AARON NEVILLE - MY TRUE STORY     "These songs helped to mold me  into who I am," says Aaron Neville. "They're all dear to my heart, and  they rode with me, in my bones, through all these years."     With MY  TRUE STORY, one of the world's finest singers is revisiting the music he  grew up with, and adding a few new spins along the way. Neville's first  release for Blue Note Records is a collection of twelve classic doo-wop  numbers, performed in his utterly inimitable vocal style, and  co-produced by Blue Note President Don Was and Keith Richards.     The  selections on the album include classics by such vocal-group giants as  Little Anthony and the Imperials ("Tears on My Pillow"), Hank Ballard  and the Midnighters ("Work With Me, Annie"), and the Drifters ("Money  Honey," "Under the Boardwalk," "This Magic Moment"). To Neville, though,  these songs weren't just the soundtrack to his youth; they became the  underpinning for all of the remarkable music he has created across five  decades.     "I attended the university of doo-wop-ology," he says.  "Anything I do has got some doo-wop in it. It’s just part of me—it’s the  texture that I’m singing in, it’s the endings, it's the harmonies. At 3  o’clock in the morning, I wake up with a doo-wop song going in my head  and I can’t go back to sleep because I’m singing it over and over."     Yet  the recordings on MY TRUE STORY aren't simply imitations of the  original sessions. For one thing, some of the songs included—like the  Ronettes' "Be My Baby" or "Gypsy Woman" by the Impressions—come from a  slightly later time period than the classic doo-wop era, and aren't  usually classified as part of the genre. But Neville explains that for  him, it's not the calendar that matters, it's the vocal approach.     "Doo-wop  started with five guys, like the Clovers—or five girls, like the  Chantels or the Shirelles —singing harmony together on a bench or a  stoop,” he says. “My own favorite place was the boys’ bathroom at  school, because it had such great acoustics. So I always thought 'Be My  Baby' was a doo-wop song, because it’s a lead singer with harmony  singers.     “I came up in the doo-wop era, and if I heard something  and thought it was doo-wop, then it was. So if it didn’t fall in that  category before, then it does now!"     The other twist given to this  material is that while doo-wop tended to keep the emphasis squarely on  the vocalists, MY TRUE STORY sees Neville backed by a top-flight rock  & roll band, led by the distinctive, propulsive guitar work of  Richards himself. The other musicians include Greg Leisz on guitar  (Beck, Sheryl Crow), Benmont Tench on organ (founding member of Tom  Petty and the Heartbreakers), George G. Receli on drums (Bob Dylan), and  Tony Scherr on bass (Bill Frisell, Norah Jones).     "Doo-wop songs  centered around the vocals,” says Neville. “But with these great  musicians, we could highlight the musical side of it too-this record is a  combination of all of it, to bring it up to date."     Richards—who  Was approached when he remembered that the guitarist kept the Jive Five  song "My True Story" playing on a loop in his room during the making of  the Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge album—describes work on the album as  "the perfect session." Twenty-three songs were cut in five days, all of  them live and many in the first take.”     "Opportunities like this  don't come 'round very often," says Richards. "I grew up with these  songs, like Aaron did. It's such a pleasure to play with a voice like  that, and the band all fell straight in together—I never saw such a  bunch of hardened musicians act like a bunch of kids."     Neville  explains that having internalized this music so deeply, he was able to  show the musicians the genuine old-school feel that these songs require.  "On songs like 'Ting a Ling' and 'Work with Me, Annie,' I had to kind  of dance the groove I wanted," he says with a broad smile. "I had to  move around and bob and weave and show them that strut like when you’re  walking in New Orleans. But this band was ready for anything, they were  jumping on it, and everything came out so easy."     As if all of  these ingredients weren't enough, several singers from the glory days of  doo-wop joined the sessions to provide backing vocals on a number of  the songs, including Eugene Pitt of the Jive Five (who co-wrote the  album's title song), Bobby Jay of the Teenagers, and Dickie Harmon from  the Del-Vikings. Neville’s touring bass player, David Johnson, drummer,  Earl Smith, Jr. and Joel Katz also lend their voices to some of the  arrangements.     MY TRUE STORY represents a culmination of Aaron  Neville’s incredible career, which has seen him move seamlessly back and  forth between solo work and his role in the first family of New Orleans  music, the Neville Brothers. His first hit single was the landmark  "Tell It Like It Is," which held the Number One spot on the R&B  charts for five weeks in 1967. He went on to win Grammy Awards for his  triple-platinum 1989 collaboration with Linda Ronstadt Cry Like a  Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind, and reached the Country charts with the  title track of 1993’s The Grand Tour. A member of the Louisiana Music  Hall of Fame, his most recent project was the gospel album I Know I’ve  Been Changed in 2010.     Don Was says that it was an easy decision to  bring the legendary Neville to Blue Note. "Nobody sings like him," he  says. "He's a great artist, a guy with integrity and excellence and  authenticity—and that’s what the label is really about."     When Was  and Neville discussed possible projects, the singer indicated that  recording an album of doo-wop songs had long been a dream of his. He  adds, though, that his recent relocation to New York City after losing  his home to Hurricane Katrina, and his recent marriage, gives MY TRUE  STORY additional significance.     "It’s definitely extra-meaningful,"  he says. "I have a new life, I’m singing to my wife Sarah. I think God  knew I wanted to do it and he waited for the right moment. He made the  stars align, and he said, 'Aaron, it’s time for you to do some doo-wop."