¶ Allen Toussaint: A Legendary Journey
🎵 Music
Hello again, friends, and welcome to episode 41 of Soda Jacker on Songwriting, and what an episode we have for you. Joining us on the show today is a songwriter, pianist. vocalist, producer and arranger, hailing from New Orleans, Louisiana, whose career has spanned over half a century. He's a hugely influential figure in New Orleans R and B and popular music in general, not to mention one of the most dapper gentlemen ever to grace the industry.
It's the King of Crescent City, the Southern Knight himself, mister Alan Toussaint.
You may remember we briefly dipped our toe in the waters, or should that be the Bayou, the New Orleans music scene when we chatted to Harry Shearer a few months back, but this time we'll be stripping down to our trunks and having a good old dip.
We'll just give you a second to process that delightful mental image. Okay, let's move on. Born in 1938, Alan Toussaint was raised in the Girt Town neighbourhood of New Orleans and like so many of our guests took to music at a very early age.
picking out melodies on the piano, and quickly falling in love with the instrument with which he would become most associated, developing a particular affinity for artists like Professor Longhair and Fat Domino, At his mother Naomi's encouragement, the Tucson family home was kind of a musicians' clubhouse, and numerous local instrumentalists and singers descended upon it for jam sessions, which, needless to say, was a great boon to her son's musical development.
At thirteen he began his performing career with the formation of his first band, the Flamingos, in nineteen fifty-five, following an impromptu performance with guitarist Earl King at the Dew Drop-In Nightclub. The seventeen year old Toussaint suddenly found himself in great demand as a pianist and arranger. He signed to R C A in nineteen fifty eight and recorded his first album, The Wild Sound of New Orleans, the same year.
Another significant milestone in Toussaint's career came in nineteen sixty, when he was signed by Joe Banishak to Minute Records and later Instant Records as a writer, producer, arranger and session musician.
His time at Minutes and Instant was staggeringly productive, as he lent his considerable talents to a string of hit records by the likes of Erma Thomas, the showmen, Aaron Neville, Ernie Cado, Benny Spellman, and many more, In nineteen sixty five, our ever industrious guest founded Son Tzu, his own production company with Marshall Seahorn.
And it was under that umbrella that Toussaint wrote and produced one of his most famous songs, Working in a Coal Mine, for frequent collaborator Lee Dorsey, which was a top ten hit in nineteen sixty six.
Toussaint built his own New Orleans recording studio in nineteen seventy three in the Gentili neighborhood. His house ban was no less than the meters. who were fellow New Orleans natives that he'd met during the nineteen sixties, and the musical engine room for a lot of his productions from the period, including Doctor John's In the Right Place album and La Belle's Nightbirds as well.
I think the latter spawned the number one single Lady Marmalade.
Yeah, he produced it, didn't he? Wow.
Actually I should as a side note mention that some of the meters work on these records and their own albums should be part of the staple diets for aspiring rhythm sections. They're basically d lessons in how to groove and and you know, how to leave space and the feel is incredible. And as a bass player I really uh get a kick out of that.
So, I got that off your chest now.
Yeah, thank you.
As well as his writing and production for other artists, Alan also began his solo career in earnest during this period, yielding albums like Tucson, Life, Love and Faith, Southern Nights, and Motion, not to mention his most active performance schedule to that point. In addition, he worked with such luminaries as Paul McCartney and Wings. He was on Rock Show, wasn't he?
Yeah, he plays that funky piano breakdown, that sort of coda.
Also Robert Palmer, John Mayle, the band. His songs continue to find success via cover versions by the likes of Glenn Campbell, the Pointer Sisters, Boz Skaggs. I think you could say that the seventies was something of a purple patch for Mr Tussong.
¶ Later Career, Katrina, and Accolades
You think? Toussaint put his own solo recording career on hold at the turn of the nineteen eighties and instead ventured into new areas such as theatre. composing lyrics and music for several Broadway and off Broadway productions, the most successful being Stagger Lee in nineteen eighty six. He was also featured along with his idol, Professor Longhair, or Fess, as he's known to his friends.
In a nineteen eighty two documentary entitled Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together and there's a trailer for that on Vimeo which you can check out at your leisure. Meanwhile, the advent of sampling during this period gave Toussaint's seventies output some exposure to a whole new generation of listeners, albeit indirectly, and incidentally you can hear some selections from our guests' extensive output if you check out our Spotify playlist for this episode.
just go to our website, click on the Alan Tucson episode and you'll find the link there.
Toussaint is also known for his enthusiastic nurturing of homegrown New Orleans talent, forming NYNO Records in nineteen ninety six for just that purpose. He's also very active in the New Orleans community and involved in a number of charitable local causes. In two thousand five, Toussaint was forced to relocate to New York City when Hurricane Katrina destroyed his house and studio in New Orleans.
He was naturally deeply affected by the devastation Katrina wrought on his hometown, and he ploughed his emotions into his work, resulting in a critically acclaimed collaboration with Elvis Costello on the album The River in Reverse. He also began performing again regularly for the first time in a number of years. In two thousand nine he released an album of modern and traditional jazz compositions entitled The Bright Mississippi and that too met with rave reviews.
And just in case you're really difficult to impress, Alan is also an inductee of the Rock and Songwriters Halls of Fame. Okay? Satisfied?
¶ Podcast Announcements and Interview Intro
Before we talk to the man himself, we'd just like to remind you that you can communicate with us via the usual web conduit.
namely Twitter at Sodajer, Facebook and that's facebook.com slash soda jerker and our official site soda jerka dot com and please keep it clean.
We're also proud to announce that we've recently partnered with the nice people at Audioboo, so you can now hear all of our episodes unexpegated at audioboo.fm slash channel slash soda jerker. If that's a bit too much to remember, there is a link on our home page, so go to sodajer.com and you can find it from there. And mister Toussaint's official website can also be found at alantousant.com. That's spelt T O U S S A I N T. Too saint to bless.
So now it's time to hear from one of Popular Music's most brilliant talents and truest gentlemen. It's a tremendous honour to bring to you our chat with the great Alan Toussaint.
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Win for
¶ First Piano Experiences and Influences
We wanted to start off talking about your introduction to the piano. Obviously you're known around the world as an accomplished pianist, but how and when were you introduced to the instruments?
Oh good heavens, that was so long ago. Uh I was about six and a half and a piano was brought to my house for my sister to play. An old upright piano was given to her by my one of my aunts who wasn't using it anymore. And when they came and set that big piece of furniture in, I walked over to it and carefully touched it and it gave me such a pleasant sound for first uh initiation, I fell in love immediately.
And uh from that day on I would wake up in the morning to go over to this big instrument to see what else it had to say. And uh that's how it got started. And I quickly understood the layout of the black keys and the white keys and the two blacks and then three, et cetera. So Uh I I was gifted in that way, I'm glad to say. And I I was able to pick out little simple melodies early on.
And my sister who began taking piano lessons, who hated her lessons because her teacher spanked her hand when she made a mistake, well, she was able to tell me this E that you're pressing on the piano is there on the page. So that's how I got started playing the piano. Yes, I was exposed to classical music but in a very rowdy manner. The rowdy manner was my approach to it. My mother, even though we were in a very humble neighborhood and but we had a lot of fun.
But on Sundays my mother would play classical music all day long on the radio. So I heard all these grand operas and symphonies. And I heard many pianas going through that and I thought anyone who played the piano, everything you heard on the piano, you were supposed to learn to play that. I thought everyone else who played piano could play that except me.
So when I heard the classics I I got to that as well. I thought, well I had better get to it. And I began uh trying to play the classics well not only trying to, but playing the classics by ear. Of course, it left a lot to be desired for as uh authenticity of it. But I fell in love with the classics as well as the boogie woogies that already had taken grab to my life. So that was the beginning of my classical uh introduction.
And it's also well known, of course, that Professor Longhair was a big influence on your playing style. What was it about his approach to the piano that appealed to you?
Professor Longhair was by far the strongest influence. When I heard Professor Longhair was so off the beaten path of everything else that I had heard. Everything else was pretty much uh right in a particular regiment. and one, two, three, four and you play four cards on the on the tonic, then you hit a dominant seven and the and you go to the subdominant and all that will Professor Longhair had this really sort of primitive kind of
aggression about the way he played. And even when it was time to go to the forecourt like we normally would had, if he wanted to take an extra couple of measures to say something else on the way there, he would. So of course
anyone who had the audacity to do that, if it took me a left turn to follow them, I was all out behind it. And I just dearly loved it because he was so different from anything else I had heard. It was so Highly uncommon and it it was such a strong and so very deliberate and it's it sounds so final.
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¶ Crafting Songs at Minute Records
When was it that you actually started picking out your own melodies and composing your own music?
Twelve years old. I was twelve years old. I I wrote a little simple duet. I had heard A Benny Goodman song, uh, Love Walked Right In and did something And uh in the middle of that orchestration there was a a trombone duet solo. And I thought that was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. So I I pinned a very simple melody for trombone and trumpet as a duet. Uh because I had heard that.
And uh that was the first time I attempted to pin something. And it was ever so humble, but it was a very good start for me.
And speaking of good starts, you went to work for Minute Records. Did you feel like you were learning on the job in that environment? Or would you say that you were quite capable in your role by the time you got there?
Well, I'm still learning on the job. It's all about a journey and it's all about stair steps. Uh when I got to Minute, I certainly knew. the recordings of the day.'Cause I had been playing with a band called Flamingos and and other bands So whatever was on the radio and popular, I knew all of those formulas because I would listen to the arrangements because I love arranging.
I even love the words and so when I listened to songs I listened to every part, the bass, the drums, the guitar, the horns, the strings if they had them. So by the time I got to minute I had been doing that for a while, but uh I still say it's a learning process. Uh so minute was still uh developing stages for me.
How did you typically work in those days? Would you act like a a musical director, sort of assisting different artists with their productions and playing on a lot of the records?
Well, I was the songwriter, the pianist, the arranger, the producer, the everything there was. except the artist itself. I would write a song for an artist, teach it to them. and uh then get backup singers to sing behind them. Then I would book time in the studio. We'd go into the studio with musicians and I had written out arrangements.
And uh I'd hire certain people who were good for the day. And that's how it went for a long time. We would all gather in my parents' front room, we call it, living room.
And
Several artists would be there at the same time. We're just sorta hanging out. It would be like Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, Benniss Spellman, Ernie Cato, all of them sitting around and I would write one song for Cato and we'd go over it. And whoever else was in the room would sing along behind him.
And
it would be artists who's waiting for me to write the next song for them. However, we would take that same group of people and go to the studio and it wound up sometimes on a on a Cato's record. Irma Thomas was in the background because she was in the room when we were writing it that day. But w it was sorta like a a a machine in my parents' front room and we just hung out uh all day long and did that and took that to the studio.
Wow it must have been an incredible way to hone your writing skills to be doing that day in, day out.
Oh yes, yes. I must say songs were written pretty rapidly at that time and uh several were thrown in the trash can because uh writing'em that fast sometimes when you try'em out, uh It doesn't live up to what you expected. But we had a good time. We were simply having fun. We didn't see the big worldly picture. We were just simply having fun. I'm glad that a company like Minute saw it as uh more than just fun, but maybe you can get paid as well.
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¶ Mother in Law and Studio Dynamics
Do you have specific memories of how certain songs were written? A song like Mother in Law really leaps out to us because not only is it musically memorable but the lyric is so amusing as well. Was it important to be firing on all cylinders like that with the words and the music?
Well, the reason why that subject came up because I didn't have a mother in law and so did uh Nikato. He had one but He didn't write the song. But mother-in-law used to be the brunt of many jokes from uh comedians. Uh before they could say any and everything like they do these days. They used to use mother in law a lot. Take my mother in law and things like that.
Yeah.
And uh so I I had that first line, mother in law. So everything else was just to fill that in. So I just I I took the general the this and they worry you to death and they just all kinds of things. So I filled it in with that. And uh that's how that came about. And of course, uh I wrote it for Ernie Cato to sing. And Benny Spellman was in the room at the time, so I had him to sing the low part. Which of course uh he loved dearly and later on I wrote other songs for him because of that. Mother
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Mae'n rhaid i'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n Rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hynny'n gwneud hyn?
Well, I always knew what I wanted when I was going into the studio because I had lived with it overnight or over a few nights or days. Uh so I knew what I wanted and I would even put much of it on paper. So I knew what I was going for. However, I must make a a difference in the meters. By the time we got to have the meters with us, the meters was such a self-contained group. With the meters all we had to do is open the door and let'em in and close the door.
Mm-hmm.
I mean they were just so fiery and and they knew what they were doing, they knew where they were going. Uh just was magical. And so it was quite different producing the meters as opposed to all of the hands on that I did with all the rest of the artists like Lee Dawson, Matamasera, Neville, et cetera. But with the meters again, you just open the door and let'em in and close the door. And go visit them from time to time.
Yeah.
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When it came to creating the atmosphere for say a more serious ballad like Freedom for the Stallion, did you have to get into another writing and recording vibe altogether, like create a different mood in the studio?
Not really. Uh that was again, I wrote for Lee Darcy. I wrote so much for Lee Darcy. It was a pleasure to write for him. I spent a lot of time in and out of the studio. We would go out in the evening to clubs and all. I spent a lot of life with him, so it was just one song after the other after the other.
Uh uh no, I didn't have to set a different mode or anything for it, even though it's it's quite a different mode from you would say working in the coal mine or something like that. It was just a different day for that. But I don't have any memory uh a recollection of having to establish another whole mode for that song because it w usually it was one song of four. And uh even when we did uh Freedom for the Stallion, it was one song of four.
Rydyn ni'n ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud â'r ymwneud?
¶ Tailoring Songs and Vocal Coaching
Well, yes, I was sitting in front of the piano, but uh uh I must say that songs, however, usually come to me before I touch the piano. So by the time I touch the piano it's just to play what my mind is already set to play. But uh well I guess maybe that's the same as what you ask. But yes, I was sitting at the piano when I did that. I make a stipulation because sometimes songs start while I'm riding in the car somewhere.
And I'll pull off on the side and make a written note on a little piece of paper. and uh try to give some signals on how I felt at the time. and something that'll help me to remember since it's not it's not an audio process that I'm going through. But yes, I was sitting at the piano when I did working in the Coba.
So was it quite a collaborative process with the artists? Would they contribute any melodies or lyrics and things, or you typically had it all fleshed out in advance, I take it?
Always. I always had it all in advance. But I did, however, if an artist had a song that they had written, if it wasn't complete, I did collaborate in that way. I would go on and complete that or write a second verse or a bridge. That was my job as far as I'm concerned. But whenever I had a song for an artist, uh, it was always a complete song and written for them to do.
Every time I always tailored songs for the particular artists. I I took it as if it was a suit of clothing, uh something that was the reason I wanted to hear this being said is because the way I heard their voice. uh saying things this would be a good thing for that voice to say. And I say that because if it wasn't for Lee Doss, I wouldn't have written Working in the Coal Mine. And neither one of us knew anything about a coal mine, of course. I can't explain why I wrote working in the coal mine.
But if it wasn't for Lee Darcy. I wouldn't have written working in the coal mine for say a romantic kind of singer like for Luther Van Ros or something like that. I couldn't imagine thinking that he should say working in the coal mine going down down. But Lee Dawson's voice had a smile in it and the way he felt about life and the way he moved around and had such a good time and a happy kind of guy, he could sing a humorous kind of song like that and then sing a very serious song later.
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So the great songs you wrote for Lee Dorsey were Ride Your Pony and My Old Car. There's such a great immediacy to those songs. Were they written and recorded quite quickly?
Yes, usually recorded very quickly. We had a good time doing that. uh after I would get the track down with him many times, then I would take him in and coach him to sing it because with Lee Darcy I would have to tell him, not now, but now, not now, now, things like that. And he told her trusted me and uh and it we worked very well that way.
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¶ Performance, Arrangements, and Instrumental Hooks
We were reminded just recently of um the song Play Something Sweet, Brickyard Blues.
Yeah.
It's one that a lot of people recognise but maybe don't necessarily realise that you're involved with that song. Do you find that there are lots of gems in your catalogue that you sort of still perform them to keep them alive or you you find that people aren't aware of them?
Well, I'm glad you call them gems. That that's quite a compliment. But uh when I go out to perform and this kind of performing that I do these days just started happening after Katrina.'Cause before then it was all studio except once or twice a year the Jazz Festival. But uh I usually perform songs that I think people have heard when they were hits are either popular by other artists. I think uh many people like to hear the familiar
And me being the songwriter, if that adds something to it, I I try and do the things that people know. I will always throw in other songs just because, even new songs that hasn't been recorded. But uh my stage performance generally is to try and do songs that people know about that was popular by other artists. Because of myself I've never had a hit recording on me. But uh that's okay. I've never focused on myself very uh intensively as a recorder.
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We were talking earlier about some of the great piano intros on your tracks on uh for instance Java and Night People and other songs like that. But then there's a song like Here Come the Girls which starts with a kind of military drum mark. Did those aspects of of arrangements just come quite organically or were you deliberately trying to vary the sound of each record?
Before going into studio, those were part of the plans of the song. When we were going into the studio to do Here Come the Girls. I had already prepared that it would start like that. That far as I'm concerned, that whole song should feel like that. Even if the drummer would stop playing that, that should be what that song feels like. I'm not sure if that answers the question at all.
Absolutely.
And other things with intros, it just goes uh like the intro on I Like It Like That. It's the same kind of intro on certain girl. Even though I kind of knew that I was mimicking myself, uh, stealing my stuff. I just felt that that's how it should go. So the intros and interludes were always very much a part of the song, as far as I'm concerned.
And when you're writing those sorts of instrumental interludes, like the sort of brass lines and little hooks, do you sing those as you play the piano or would you actually play those on the piano and notate them or something like that?
Well, I I play a original facsimile of of them on a piano, but when I'm thinking of it as horn parts, It doesn't matter whether I ever play it on the piano and sometimes I don't. Uh I love to think horns and strings and all the rest, but especially horns. So uh yes, I don't always play the horn parts out on the But uh I take them as seriously as I take every word. And I try and keep them out of the way of the
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And then there's the instrumentals of course, songs like Java which we mentioned and uh Whip Cream. They were both huge hits. Is looking for instrumental hooks a different process to writing melodies that will be sung?
Yes, it's a very big difference in writing an instrumental that is planned to be an instrumental from the get go, as opposed to writing a a melodic song. A song with words has you can rely on there's a story being told here. You can go other places. Instrumentals are... That's a very good question. I know such a difference. I I don't seem to have the proper vernacular uh vocabulary for it right now, but it's a big difference to me.
And I say that because sometimes I will play an instrumental version of a song that I've written. And even though I know it can be done and it is being done, since I wrote it, it just doesn't seem right. So it's something about it. Uh and I'll I'll try and scrutinize that a a little bit more later so the next time I'm asked that question, I'll be able to rise to an intelligent occasion.
I love it sounding good.
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¶ Underrated Songs and Creative Resurrections
And two other songs that we've discovered just recently, actually from Research at the Interview, is um I Keep on Loving You, Z Z Hill.
Yeah.
Fantastic track. And also Shourard Shorad, Betty White song. It it's just so great for us to discover these songs. Do you look back over those sorts of songs now as things that maybe should have got more attention?
Well, I I normally don't think well they should have gotten more attention. 'cause I don't know what that process is what makes some get so much attention and others don't get. But I'm so glad you asked about it. Keep on loving you. I haven't heard anyone ask about that since the day we recorded it. Your research is pretty deep.
Thank you.
Thanks. But uh I did love that song Dear Lit and and it was one of the songs actually. I wrote for myself. When I when I was and it was time to do a ziz. Uh I usually write exactly for that person, but it It sounds so much like if he sung that song, it would sound so much better than my version. So I recorded it on him and he did a marvelous job of course like he did on everything.
But uh far as uh some songs getting more attention than the others, that's a hard thing to uh to deal with and I always was moving on to the next thing. And I've over the years I've seen some songs that w was resting in peace and then here they are resurrected, like Here Come the Girls, for instance, which was written in sixty six or something like that, or sixty five.
And uh when Elvis Costello and I got together, uh he dug way back in my repertoire and pull up things like like who's gonna help brother get further, which I had had its funeral and all that years ago.
Mm-hmm.
But here it comes again. So I'm grateful to it all.
the UK.
¶ Production Role and Pseudonym Use
The seventies were a really productive time for you as well. People might not realise that in addition to writing so many well known songs, you also produced classics like Lady Marmalade and uh Right Place Wrong Time for Doctor John. How does your role change when you're in a production mode as opposed to a songwriting mode?
It all feels like the same to me because usually when I'm in the songwriting mode, it's because we're going to go and do the production as well. It's moving towards that. And uh so the difference in that and a song that's already written is just that we are past the songwriting part of it and I'm I'm completing on the rest of what I normally do. So I I haven't viewed it as much different.
And we also noticed that there was some material published under the name Naomi Neville, which I think was your mother's maiden name.
Yes.
Was that just kind of a contractual thing or was that you kind of branching out and creating other identities, say in the way that someone like Prince might work under a pseudonym or something like that?
That's cool. Uh what it is is it was contractual. It was time for me to change publishing companies. And the lawyers was gonna be shifting papers from one desk to another for whatever period of time they take to warrant their existence. So I use the pseudonym so it wouldn't be a part of the litigations for Alan Tucson as a songwriter.
I even used my father's name, which was Clarence Tucson, but that's not escaping very far. So I thought, well that that doesn't make much sense. So I used my mother's maiden name, which uh proved to be fine. And uh things like whipped cream was written under that name. And I must say, after writing a couple of songs under
uh Neilman Neville. I I began feeling some songs that I was writing. This sounds like a Neilman Neville song. And uh I sort of enjoyed that little uh tidbit of spiritual fun. Uh but that's how that came about. because of lawyers uh had to take time to negotiate contracts and I I wanted to keep on writing and doing what I did while they were doing that.
¶ Southern Nights: An Autobiographical Anthem
Another song of yours that really helped cement your solo career and became a a number one hit for Glenn Campbell was uh Southern Knights. What are your memories of how that song was written?
I guess that's the most autobiographical song that I've ever written. It was all about my childhood. Every word in it is uh direct from my childhood coming up and visiting the old folk out in the country who spoke Creole.
Uh very few of'em spoke English and those who spoke English spoke it with such a hard accent you could hardly understand what they were saying. Mm-hmm. But it was such a a romantic period in my life of coming up as a young child and visiting those people in the country and Seeing all those things you don't see in the city and
no running water, no electricity, things like that, and all the people gathering on the porch in the evenings and all. It was just a beautiful time. And I didn't I didn't write that S to B one of my conventional songs, that far as I'm concerned, was just to share a message. of uh that part of my life.
And I when I recorded it, I sang it through a Leslie to lift it up off the ground and put it in the trees where the breeze and all went. Because that's the way I felt about it. And it was just to share that part of my life. with this uh recording. All of the rest of the songs were written before Southern Night.
And uh I had trouble making the decision that the album is finished,'cause once it's finished then it's time for other folks to listen and say, Oh yeah, it's good or not until I wrote Southern Night I didn't feel that that album was ever complete, but once I wrote Southern Knight. I felt that yes, it is now finished. I can ride off into the sunset.
And how did you feel about Glen Campbell's version?'Cause it's quite a departure from yours.
I love Glenn Campbell's version. I would have never thought of that. As simple as it seemed, and as more on the beaten path as it seemed, I would have never thought of that. But I heard the story that Jim Webb heard the song by me and told Glenn Campbell people that you should check that song out and pick the temptation.
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And was that another piano song? Because it sounds so comfortable on guitar when you hear Glenn Campbell playing it, we wondered if he'd written it at the piano.
Oh, piano, definitely. I wrote it in F Shop. F Sharp was very important to me because it was based on the pentatonic. And so the Pentatonic rolls around in a uh a so much of a peaceful charming way. And it was a little high for me to sing, so it was a blessing for me to wanna put it in a Leslie speaker. I felt it would be a sacrilege for me to try and drop it where it would be comfortable for me. I just had to go to it.
Uh, because again it was that life that was given to me that I didn't really produce. I just reported it really.
¶ Instruments, Technology, and Vocal Magic
And speaking of guitars, we noticed there was a really nice photo on your website of you with a lovely Gibson guitar. Does that mean that you compose with other instruments? Are you a guitar player as well or is it mainly keyboards?
I never composed with a guitar. I did play on a few recordings many years ago. I played on The original Yes We Can Can by Lee Darcy. Well Leo was playing all of the good stuff and I played some little in-betweens and had a wonderful time. But I can truthfully say I'm not a guitarist, but I love the guitar. And I can pick out a few things.
But uh as much as I love the guitar, I have too much respect for it to say that I'm one of the guys who plays the guitar. But uh I play around with it from time to time.
Do you ever use synthesizers to experiment with other sounds or or palettes or are you strictly an acoustic piano guy?
I use synthesizers every day, uh, writing a song. I'll put it in synthesizers, the drum parts and the And the bass and all that, because with a synthesizer you can have all of that at your disposal. It's like having the drummer who don't have to leave after a while, you know? It's like having the guitar who play exactly what you want every note. It'll never really take the place as far as I'm concerned of the kind of music that I make
to give an idea to what you want, to play a demo for others, synthesizers are perfect for as I'm concerned. And of course some people can live their whole lives on the synthesizer. I think synthesizers are absolutely wonderful, really. and there's some very good ones, but it's all still trash in, trash out. So I dearly love technology, period. It gives us an opportunity to even do things like we're doing now.
It was interesting to hear you talk about the kinds of vocal ranges that are comfortable for you when you're talking about Southern Knights. We were wondering about when you get a vocalist someone like Otis Redding sings a song like Pain in My Heart. Do you find that singers like that will do things vocally that you never even considered when you wrote the song?
Oh yes, yes, definitely. A person like Otis, as hip as Otis was, for him to do a song, yes, he would do things that that only Otis performs. So I love that dearly. And it happens with with other singers sometimes when they sing the songs that they'll do some improvisations that Uh that's not even a part of my anatomy. I I love that. And uh that's uh one of the joys of
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Another song we wanted to mention which has great vocal performances is Happiness, the uh Pointer Sisters version. We wondered if the word happiness came at the same time as the tune when it was written,'cause it just seems to sing so well.
Yes, it all came together at the same time and I must say they really threw down.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. When I heard them do happiness I say, yes, they understand very well. As well as I do are even better. I thought it was wonderful. And happiness just came just as it did. And it I had a good time with that. It felt like what it said.
They really seemed to be a sort of natural fit for your music, didn't they?'Cause going down slowly was another d the great version of that as well.
Good heavens you all know a lot of songs, but Going down slowly, yes. Going down slow was kinda interesting because there's some uh Just some metaphors there that that's a little misunderstood sometimes. And I I knew it at the time, but some things when you write it Uh even though uh there's something in you that may perform a little argument, you don't feel you have the right to to touch it.
And uh Going Down Slowly was one of those kind of songs that uh left to some other kind of devices I would alter some things about it, but then I thought I don't have the right to.
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¶ Collaborating with Elvis Costello
You mentioned um Elvis Costello earlier on. We really love the River in Reverse album. What's it like when you collaborate with someone who's also a great songwriter in their own right? Is there a certain amount of negotiating that goes on there?
Well it hasn't happened a lot in my life, but I can speak about that collaboration with Elvis Costello is a total luxury. A total luxury. He carries so much love for the arts. He carries so much information. He pays attention to not just surface, but subsurface. He's just the uh the most interesting musician I've ever met, for one thing. Any genre that he's involved with at the moment, it sounds like if that was all that he could do, that would be enough.
If he's singing a bluesy kind of song, you say, Well he could live a whole life there and if he was singing uh something a little bit more highbrow, it'd say, Oh, he's he definitely belongs there. Then you might see him somewhere on a bluegrass session and say, Oh, maybe that's who he is. He's just a wonderful man. And also he's accustomed to taking things from the beginning to the end, like I do. It was uh quite a joy when we were writing together'cause I hadn't been writing with anyone
Uh I've been used to finishing someone's song who hadn't finished it. Like when Chris Kinner did I like it like that. He didn't have a second verse, so I wrote a second verse, things like that. But Elvis Or one of the processes we had where he would write a song up to a point, then see where I would take it from there lyrically and melodically as well.
That is quite a luxury. That is the most ideal way that it could possibly be done for people who do both things as opposed to one who writes lyrics and one who writes a melody. With Elvis and I we both write both all the time. So that's quite a luxury for a writer. That's not a common place in my life. Elvis Costello has been quite a milestone in many, many, many ways.
One song that really leaps out to us from that album is uh Broken Promise Land. We wondered if you have any memories of working on that particular song.
It was very interesting. I didn't know what to make of it at first, because Elvis had all of those lines. But it didn't take me very long to accept the fact that Elvis is very complex. He's very intellectual as well as common if it's time to be. So with Elvis comes all sorts of things. There are some Elvis Costello songs with lyrics that I don't know who but him could keep up with.
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¶ Creative Discipline and Songwriting Wisdom
And how about these days in terms of your songwriting chops, are you finding that you're keeping them well honed or is it more about performing these days than writing?
Oh no, it's more about writing and I'm glad you said chaps. Okay.
Ha ha.
Yes, it's uh no I write every day. I'm doing something musical every day writing because I collect a lot of scraps everywhere I go. Little pieces here and little wishbones and feathers there, and then I get home and try and make a chicken.
Ha ha ha.
I do that all the time. So every day I'm I'm probably writing something or completing something or checking something else that I started to see whether it lives up to date what it was supposed to be a a week and a half ago. So no I'm I still feel more like a writer and producer than performance. Always.
I'm sure there's plenty of younger artists, especially in the New Orleans area, who consider you something of a mentor and a a musical hero. What kind of advice would you give to young songwriters these days?
Well, to be as honest as one possibly could, not just writing songs, but just to walk on the planet, surround yourself with good thoughts. and uh positive attitude and whatever is negative, try and discard it and and sidestep it as soon as possible so it won't take root in your reservoir. Because we write out of our reservoir, what we collect, it becomes a part of us. We're reflections. Surround oneself also with good people, if you can.
But mostly good thoughts and look around wherever you are and be inspired by the environment'cause there's environment on every corner and every turn that you make is inspiring. Just notice it all and and don't let moments and scenes pass you by without noticing. Enjoy the journey on the way there and look at and actually see as much as you can.
at a red light rather than just wait till the light change, look around and see what's going on here. Once you leave here, this is gone. It may have offered you something that if you would have just been waiting and looking at the light, you'd have missed it. you might have seen uh two people standing up o on a corner and and kiss quickly. There you are. They kissed on the corner. You don't want to miss that.
Of course that's a very simplified way of saying it, but I think to look around at life as it's going by and try not to miss it.
That's great advice. Before we finish then we just wanted to ask is there anything that you're working on at the moment that you'd like to mention or anything that's coming up?
Well, I'm always working on many, many songs'cause like I say, I collect scraps as well. I've written uh also the music for a play, uh Written by a lady named Mary Poe, who writes children's books in the Magic Treehouse. And she has written one that was about two young children who visit what they do is they visit uh big stars of the day but back when they were young. Uh it's mystical, sort of. And this one was
These two kids they visit Lou Armstrong when he was fourteen and just working around town and encourage him to become a musician'cause one day he's gonna be great. And he said, Oh, you're full of malaki, you know, that kind of thing. But anyway I've written a music book hub book about Louis Armstrong and I've also written the music for a ballet, which will hail in in Seattle in September. Which is about thirty five minutes long and the choreographer is Twilathor, who's a giant in her field.
And I'm also doing another recording with Joe Henry and we're doing some of Professor Longhair's things again. I will never leave Professor Longhair in my life. But I'm working on that presently. We have about three or four more songs to do before we complete with that. And then I'm about to do about thirty songs that I've collected when I've traveled the world since Katrina much more extensively than ever before.
And I was inspired everywhere I went, so I'm gonna write uh record all of these songs that were inspired while I was out on the road.
¶ Podcast Farewell and Allen's Impact
Well that sounds wonderful. We'll certainly look forward to all of that.
Mm-hmm. We'd just like to say thank you so much for talking to us. It's been such an honor.
Really inspiring as well, thank you.
Well thank you and it's been a pleasure and you all know so much you didn't even need to talk to me.
Ha ha ha.
But thank you, thank you dearly, really.
Okay, brilliant, thanks so much.
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That was the quintessential elegant southern gentleman, Alan Toussaint, talking to us from his office in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Absolutely fabulous, loved every second of it. I was grinning like a Cheshire cat all the way through.
Me too. Wonderful guy. And it was a pleasant surprise to discover that when we we called him via Skype, you know, we expected maybe might be in casual attire. It was eleven AM, New Orleans
Yeah, maybe some leisure wear, just hanging out in the office, you know?
Take them back. T shirt, you know, maybe. But no, full suit, tie, flower in the lapel, the whole works.
Pure refined elegance.
Much like our good self.
Let's not overdo it. Yeah. So, Bri, your favourite moments?
I just love generally how he's maintained his enthusiasm for the art of songwriting over such a long career, you know, he's been at it fifty, sixty years and he's still got the the same passion for it as he did as a as a very young man. And uh that's really encouraging to see, you know. Absolutely. And you could see that he was positively glowing on the screen as we spoke to him.
He was, yeah. And the advice that he gave to young songwriters as well, how he said, be observant and look around and be in the moment, you get that sense that that's exactly how he's living his life and it's there in his work.
Absolutely, and you can check out a lot of his work as we mentioned at the top of the show on our Spotify playlist which is available on the Alan Tucson page on our website. Some fifty odd tracks are our longest playlist to date.
And rightly so.
And rightly so. So uh that's it from us. I think all that remains is for us to take a wishbone and some fail.
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You can follow us on Twitter at twitter.com slash soda jerk.
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