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Toussaint has written, arranged, produced and played piano on many of the best New Orleans R&B records ever made, including Ernie K-Doe's "Mother-in-Law," Irma Thomas' "It's Raining" and Jessie Hill's "Ooh Poo Pah Doo." Toussaint also discovered the legendary rhythm section the Meters and, in the Seventies, produced classic records for Dr. John (In the Right Place) and Labelle ("Lady Marmalade"). Toussaint is a lifelong resident of New Orleans.
Describe your childhood in New Orleans -- the homes, neighbors and music you knew.
I was born in Gertown, a neighborhood in the Carrollton Avenue area. It's what some people might call a ghetto, but I had a great childhood, surrounded by all the things I knew and loved.
It was long blocks of shotgun houses. They call it a shotgun house because you were supposed to be able to fire a gun through it, straight out the back door, without hitting the walls. And music was always going on. There was an old man down the street who played guitar on his porch after he came home from work every evening. My cousin Emmanuel, when he'd get tipsy, would come over to my parents' house, where we had an old upright piano, and play "Stagger Lee." And there was Ernest Penn, who had been a jitney driver and played banjo. He also played stride piano -- he taught me the "butterfly" style, this rippling with the right hand.
What was it like, as a boy, to see the Mardi Gras Indians?
My mother wouldn't let us go see the Indians, unless she was sure there were grown folks who would be nearby. Because sometimes the Indians used to fight. A tribe would have the spy boy, kind of a reconnaissance guy. He had a stave, and he would throw it at the top of a door, to mark the border where his tribe would meet. And other Indians couldn't come anywhere near that.
But they were so full of the Kickapoo juice that egos would fly, and they would fight and carry on -- a couple of times a little too far. Now I'm glad to say they knock 'em dead with needle and thread, by outsewing each other and making their costumes prettier.
What was it like writing songs and making records in the Fifties and early Sixties -- the heyday of New Orleans R&B?
I wrote at my parents' house, one of those old shotguns. I had the first two rooms. When I wrote for Irma Thomas, things like "It's Raining," she was there, by the piano. And the other singers who were there would sing backup. Benny Spellman sang backup for Ernie K-Doe. K-Doe would sing backup for him. Then we'd get in the car, go to the studio and cut the song. Then we'd go back to my house, have Coke and potato chips and keep singing.
It was a daily event. When I'd wake up and get ready for the day, three or four of the guys would be sitting on the front porch, waiting to start.
Many of New Orleans' greatest musicians -- from Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton to Dr. John -- left the city to make it. But you stayed, even though the music business seemed to leave New Orleans behind. Why?
I care more about New Orleans than I care about business. I'll settle for less to be in New Orleans. I understand artists who have to leave. Because there are marketplaces. You have to go and sell your wares. But as a producer, the work and music comes to me. I do what I do and send it out.
Hurricanes and flooding have been a fact of life in New Orleans since the city was founded. Isn't that enough to make you want to leave?
This is the first time I ever evacuated. I've been through all of the hurricanes since I was born, and I thought I had the pattern down. The day after, you pull the boards back off the windows that you nailed up, and you store them somewhere, with numbers so you know where they're gonna go up for the next one.
We've always had these archenemies. I was still in Gertown when Betsy came through [in 1965]. The houses were on pillars. The Ninth Ward got the worst of Betsy, and we were a long ways from there. Where I live now, near the Fairgrounds where Jazz Fest is held, I've had a foot of water in my house twice. But that was nothing like what we had here, nowhere near.
Are there aspects of New Orleans life that, as a result of the flood, have vanished for good -- like those shotgun houses?
I don't know of anything that won't be rebuilt. Those things that are most dear cannot be drowned -- the grooves and the second line, the way you feel inside when you hear Professor Longhair. Even when you're sitting down, that's in you.
We'll have a marriage of the old and new. We've always lived like that -- the Old World charm as well as the new. Many of the shotgun houses with the gingerbread on them, once the water subsides, will be usable again. And some of the places that were damaged or lost weren't the kind that you would want to build again, anyway.
New Orleans will be better than ever before. And it won't get glossy or lose any of its soul. The Mardi Gras floats will roll, and Jazz Fest will pop.