Tell It Like It Is

According to Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 Songs issue, Aaron Neville was working as a longshoreman when he recorded this plea for true love. "A lot of people come up to me and say, 'That song got me and my wife together, and others say, 'It broke me and my wife up," he said.

"Tell It Like It Is" was written by the New Orleans songwriters George Davis and Lee Diamond. Davis had been friends with Aaron Neville since childhood. They couldn't find a record label to release the song, so David started one himself: Parlo Records, and issued the single. The song took off, climbing to #2 behind The Monkees' "I'm A Believer," but the follow-up, "She Took You For A Ride," also written by Lee and Davis and released on Parlo, got no higher than #92. Parlo soon folded and Neville didn't muster another hit until 1989 when he teamed up with Linda Ronstadt to record "Don't Know Much," which again peaked at #2 in the US. This gave Aaron Neville the record for the longest period between the first and second top 40 hits in the US.

This song became a civil-rights anthem, and was also very popular with American soldiers fighting overseas. Speaking with Mojo magazine February 2013 about the song, Neville recalled: "I remember guys (who'd served) in Vietnam telling' me that record was burnin' up over there. That time they called it a social song. But to me it was a love song, written for me by Lee Diamond and George Davis. I recorded four songs and I had my eye on another song that I thought would be (a hit) but my brother Art said, 'No, that's the one.'"