Ask any musician who has had the opportunity to work with Carlo Nuccio about the experience, and a big smile will spread across their face. Texture and energy, intuitive ability, ingenious and inventive technique will be characteristics they will use to describe Carlo's sound. They'll shake their heads and ponder how so much swing, soul and inspiration can inhabit the body and mind of one drummer.  

New Orleans has provided the backbeat to some of the finest jazz, rock and roll and rhythm and blues; Earl Palmer and Joseph "Zigaboo" Modeliste are among the most famous, having powered classic records by Fats Domino, Little Richard, The Meters and Dr. John. Carlo Nuccio is assuredly part of that long and storied line, having spent the better part of his 59 years in 'the engine room.' In the Crescent City, Carlo is a first-call musician who can boast playing in seven bands presently.  

His resumé is impressive and worthy: recording credits with Buckwheat Zydeco, Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses), Tori Amos, Dr. John, Marianne Faithful and a Grammy-winning album by Emmylou Harris. As the lynchpin of Nashville songwriting mainstay Pat McLaughlin's band, Carlo contributed the beat for three of Pat's albums. He founded the legendary Americana band Continental Drifters with his friends Mark Walton (Dream Syndicate) and Ray Ganucheau, and he navigated the band through many of their early sessions, contributing drums, guitar, engineering and his heartfelt singing and writing. Since then, he's worked for many years with Alex McMurray, among New Orleans' finest contemporary songwriters, in Royal Fingerbowl and in Alex's varied projects as well as Paul Sanchez and Lulu and the Broadsides.  

Carlo's skills extend to the other side of the studio glass, and his experiences in the control room and as a songwriter have helped inform the sensitivity of his playing style. He was mentored in recording and engineering by early New Orleans hit pioneer Cosimo Matassa, and he was able to hone his skills with live sound gigs of Professor Longhair, Earl King, Dr. John and the Neville Brothers. He has also worked with world-class producers and engineers Malcolm Burn, Jim Scott, Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom, Mark McKenna, Steve Berlin and Paul DuGré.  

And if that weren't enough, Carlo was one of the co-writers of the New Orleans anthem "Who Dat" back in 1983, adopted by the Saints as their battle cry en route to their Superbowl victory in 2009. (He also wrote and produced "Glory Bound," another all-star tribute to his favorite football team in 2010 which benefitted the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic.)  

Ask any musician who knows him, and they'll testify: Carlo Nuccio is the gold standard of New Orleans musician/producers in the twenty-first century.  - PETER HOLSAPPLE