George Porter Jr. Biography
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- Born Dec. 26, 1947
Porter has his own group the Runnin\' Pardners, and also other projects such as The Trio with Johnny Vidacovich, New Orleans Social Club, Deep Fried, and Porter Batiste Stoltz. He has been performing and recording with wide range of artists including Soul Rebels Brass Band, Dr. John, Paul McCartney, Robbie Robertson, Willy DeVille, Robert Palmer, Patti Labelle, Jimmy Buffett, David Byrne, Johnny Adams, Harry Connick Jr., Earl King, Warren Haynes, Tori Amos, and Snooks Eaglin among many others.\n', '
Porter joined John Scofield\'s Piety Street Band in 2008 to tour and to record. Jon Cleary and Ricky Fataar are also members of this band. In 2010, he replaced Reed Mathis in Bill Kreutzmann\'s newest band, 7 Walkers. Also in 2010 he performed with Runnin\' Pardner at New Orleans\' Voodoo Experience.\n', '
Porter\'s parents were both avid lovers of music. His father frequently listened to Duke Ellington and his mother sang in the local church choir. He grew up in New Orleans next to future Meters bandmate, Joe "Zigaboo" Modeliste, and the two became friends when George was 10 years old. As teenagers, they played jam sessions together with Porter playing a box guitar. Porter was inspired to play bass guitar by another New Orleans native, Benjamin "Poppi" Francis who also gave Porter some lessons on the instrument. When Porter was still in his teens, he sat in with Earl King. After one of the shows, Art Neville came up to him saying he was trying to start a band and asked if he would like to join. Porter agreed spawning the beginnings of The Meters. At first the band was known as Neville Sound and consisted of seven men including Cyril and Aaron Neville as vocalists and Gary Brown on saxophone. After a short time, however, the band was trimmed down to four core members - Art Neville, Zigaboo Modeliste, Leo Nocentilli and Porter Jr. The four were playing six nights a week at a Bourbon Street bar called Ivanhoe when they were approached by Allen Toussaint and asked if they wanted to sign a record deal. After the deal, the label wanted the band to change their name to something that better reflected their sound. They settled on "The Meters." By the early seventies, Porter was touring coast to coast with The Meters. In 1975, they were touring as the opening act to the Rolling Stones. Porter has said that the best moment in his musical career is when he and the other Meters were opening for the Stones in Paris in 1976. The crowd started to boo them, when Keith Richards and Mick Jagger came out in support of The Meters and told the crowd to shut up and listen to the music. He said that moment kept The Meters alive for the time being By 1977, however, the band broke up due to personal differences. After the breakup, Porter Jr. formed a band called Joyride.\n', '
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