In 1974, childhood friends Roland Treaudo and Manuel Herrera, Jr created the Family Underground from a cast of childhood friends and musical peers. Following an unprecedented five-year residency at Whitey’s Devil’s Den in central New Orleans’s, Treaudo and Herrera assembled a group of studio musicians and recorded the bulk of Once In A Lifetime. After shopping the EP unsuccessfully to Motown and Capitol, they gave the demo to a local entrepreneur named Eddie Stewart who reportedly burned all the tapes.
Never fully believing Stewart’s story, Roland decided to contact Stewart’s widow in August of 2005. Roland was able to recover the production master for Once in a Lifetime, which miraculously found its way out of New Orleans with band mate Herrera just days before Hurricane Katrina destroyed the group’s collective Hollygrove neighborhood.
Once in a Lifetime is a timeless blend of Southern disco and sophisticated R&B. It borrows as much from the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang as it does the group’s naturally melodic Crescent City surroundings. While the vast majority of tracks are upbeat and energetic, a few slow burners compliment the delicate array of complex flavors found in this disco Creole.