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(Big) Easy on the ear
Legend
Allen Toussaint brings the music of New Orleans to the world
By George Varga
Pop Music Critic
March 5, 2009
DETAILS
“The Keys to New Orleans,” with Allen Toussaint, Henry Butler and Jon Cleary
When:
Tomorrow, 7:30 p.m.
Where:
Birch North Park Theatre, 2891 University Ave., North Park,San Diego
Tickets: $38-$51
Phone: (619) 239-8836
Online: birchnorthparktheatre.net
LOS ANGELES — This feels like history,” Allen Toussaint said last month, just before receiving his Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award at an invitation-only ceremony.
The New Orleans rock, funk and R&B legend was referring to his fellow Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. They included Motown vocal greats The Four Tops, jazz piano icon Hanks Jones, 100-year-old classical music composer Elliot Carter and singer Brenda Lee, along with posthumous honorees Gene Autry, Dean Martin and electric guitar innovator Clarence “Leo” Fender.
Were he less modest, Toussaint could easily have been talking about himself. Even in New Orleans, a city that (at least pre-Hurricane Katrina) likely boasted the nation's highest percentage of gifted musicians per square block, he stands out by a country mile.
“He's unique,” said fellow Big Easy pianist-singer Henry Butler, who performs as part of tomorrow's “The Keys to New Orleans” concert at the Birch North Park Theatre with Toussaint and English-born pianist and singer Jon Cleary. The show will spotlight very different, but complementary, approaches to the New Orleans music traditions that helped shape rock 'n' roll and pop.
A 1998 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Toussaint is a walking encyclopedia of various homegrown American music styles. His enchanting 2007 solo concert at the Birch North Park Theatre proved as much.
“He is a master of music,” said Elvis Costello, who in 2006 teamed with Toussaint for their Grammy-winning album, “The River in Reverse,” and has toured extensively with him.
Toussaint's accomplishments as just a singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger or producer alone qualify him for extensive accolades and honors. But he has excelled for so long at all of these – dating to his work as a teenaged pianist in the 1950s on several recording dates by rock pioneer Fats Domino – that it almost doesn't seem fair to mere mortal musicians.
“When I first started doing concerts with Allen three years ago, I was amazed,” Butler said. “I knew he wrote a lot of stuff and that a lot of people had covered his songs. But you just lose track of how many hits this guy has had.”
Toussaint, who turned 71 in January, was only 23 when he wrote and produced Ernie K-Doe's ebullient 1961 chart-topper, “Mother-in-Law.” A subsequent hitch in the U.S. Army took Toussaint away from the New Orleans music scene for a few years.
But he returned strongly in 1966, writing and producing Lee Dorsey's “Working in the Coal Mine,” a classic since covered by Devo, The Judds, Pure Prairie League and yet another New Orleans singer-pianist, Harry Connick Jr. Toussaint also wrote Glen Campbell's chart-topping “Southern Nights” and produced LaBelle's No. 1 hit, “Lady Marmalade” (which also topped the charts in 2001, when it was redone by Pink, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim and Mya for the “Moulin Rouge” soundtrack).
Toussaint's other songwriting credits include “Fortune Teller” (which was covered by the very young Rolling Stones, The Who and, last year, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss), “What Do You Want the Girl to Do?” (Boz Scaggs, Lowell George), “Ya Ya” (John Lennon, Ike and Tina Turner), “Sneaking Sally Through the Alley” (Robert Palmer, The Mighty Diamonds), “Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues)” (Maria Muldaur, Three Dog Night), “Whipped Cream” (the longtime theme for TV's “The Dating Game”) and more.
As an arranger, Toussaint has made vital contributions to standout albums by The Band (“Rock of Ages,” “The Last Waltz”) and Paul Simon (“There Goes Rhymin' Simon”), as well as producing and/or performing on albums by Paul McCartney and Wings (“Venus & Mars”), Dr. John (“In the Right Place”), Joe Cocker (“Luxury You Can Afford”), and many others. His songs have been covered by performers as disparate as Bonnie Raitt, The Grateful Dead, The Pointer Sisters, Warren Zevon and The Oak Ridge Boys.
Yet, even if he only played piano, Toussaint would be hailed by his peers.
“He really understands the styles and the nuances of practically every New Orleans pianist, from Jelly Roll Morton and Professor Longhair to Huey 'Piano' Smith and beyond,” Butler, 59, noted.
“Allen heard me play a Professor Longhair song and he suggested – well, what he did is, he corrected a couple of things about what I was doing. And, of course, he was right. This was last year.”
Eclectic yet seamless, Toussaint's vibrant piano playing draws from blues, jazz, boogie-woogie, gospel, funk, rock, jazz, classical and more. His understated singing, which is both soulful and sophisticated, greatly influenced two of his former collaborators and biggest fans, Lowell George and Robert Palmer, now both deceased.
Toussaint's first key influence was Longhair, who died in 1980 at the age of 62. Born Henry Byrd, Longhair is hailed by musicologists as one of rock's unsung pioneers. Like jazz great Jelly Roll Morton before him, he was a master at incorporating rolling Caribbean rhythms into his playing.
“When I was young and first heard Professor Longhair, I would have been satisfied just following him forever. He was quite an influence on my life,” said Toussaint, who was 13 when he co-founded his first band, The Flamingos, with budding New Orleans music stars Snooks Eaglin (who just passed away at 72 on Feb. 24) on guitar and Ernest Kador Jr. (the future Ernie K-Doe) on vocals.
Toussaint recorded the first of his dozen-plus solo albums in 1958. His next, due this spring on Nonesuch Records, is “Bright Mississippi.” A collection of jazz classics (Duke Ellington's “In My Solitude”) and weathered spirituals (“Just a Closer Walk With Thee”), it teams him with such jazz stars as saxophonist Joshua Redman and New Orleans-bred trumpeter Nicholas Payton.
Yet, while he welcomes the change of pace, Toussaint's own music – and the public's reaction to it – still brings him the most joy and satisfaction.
“Writing my own songs helped me to find who I was, musically,” he said. “I think whatever style I have is a mirror of all the things I like, from waltzes and church music to classical and polka. I remember touching the piano as a kid for the first time. The gratification I got then was overwhelming. It still is.”
THREE FOR THE ROAD
Allen Toussaint's concert tomorrow is only his second San Diego show since 1985.
Aptly billed as “The Keys to New Orleans,” it also features fellow New Orleans pianist-singer Henry Butler, 59, and Jon Cleary, 46, an English pianist and singer who relocated to the Big Easy at the age of 17 to absorb the city's music.
Their concert here is a rare opportunity to hear Toussaint share the stage with two gifted musicians whose artistic paths he helped pave:
Henry Butler: As a kid, Butler often stood outside New Orleans nightclubs to listen to Professor Longhair, James Booker, Ellis Marsalis and other homegrown piano greats.
“I thought every city had players like that! It was only as I got older that I realized New Orleans was unique,” said Butler, who began singing at age 6 at the Louisiana State School for the Blind and took up piano two years later.
He and his jazz trio first dazzled San Diego audiences during their monthlong residency at Elario's in 1987. Butler, who now lives in Denver, began embracing his Big Easy music heritage on his third album, 1989's “Orleans Inspiration.” He has since cut six more albums as a leader and has also recorded with Irma Thomas, Robben Ford, Odetta and jazz sax dynamo James Carter.
Toussaint: “I didn't know Henry as a little kid, but I have for many years as an adult. He's been great ever since I've known him.”
Jon Cleary: Best known as the keyboardist in Bonnie Raitt's band for the past 10 years, Cleary, a native of Cranbrook, England, cut his teeth playing with such New Orleans luminaries as Earl King, Walter “Wolfman” Washington and two musicians who – as teens – played in a band with Toussaint, singer Ernie K-Doe and guitarist Snooks Eaglin.
“I speak with an English accent, but I only play music with a New Orleans accent,” Cleary noted in a 2006 Night&Day interview.
In addition to his five solo albums, Cleary's recording credits range from Raitt, Taj Mahal and Johnny Adams to D'Angelo, India.Arie and Ryan Adams.
Toussaint: “Like many people who stop in New Orleans and think they're passing through, Jon stayed. He fell in love with the music and it's in his heart.”
– GEORGE VARGA
