Guitarist Leo Nocentelli (pictured), a founding member of legendary New Orleans funk band The Meters, is currently performing worldwide with a variety of groups. Nocentelli recently equipped his guitar with Sennheiser’s EW 372 G2 guitar system.
Nocentelli states that he had been looking for a top-quality, robust wireless guitar setup for a long time. “I never ran into the right one until I started using Sennheiser,” he says. “The Sennheiser G2 setup really comes in very handy for me and works out very well.
“Typically,” he continues, “rival RF guitar pickup systems feature plastic power packs that break very easily. The Sennheiser unit is metal and I’ve dropped it a few times and nothing happened to it. It’s a very durable piece of equipment and I’m very happy with it. I like the fact that it doesn’t eat up batteries.”
Most recently, Nocentelli has been performing with the New Orleans Social Club, a loose affiliation of New Orleans musical royalty. “We were asked to do a charity album following Hurricane Katrina,” he says. “We thought everyone would go their different ways, doing what they did before they got together to do this album, but we’ve been working ever since.”
The lineup varies according to who is available, he explains, but can typically include Ivan Neville, Meters bassist George Porter Jr. and Henry Butler. “Whenever we get together its a special thing, because we don’t do it so much. I hope we can do more with some regularity, because the band is really in demand,” says Nocentelli.
Nocentelli is in demand as an endorsee and product demonstrator, and consequently has attended NAMM shows for more than a decade. “At this year’s show,” he says, “I ran into Dawn Birr, Sennheiser’s product manager for professional products. It was a magical thing. I told her I was interested in a wireless system and when I told her who I was, she was overwhelmed. There’s an album that I recorded with The Meters called Cabbage Alley, and she said that’s her and her husband’s favorite album. So, there was a mutual friendship there immediately.”
For more information, visit www.sennheiserusa.com and www.nocentelli.com.
