By Theresa Crushshon

Allen Toussaint, a very modest man, was only a kid when jazz trumpeter Dave Bartholomew asked that he come into the studio and lay down some piano tracks for Fats (Domino) who was out on the road at the time they were finishing up the recording session. Who would have known that that session would be his first of many. The young and extremely talented Allen Toussaint sure didn’t.

Years later, Toussaint kept his faith as he honed his skills and became one of America’s living musical legacies. In addition to receiving the Louisiana Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the Governor’s mansion he was recently inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, an honor he cherishes as much as others received early on in his career.

Today, the contemporary musical personality spends a great deal of his time devouring the delicacies prepared by some of the worlds finest chefs in his hometown (New Orleans) as he passes his expertise on to other talented artists. Modest, warm and friendly the singer, songwriter, producer casually converses about his past, present and future musical aspirations.

Theresa: Hi, Mr. Toussaint. How are you doing today?
Toussaint: I’m fine. Thank you.

Theresa: Thank you so much for doing this interview. I know that you are extremely busy and all.
Toussaint: Oh well. That is fine.

Theresa: Well, there is so much I want to ask you. But, I guess we can start off with what projects are you working on now?
Toussaint: Well, I’m writing for Raymond Miles who is a gospel artist. I’m writing music for a secular cd.

Theresa: A secular cd. Oh, wow. This is going to be his first one then, right?
Toussaint: Yes, I believe so.

Theresa: I just did a review on one of your artists. James Andrews on the "D-Boy" c.d. I applaud you for that one. That was a beautiful piece of work. What other New Orleans artists besides Twelve and Sister Teedy are on your label?
Toussaint: Well, James is a part of New Birth and he is an artist in his own right as a single. We also have Raymond Miles who is a dynamic gospel artist. We also have Larry Hamilton who is very much R&B. We’ve released one cd on him and we are about to get started on the next. We also have Sister Teedy who’s Tricia Boutee who we are going to record her on her own, not reggae, just mainstream R&B.

Theresa: Oh, that should be nice.
Toussaint: That’s R&B and pop. We also have Amadee Castenell who is a saxophonist, Who we feel really good about. We just completed a cd on him. We also have Wallace Johnson who is a blues artist. I’ve written several songs for his new cd which we will be doing in the near future. In fact, we will be recording him tomorrow. We have Grace Dollis who is blonde, beautiful, and extremely talented saxophonist and she also sings. So we have quite a lot.

Theresa: Wow!! So does this interfere with your music working with these artists?
Toussaint: Well, that is first and foremost with me. So when I’ve done them then it is time to look back at me. But, my first commitment is to other artists before I get to myself. even though right now I am preparing material for a new cd of mine. But, it’s in between the things that I am doing. My son, Clarence Reginald Toussaint, and I are collecting songs for my next cd.

Theresa: Okay. What kind of cd are you going to come out with next?
Toussaint: I have two major projects in mind. One is a solo piano. A New Orleans piano cd. One is me with the band similar to collective “Southern Nights” where this is vocals with the band.

Theresa: Oh, wow! You just sparked two other questions. One is what other pianists, local or otherwise, are impressing you? And, why did it take so long for you to create the “Collected” piece?
Toussaint: Well, I think it took so long for me to put out another cd on my own because my least interest as far as recording is recording me. So, if ever there is other people there are to record I put myself on the back burner and that can go on for years. In fact, I just lost interest in recording as myself. But, I am always extremely interested in recording others. Of course, when NYNO came along that rejuvenated my interests in recording myself because having a new label when we started NYNO it was just fitting and proper that I prepare something to release on myself, especially with encouragement from my son and partner, Josh Feigenbaum.

Theresa: Well, I think NYNO is a beautiful conception and what you have done is just miraculous, especially since you are a trailblazer in your field. However, even today some of the artists still have to leave N.O.’s to pursue a professional music career. Do you think you have changed some of that?
Toussaint: I like to think that it all can be done here. But, for the guys and girls who leave I understand that they go to the marketplace and that just makes good sense. I’m glad to say that many of them still are based here even though they still go to the marketplace to show their wares and even to do business. I’m glad to know and say that many of them remain residents of New Orleans because it just feels so good and this is home. But, I do understand that there is bigger business else where. Some artists find it necessary to go to those places where they can be near the action and again I say that just makes good sense. Most of the people who live in Hollywood who are professionals in Hollywood they moved from someplace else to go there.

Theresa: I wanted to know what were some of your favorite tunes on “Connected?”
Toussaint: I do like the title tune “Connected” and one called “In Your Love which is a moody kind of piece It’s done with a special effects on the voice which makes the lyrics a little hard to understand, perhaps. But the story line “In Your Love” I felt kind of dear about it.

Theresa: Who were you talking to when you said, “Get Out of My Life Woman?”
Toussaint: Let me say, he chuckled, I recorded that for Lee Dorsey many years ago. So, I’m just re-recording what I wrote for Lee Dorsey. So, the inspiration came when I was recording for Lee Dorsey not for me.

Theresa: Oh, okay. I was wondering about that.
Toussaint: Oh, I don’t have any one I want to say get out of my life. I might have someone I might want to say, “Come into my life.”

Theresa: Uht-ohhh. Is there someone special in your life.
Toussaint: Not along those lines that I could say. But the most special and people in my life are NYNO and the artist’s on NYNO. That’s what I am about. I spend most of my time right.... (he plays a melody on the piano.) here on the piano...

Theresa: All right!
Toussaint: ...and I spend my time writing and contemplating the next steps with NYNO.

Theresa: Oh, good. You’re from New Orleans. I know people ask you this alot. We get a lot of Jazz artists out. How did you come about playing R&B? It seems like we have everything here.
Toussaint: Well, by us having everything, we have so many different plants in our garden I guess it’s hard to say why it turned out I play the type that I play. I consider it just playing New Orleans type of playing.

Theresa: You really do?
Toussaint: Oh, yes. Because when I am alone I might be playing ... (He plays another melody on the piano.) that’s not R&B that’s like a Butterfly-Dixieland-Jazz. But, my reputation I know has been from my recordings and songs that I have written for others which have mostly been in R&B and pop vein. I guess that the companies that I started out with and have been with saw that as a potential in me and we explored that more than what ever else I may have...

Theresa: Do you think you have had a lucky break when you were working with Dave Bartholomew and when Fats was on the road and you did the tracks for him?
Toussaint: Oh-yeah. I’ve had several lucky breaks and really given opportunities that were placed on me and I am glad I was available and could live up to the opportunities that were presented to me. Like when I first took Hugely Smith’s place to play with Earl King one time when Hughley was a little ill. That took me to a very local neighborhood band scene to a broader scene by playing. That introduced me to the Dew Drop set which in turn introduced me to a much broader world.

Theresa: So we are talking back in the...
Toussaint: Late fifties and then on into the sixties, of course.

Theresa: Do you miss the Dew Drop Inn, the folks, and the excitement?
Toussaint: Sometimes, I do. I must say. Because it was more than music. We had a community kind of living that was going on where everyone got to see each other. The links and the chains where right in front of you. The young guys could see their contemporaries and the older guys congregating. They could get the feel of what they did not only while they were playing. But, how they interacted with each other. The whole community of the Dew Drop set was very rich and enlightening and rich. It was a very sociable scene as well.

Theresa: How did “Java” and “Whipped Cream” come about and did you anticipate that they would become the success that they are today?
Toussaint: Not at all. Well, let me say that I was there in Cosmos Studio to play on the session with Roland Cook and Roy Gaines they were the artists and the producer... well they weren’t called that at that time. The talent scout at that time was Danny Kisler who was passing through town and he was recording Roland Cook and Roy Gaines and I was the pianist there to play on the session and he really liked what he heard coming the piano. And, when the session was over he came out and asked me if I could prepare some songs to record as myself. And, I told him yes. He came back a week or so later. And in the interim I had prepared some songs and “Java” was one of the songs I had wrote for that album which came out on RCA/Victor. It just came... It came like songs come. I had lots of things to write and that was just one of them that I wrote. I can’t say why it sounds as it did and all that.

I can say however that “Whipped Cream” was written in reminiscent of “Java.” “Whipped Cream” was written many years later when I was in the military in Texas. We had a small band that played off post around town and the guys thought it was really amusing that one as myself would write a such song like “Java.” They though “Java” was a little corny for me. They thought that I would be writing R&B or something a little more jazzy. So, I wrote “Whipped Cream” and many other songs like “Whipped Cream” sort of as a spoof and we played them on the stage with the band and we wound up recording them.

Theresa: You were recording while you were in the military?
Toussaint: Well, I would come home on the weekend sometime and record, but not an awful lot. But, when I was about to get out of the military we went to Houston and recorded all of those songs like “Whipped Cream” and all the other songs I wrote like that which were several. We put it out on a album called the Stokes. Herb Alpert heard “Whipped Cream” and he covered it. Of course, he made a major hit out of it which I was delighted.

Theresa: Where is the source of your inspiration and creativity coming from? Is it from just your environment?
Toussaint: I think that it is largely my environment. New Orleans is very strong on those of us who live here. So, I think that there is some New Orleans in everything that I write. I love a wide variety of other music, so I think that my appreciation for so many things come out in my writing.

Theresa: Who are some of your favorite artists? Just artists that you have been digging over the past years.
Toussaint: Well, I must say that when I was a boy my strongest influence and recording artist that I loved the most was Professor Longhair. I was just totally knocked out when I heard that. Of course, I liked the early Ray Charles and Ray Charles all through his life. I like the Boogie-woogie pianists like Albert Alman. Of course, I love Art Tatum. I think that he is the answer to the piano. As far as more contemporary artists, Patti LaBelle who is one of the most dynamite peoples of our time, and maybe of anytime. Aretha Franklin is impeccable. I’m a really die hard fan of all New Orleans artist’s like Irma Thomas, Ernie K-Doe, Johnnie Adams, Aaron Neville. All of the New Orleans artists.

Theresa: What piano players are impressing you, today? Have you checked out Davell Crawford, lately?
Toussaint: Davell Crawford is magnificent!! He is a marvelous pianist.

Theresa: Yeahhh. He has a lot of soul, uh?
Toussaint: A lot of soul and a lot of everything. A lot of excitement, enthusiasm, soul. He has the whole gambit. In fact, he has so much until I think that he might find it really complex to find one direction since he can go in many directions.

Theresa: He is. He is. As a person he is so, so beautiful. I love him.
Toussaint: Oh yes. He’s charismatic. He has it all.

Theresa: He does. What about Henry Butler?
Toussaint: Oh, goodness.

Theresa: I LOVE Henry!! Gosh.
Toussaint: You keep getting better and better. Henry is it!! Sometimes I say, when you hear a pianist that sounds more than anyone else because they cover so much ground that it’s probably Henry Butler.

Theresa: Ummm-hmmm. Sometimes, I think Henry can see.
Toussaint: Well, he can see better than most of us.

Theresa: Oh-yeah.
Toussaint: But, that has been the case with some of those guys. Although, I do not want to stereotype Henry Butler. But for some reason the guys that are so-called blind have been leading the world ever since I can remember. Art Tatum, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Henry Butler. that’s just the way it is.

Theresa: Do you ever plan to work with either one of those artists? Do some kind of jam session or something? That would be really cool.
Toussaint: Well, I always hope to work with Henry Butler and Davell Crawford and I’m sure the way music is it will bring us together in a working situation.

Theresa: What about a live recording? Any of that coming up?
Toussaint: Well now we are thinking of that at Tipitina’s in the near future. On Thursdays nights it’s Allen Toussaint, NYNO, Tipitina’s presents. We have NYNO artists mainly, but sometimes we include many others. We are contemplating doing some live recordings from Tipitina’s. In that, I will be inviting all of these guys.

Theresa: That would be nice. What do you attribute to you success over the course of 40 years of hits and accoladations?
Toussaint: If I could put my finger on anything it would be perseverance. I think one should follow one’s dream, never give up, keep refining and stay on the job. Be open for inspiration and be open for some degree of change. I don’t mean to give up everything that you ever have. But, we can always add on to that and just stay open for inspiration because it will come.

Theresa: So, what do you do in your spare time when you are not making your music?
Toussaint: Spare time, he says. (And, plays another wonderful melody.)

Theresa: You have received the Louisiana Legend Award, the Big Easy Award’s Entertainer of the Year, Tipitina’s Walk of Fame, Jazzfest Commemorative United States Postal Envelope, and the induction into the Rock’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Out of these are there any particular favorites or are any one of these a special treasure?
Toussaint: I recognize what some of them mean as opposed to other and society at large. But to me personally, if I go to a little school around New Orleans, even an elementary school and have anything to say and they give me an award or a sheet of paper with something on it, I cherish that.

Theresa: Awesome.
Toussaint: Because people really don’t have to do that. That meant that they thought enough to prepare something, so I consider all honors a high honor. I feel sincerely about that. I remember early on when I would receive small honors before anything larger had happened. I felt very very good about it and not one has ever diminished. So, I feel as good about the smallest as I do about the largest because they are both personally for me and someone thought enough for me to prepare it. Even if it was given by one person or a small group or society it is still the same.

Theresa: Thank you for your time, enthusiasm and knowledge. All of it was beautiful.
Toussaint: Thank you very much.