Born in 1938, Allen Toussaint grew up in a shotgun house in New Orleans. He learned piano as a child, taking lessons from a neighbour. His career in music started in New Orleans, when he began playing in local bands and came to the attention of Dave Bartholomew. Toussaint was finding work as a session pianist and was working with some of the best musicians in New Orleans, including Earl Palmer (drums), Alvin “Red” Tyler (baritone sax), Nat Perrilliat (tenor sax), Roy Montrell (guitar), Frank Field (bass), Charles “Hungry” Williams (drums), Melvin Lastie (cornet) and Justin Adams (guitar).
At the age of nineteen Toussaint acted as a stand-in for Fats Domino on the recording of Domino’s song “I Want You To Know” and produced Lee Allen’s “Walking with Mr. Lee”. Using the name Al Tousan, he recorded an album of instrumentals, “The Wild Sound of New Orleans”, for RCA records in 1958. Then, in the early 60s, he took up Marshall Sehorn’s invitation to work with Lee Dorsey as songwriter and producer. “Ride Your Pony” and “Working in the Coal Mine” were big hits for the new team and convinced Toussaint that he could do well in the New Orleans music business. He went on to become the leading producer for the second wave of New Orleans artists.
One of Toussaint’s greatest achievements was writing and producing the classic recording of “Mother-In-Law”, performed by Ernie K-Doe in 1961, which was Pop number one week-ending 22nd May 1961 and also R&B number one the same year. This was the first million-seller produced by Toussaint.
His next major success was the song “Ya Ya”, performed by Lee Dorsey, on the New York black-owned label Fury Records (Fury 1053), in 1961. This reached number seven on the Billboard 100 Singles Chart, with a million copies sold. He then went on to have more successes with Lee Dorsey for the rest of the sixties.
Allen Toussaint in Toronto 2010
Photo: ataelw 2010 (Wikimedia Commons)
This series of successful recordings point to Toussaint’s importance to the development of New Orleans R&B music. He was an excellent pianist, following in the footsteps of Professor Longhair, but he was steering the music in a new direction, taking over from Dave Bartholomew as the biggest name in town.
Toussaint now hired a group of musicians known as the Meters, a funky rhythm section who could create a more modern sound, to allow the Crescent City to compete with Memphis, Muscle Shoals and Philadelphia. Founding members of the band included Art Neville, a future member of the Neville Brothers. The members of this band are considered by many people to be the founding fathers of funk. They started working together around 1967 when Art Neville (keyboardist) recruited George Porter Jr, Joseph (Zigaboo) Modeliste and Leo Nocentelli as core members of the band. By the time Art formed the group he had already been a prominent figure in the New Orleans music community for approximately fifteen years. Now Allen Toussaint brought them to the recording studio that he opened with Marshall Sehorn, Sea-Saint Studios, which was to become the centre of New Orleans musical output for many years.
