#ripallentoussaint

I loved Allen Toussaint songs before I knew they were his and I knew his name before I realized who he was or what music he made. Surely, this speaks to my background--I spent a lot of time listening to oldies radio and reading old issues of Rolling Stone--but it also shows how pervasive Allen Toussaint's music actually was: it was part of our national fabric, so familiar it hardly seems created. Not coincidentally, much of his best-known music was sung by other by other singers: a stable of New Orleans performers including Lee Dorsey, Ernie K. Doe, Benny Spellman and Jessie Hill in the '60s; the Pointer Sisters, Glen Campbell, Little Feat, Boz Scaggs and Bonnie Raitt in the '70s; sampled by many others in the 21st Century. Toussaint sometimes was directly involved, sometimes he wasn't, but every cover and sample bore his imprint as much as the productions and arrangements bearing his credit. His elegance, his swing, his social consciousness, his hometown pride and humor all unmistakable, particularly once you realize all of the music he touched.

Toussaint never took the spotlight--he never had a hit under his own name until 2006, when The River In Reverse, a duet album with Elvis Costello created as a requiem for a New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, saw release. After Katrina, Toussaint became New Orleans' de facto ambassador to the rest of the country and the world, playing concerts in New York City in the weeks following the immediate aftermath and soon became the one thing that eluded him throughout his long career: a headline attraction. Now, he could draw crowds to theaters across the US and the world, and he also received his first major label record contract since the '70s, when he released a trio of expansive, soulful records on Warner. Toussaint once again treated his elevated profile as a way to stretch out, recording The Bright Mississippi, a fluid, moving jazz album where he balanced Monk and Ellington with Sidney Bechet and Django Reinhardt, then tying together his career via the live solo set Songbook.

Many of the compositions on Songbook were first cut by other vocalists in the '60s, back when Toussaint was such a fixture in the Big Easy he rarely left the city. He started playing professionally in the late '50s, several years after Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis proved it was possible to have big hits with the rolling New Orleans R&B sound, and he got his first big break subbing for Huey "Piano" Smith in 1957. Where other New Orleans pianists revelled in eccentricity--James Booker, who arrived at roughly the same time as Toussaint, was dubbed by Dr. John as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced"--Toussaint excelled in elegance, his good taste evident in his sliding, fluid style and his intricate, economic arrangements. He also chose not to be merely a pianist. Once his instrumental The Wild Sound Of New Orleans stiffed in 1958, he decided follow the path of bandleader Dave Bartholomew, who worked behind the scenes and directed Fats Domino's career. As the house producer at Minit, he had a remarkable run, turning out classics for Ernie K-Doe, Jessie Hill, Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, Benny Spellman and Jessie Hill. Many of these were party tunes--epitomized by "Ooh Poo Pah Doo," where Jessie Hill claims he won't stop trying til he creates a disturbance in your mind--but he also wrote heart-wrenching ballads like "It's Raining" and "Ruler Of My Heart," along with near-novelties like "Mother-In Law," while also finding a gorgeous middle ground in "Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)," a rhythm tune that lingered with heartbreak.

After two years in the military (while he was away, Al Hirt had an easy listening hit with "Java," a song from that '58 LP), he returned to New Orleans and teamed with recordman Marshall Sehorn, establishing a publishing house and a series of record labels. Sehorn teamed Toussaint with Lee Dorsey--they crossed paths earlier in the '60s, when Allen produced "Lottie Mo" and worked on "Ya Ya"--and the pair found their own distinctive voices within this collaboration. Dorsey could deliver Toussaint's lines with the a sly wink as he glided along the funk rhythms orchestrated by Allen and laid down by the Meters, who were his house band during the late '60s. These records--not just the hit singles "Ride Your Pony," "Get Out Of My Life, Woman," "Working in the Coal Mine" and "Holy Cow," but the full albums Ride Your Pony and The New Lee Dorsey, too--are marvels; they play easy, but the rhythms are never straight forward and the arrangements are filled with space, plus the records soundalive. Listen to "Working in the Coal Mine" again: the beats are syncopated, accentuated by punches from the horns, Dorsey's verses set up the chorus for Toussaint's silky voice, the guitar provides a growling counterpoint and, through it all, a hammer pings on an anvil. All of that could sound cluttered but Toussaint makes it breathe, so it sounds infectious.

During the late '60s and early '70s, Toussaint helmed other great records by Dorsey, the Meters and Betty Harris, along with a lot of other sides that often get overlooked due to funky, frustrating localized distribution. Some of these have been collected on recent compilations--they float up on budget-line collections and sometimes are assembled with care, as they are on Soul Jazz various artists sets--but generally this not only is an area ripe for careful excavation, it also suggests how at this point Toussaint still very much was a local concern: he was making music in and for New Orleans. He started to creep out into the world at large in the early '70s, with the Band hiring to write horn charts for "Life is a Carnival" on 1971's Cahoots, a move that coincided with the resumption of Toussaint's solo work. On those solo albums, which began on Scepter with 1970's From A Whisper To A Scream and quickly moved to Warner for three records, Toussaint slowly embraced his searching, spiritual side, pondering "What Is Success" and whether he was expecting too much, questions that dovetailed with his social solidarity anthems "Who's Gonna Help A Brother Get Further," "Yes We Can Can" and "Freedom For The Stallion." Toussaint wrote these songs as the Black Power movement started to dissipate in the early '70s and this only added to their understated authority, as they emerged just as his music turned toward the personal, prizing idiosyncratic, elegant rhythms and melodies that could seem either seductive, psychedelic or deeply funky.

Over the rest of the '70s, other artists picked up on these traits within Toussaint, either with or without the aide of the man himself and this slow, sure expansion helped his sensibilities enter the mainstream. There was the deep, swinging funk of LaBelle's "Lady Marmalade" and the Pointer Sisters' "Yes We Can Can," the Band adopting Allen's greasy and graceful horns for their live Rock Of Ages and The Last Waltz, Little Feat tapping into the nocturnal groove that flowed through Toussaint's Warner records, Boz Scaggs turning that sound smoother and Bonnie Raitt stripping back to its essence while Glen Campbell found its commercial core. It formed a catalog, not simply of songs but of sounds, and all of this music would not only endure, kept alive through covers, samples and through concerts, both by Toussaint and his acolytes. In a sense, over the last three decades, Toussaint's legacy has been clear: his music was absorbed into the very lifeblood of America, his DNA flowing through soul, rock, R&B, hip-hop, blues and Americana. Yet this last decade, where he emerged as a beloved statesman in the wake of Katrina, feels like a just award, as not only did he feel love returned to him but legions of listeners who may have known his music but not his name finally realized it was Allen Toussaint who made all the wonderful, restorative, sustaining music.

A Selected Discography:

The Complete "Tousan" Sessions: A Bear Family set containing his early instrumental R&B.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-tousan-sessions-mw0000615775

Finger Poppin' And Stompin' Feet: 20 Classic Allen Toussaint Productions For Minit Records 1960-1962: The best available snapshot of his legendary Minit sides.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/finger-poppin-and-stompin-feet-20-classic-allen-toussaint-productions-for-minit-mw0000658638

The New Lee Dorsey:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-new-lee-dorsey-mw0000065817

Ride Your Pony: These two mid-'60s LPs from Lee Dorsey are a high water mark for Toussaint: lithe, lively, funny songs and funky productions.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/ride-your-pony-mw0000065981

Yes We Can/Night People: Latter day Dorsey that gets slicker and funkier.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/yes-we-can-night-people-mw0000260637

The Meters--Here Comes The Meter Men: The Complete Josie Recordings, 1968-1970: good two-disc collection of all the sides the Meters recorded with Toussaint at Josie

http://www.allmusic.com/album/here-comes-the-meter-man-the-complete-josie-recordings-1968-1970-mw0002147595

The Meters--Struttin': maybe the best individual Meters album Toussaint produced

http://www.allmusic.com/album/struttin-mw0000650493

Everything I Do Is Gonh Be Funky: none of the late '60s/early '70s Toussaint comps are satisfactory, but this comes closes to hitting the mark  http://www.allmusic.com/album/everything-i-do-is-gonh-be-funky-mw0002103382

What Is Success: The Scepter & Bell Recordings: single disc collection of Toussaint's pre-Warner solo sides of the '70s

http://www.allmusic.com/album/what-is-success-the-scepter-amp-bell-recordings-mw0001590612

The Complete Warner Recordings: All of Toussaint's Warner recordings, including a phenomenal live set from 1976

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-warner-recordings-mw0000431850

Toussaint: The Real Thing 1970-1975: recent Raven double-disc that essentially replicates the Warner set without the concert.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/toussaint-the-real-thing-1970-1975-mw0002851649

The River In Reverse: Post-Katrina collaboration with Elvis Costello

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-river-in-reverse-mw0000395205

The Bright Mississippi: expansive, soulful latter-day jazz album.