Carlo Nuccio was born in New Orleans in 1960, and the city shaped him in every way. His first professional gig came at fourteen, filling in as drummer at a strip joint near Toulouse Street. He powered rock bands on Bourbon Street, ran a sound and lighting company, wrote jingles, and accumulated the sprawling, lived-in career that only New Orleans produces.
In 1983, Nuccio and his friend Steve Monistere took the "Who Dat" chant — heard from the St. Augustine High School marching band — and built it into a song around "When the Saints Go Marching In." With Aaron Neville on vocals, the record became a regional hit. When the Saints reached the Super Bowl in 2009, that song became a city-wide anthem. Nuccio recorded a gospel-inflected second version, "Glory Bound," with Neville and vocalist Theresa Andersson, directing proceeds to the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic.
By the late 1980s Nuccio had helped found the Continental Drifters around a Tuesday night residency at Raji's in Hollywood. The Drifters relocated to New Orleans, and their 1994 self-titled debut established them as one of the more original Americana bands of the decade. Back in New Orleans, Nuccio became a first-call musician across the city. His session credits were remarkable in range: Tori Amos's Little Earthquakes and Under the Pink, Emmylou Harris's Grammy-winning Red Dirt Girl, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Dr. John's final studio record. He released one solo album, Loose Strings (1998).
Carlo Nuccio died on August 24, 2022, at his New Orleans home, of complications from liver cancer. He was 61. The city mourned one of its most genuinely irreplaceable characters — a musician whose greatness, his bandmates said, was inseparable from his outsized personality and his absolute dedication to the feel of the music.
