Allen Toussaint
Duke Ellington is often described as being “beyond category.” The
same can be said of Allen Toussaint. Allen Toussaint’s
fingerprints are all over much of the R&B, pop, country,
theater music, and jazz produced during the past fifty years.
Check out the credits on discs by The Band, Dr. John, Paul
Simon, The Neville Brothers, John Mayall, Little Feat, The
Meters, Patti LaBelle, Etta James, Bonnie Raitt, The Judds,
Robert Palmer, Otis Redding, Albert King, Boz Scaggs, The O’Jays,
Johnny Winter, Ringo Starr, Chet Atkins, Lenny Kravitz, Glen
Campbell, Elvis Costello or Joe Cocker and you’ll likely
find the name Allen Toussaint listed somewhere, either as producer,
arranger, session player, or songwriter. And even if you don’t
see his name, you’ll certainly hear his influence.
Born January 14, 1938, in New Orleans, his first career break came at age 17 when he was called to fill at in for Huey “Piano” Smith a gig in Pritchard, Alabama. Shortly thereafter, he was summoned to play the piano parts on a Fats Domino recording session when Fats himself was unavailable. In the late ‘50s to early ‘60s Allen wrote and/or produced an unparalleled run of hit records for fellow New Orleans R&B singers Ernie K-Doe (“Mother-in-Law”), Benny Spellman ("Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)," "Fortune Teller”), Lee Dorsey (“Ya-Ya,” "Working in a Coalmine," "Get Out of My Life Woman"), trumpeter Al Hirt (“Java”) and Irma Thomas ("It's Raining," "I Done Got Over It," "Ruler of My Heart"). And in 1963, while he was home on leave from the military, he quickly recorded a new instrumental called “Whipped Cream" that became a huge hit for Herb Alpert and was later adopted as the theme for TV's The Dating Game. In the seventies he produced some of the most seminal recordings of the funk era, including Dr. John’s "Right Place, Wrong Time" and Labelle’s "Lady Marmalade," while his horn arrangements were commissioned for The Band’s "Rock of Ages," “The Last Waltz, and Paul Simon’s "Kodachrome," among others. To say nothing of his groundbreaking solo release From Whisper to a Scream and his three landmark albums for Warner Brothers/Reprise. Glen Campbell’s Grammy-nominated cover of his “Southern Nights” was BMI’s "Most Performed Song of the Year" for 1977 and named the Country Music Association’s "Song of the Year." How to account for his mastery of so many musical styles and genres? Allen Toussaint almost seems to shrug it off, as though his genius were merely a byproduct of youthful naivete. “When I was starting out,” he says, “I thought, if you wanted to be a piano player, you had to be able to play everything.”