. This is exemplary New Orleans funk, verging on a “Bo Diddley in dub” effect. Nocentelli gets off some wily rock-star guitar solos on “It Ain’t No Use,” nearly 12 minutes of mellifluous, funky R&B in the Isley Brothers vein. Rejuvenation ends with “Africa,” a torqued, tense funk workout that not even the Red Hot Chili Peppers—who covered it on Freaky Styley—could ruin.

While subsequent releases such as Fire On The Bayou and New Directions had occasional flashes of brilliance, Rejuvenation remains the last great Meters record and a milestone of mid-’70s funk—as well as a wellspring of hip-hop source material. -Buckley Mayfield

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