Allen Toussaint

Allen Toussaint
Toussaint at the Freret Street Festival, New Orleans, 2009
Background information
Also known as	Al Tousan, Allen Orange, Naomi Neville, Clarence Toussaint
Born	(1938-01-14)January 14, 1938 Gert Town, Louisiana, U.S.
Origin	New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	November 10, 2015(2015-11-10) (aged 77) Madrid, Spain
Genres	R&B soul southern soul funk blues jazz
Occupation(s)	Musician composer arranger record producer
Instruments	Vocals piano
Years active	1958–2015
Labels	RCA Victor Scepter Minit Instant Reprise Warner Bros. Nonesuch Elektra Rounder
Associated acts	The Band Rosemary Butler Merry Clayton Elvis Costello Lee Dorsey Dr. John Venetta Fields Etta James Labelle John Mayall Paul McCartney The Meters Bonnie Raitt Irma Thomas

Allen Toussaint (/ˈtuːsɑːnt/; January 14, 1938 – November 10, 2015) was an American musician, songwriter, arranger and record producer, who was an influential figure in New Orleans R&B from the 1950s to the end of the century, described as "one of popular music’s great backroom figures." Many musicians recorded Toussaint's compositions, including "Java", "Mother-in-Law", "I Like It Like That", "Fortune Teller", "Ride Your Pony", "Get Out of My Life, Woman", "Working in the Coal Mine", "Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky", "Here Come the Girls", "Yes We Can Can", "Play Something Sweet", and "Southern Nights". He was a producer for hundreds of recordings, among the best known of which are "Right Place, Wrong Time", by his longtime friend Dr. John ("Mac" Rebennack), and "Lady Marmalade", by Labelle.

The youngest of three children, Toussaint was born in 1938 in New Orleans and grew up in a shotgun house in the Gert Town neighborhood, where his mother, Naomi Neville (whose name he later adopted pseudonymously for some of his works), welcomed and fed all manner of musicians as they practiced and recorded with her son. His father, Clarence, worked on the railway and played trumpet. Allen Toussaint learned piano as a child and took informal music lessons from an elderly neighbor, Ernest Pinn. In his teens he played in a band, the Flamingos, with the guitarist Snooks Eaglin, before dropping out of school. A significant early influence on Toussaint was the syncopated "second-line" piano style of Professor Longhair.