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- [00:00]
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- [00:17]
Terry Gross
This is FRESH air. I'm Terry Gross. Today we conclude our archive series R and B Rockabillian Early Rock and Roll with Alan Toussaint, who we'll hear from later, and Dion. If you've ever dismissed Dion as a former teen idol whose talent or relevance didn't survive the oldies era, what you hear today is likely to change your mind. He's a great singer, deeply influenced by the blues and country music. I interviewed him in 2000. He brought his guitar, and we're going to hear him perform some of his own songs and some of the blues and country songs that influenced him. Dion had his first hit, I Wonder why, in 1958, when with the doo wop group the Belmonts, named after Belmont Avenue in the Bronx neighborhood in which they lived. Dion's other hits included A Teenager in Love, where or When Donna the Prima Donna, Run around, sue the Wanderer and later Abraham, Martin and John. His fan Bruce Springsteen gave the introduction when Dion was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 1989. Dion recorded a couple of Springsteen songs on his album Deja Nous, which was released in 2000 and was the occasion for our interview. We started with a track from that album, Dionne singing Springsteen's if I Should Fall Behind.
- [01:40]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
We said we'd walk together. Baby, come with me.
- [01:49]
Narrator/Storyteller
That come the.
- [01:50]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Twilight, should we lose our way? If as we were walking our hands should slip free? I'll wait for you. Should I fall behind, wait for me. We swore that we would travel, darling, side by side and we help each other to stay in stride. But each lover step far so differently. Girl, I'll wait for you. If I should fall behind, wait for me. Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true.
- [02:57]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Dion, welcome to FRESH air.
- [02:59]
Dion
Good to be here.
- [02:59]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
What's it been like for you finding new material? I think a lot of people, when they think of your songs, they think of the songs you did when you were very young that were some of them very explicitly teenage songs like Teenager.
- [03:10]
Terry Gross
In Love or even the Wanderer.
- [03:12]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
It's a song about it's a song of a young man who in some ways is real hot stuff. So, I mean, you're not a teenager anymore, and the song that we just heard is a real adult song. Has it been difficult for you to find songs that reach your audience that you like and that are adult songs.
- [03:35]
Dion
I don't know. Songs to me have always been kind of like a diary, you know, Say, when I did Teenager in Love, Maybe I was 16. Those questions in that song, even though it's a very simple song and it seems like kind of claptrap or something, but it's not to the unknowing ear, it would seem, if you just listen to the surface of it. But it had a lot of heart, it had a lot of soul. And it asks some relevant questions that you could ask today. And songs like I Wonder why it was the first hit record I had. We didn't know how to write lyrics too good. So we invented this kind of percussive rhythmic sound. You know, we'd make up these sounds. We'd go down to the Apollo Theater and hear the horn players. And we'd come back to the neighborhood and give the vocal group. I'd conjure up, you know, I'd recruit guys and say, do this, do that, you know, And I'd try to get them to sound like the horn section down at the Apollo Theater. Like a song like, Ruby, baby.
- [04:35]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
I would, you know, I love a girl in the. Ruby is her name I have to go Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, baby.
- [04:43]
Dion
It was like they were like horns, you know, and all that stuff was arranged, you know, I. The group was a poor man's horn section on the street corners. That's what it was. Even when I did run around Sioux and they would. That was a horn section that I heard at the Apollo Theater. I just brought it back to the streets and gave it to the guys to sing.
- [05:18]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Let me go back to the beginning with you. When you were first listening to music. You wrote in your autobiography that Hank Williams really influenced you early on. When you were a kid growing up in the Bronx, what did you hear in Hank Williams?
- [05:34]
Dion
Well, Hank Williams seemed, like, so total to me, so committed to the lyric. He would actually rip the ends of the words off. At the. You know, the end of the sentence, it sounded like he'd bite into the word and rip it off. You know, he would do like, well, I can't sing like him. But the kind of idea, like, the first song I heard him do was like, yeah.
- [06:00]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
And I left my home down on.
- [06:02]
Terry Gross
The R.
- [06:04]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Told my PA was the one stepping out and get the honky tonk blues yeah, the honky tonk blues well, I got the honky tonk blues. You know, he said, stomping to every place in town and he.
- [06:30]
Dion
He ripped a word Right off, like, I got it. And there it goes, you know? He was totally committed physically, lyrically, musically, spiritually. I just said, what's this guy talking about? And see, I had a guy on the streets that really helped me out a lot, too. There was a guy in Bronx, New York City. His name was Willie Green, and he was the superintendent of a tenement building in my neighborhood. And basically, what I do is black music filtered through an Italian neighborhood. Comes out with an attitude. Yo, so Willie Green would be playing me all this John Lee Hooker stuff. And, you know, Sonny Boy Williamson. And he'd be playing, like.
- [07:22]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Gone down the Road. Stop it. Fanny Mae tell my baby what I heard her boyfriend say Throw stomp me talking while y' all tell everything I know I wanna break up to signify well, Jack and some people got to go. Jack gave his wife $5.
- [07:52]
Dion
Go downtown, get some. You know, he'd do stuff like that or.
- [07:59]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Yeah. And I woke up this morning Round for my shoes Something telling me Child got walking blue Woke up this morning look around for my shoes time.
- [08:16]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
You.
- [08:17]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Know that morning child nowadays are walking blue Some people tell me that they worry Blues ain't bad that West Sophia no more ever care, son. People tell me that they were in blue. You think that y' all know what was, in a way, walking blue Goddamn walk.
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Dion
You know, he'd do stuff like that. So I'd go into the studio and do the white version of that.
- [09:04]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Really. But it sounds like what I'm hearing from you is that you heard country music through Hank Williams, you heard all these blues recordings, and what you found was this kind of Bronx version.
- [09:15]
Dion
Doo Wop.
- [09:16]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Yeah, well, that Doo Wop, was that for you? This. This really, like, for you, native version of all the music that you were loving, right?
- [09:25]
Dion
It kind of.
- [09:26]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
But it was authentic because it was.
- [09:27]
Terry Gross
It was your music.
- [09:28]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
You weren't just doing stuff in the manner of somebody else.
- [09:32]
Dion
Well, Willie Green, again, the guy who was doing this, he told me, he said, dion, he said, write about the people in the neighborhood. Write about the things you know. And to me, when I looked around my neighborhood, we had characters like Frankie yunk, Junk Joe, BBI's Ralphie Moch. There was a guy in my neighborhood, they called him Shakespeare. He used to say, like, to be or not to be, which is my apartment. I thought I'd get you at that, Terry. But. But we had a lot of characters, you know, so. And they seemed bigger than life. Like the Wanderer. His name was Jackie Burns. He was a sailor who got Tattoos all over him, you know, and every time he'd date a girl, he'd get a name tattooed on his body, you know, this guy was like, you know.
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Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Flo on my left arm, Mary on my right. Janie is a girl I'll be with the knife Little girl ask me which one I love the best I tear open my shirt I show Rosie on my chest I'm a wanderer yeah, I'm the wanderer I roam around, around, around, around, around Play that thing every year.
- [10:55]
Dion
But this. This guy would walk around with his tank top on with all these names all over you.
- [11:02]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
What'd you think of him? Did you like him or.
- [11:05]
Dion
He was a. He was kind of a loner. He would, like. I didn't know him that well, but he just seemed bigger than life because he was older than me and he was in the Navy, right? And he would come back and he'd have this kind of, you know. You know, and I kind of featured myself, you know, kind of like street corner poet, you know, burnt to the bone with the fire of this new rock and roll music. So I was like, you know, over there saying, what could this gu. You know, like, how can we put this guy to music? You know? And I don't think he ever knew the song was about him. He took off a seat. I don't know if even know if he's alive today. But the Wanderer is a sad song. It says, I roam from town to town I go through life without a care I'm as happy as a clown with my two fists of iron But I'm going nowhere it's about a real. A guy who just is stuck in a very kind of shallow lifestyle, you.
- [12:02]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Know, before you started listening to rhythm and blues and blues music and stuff like that. I know when you were 11, you used to sing in a bar in your neighborhood, and it sounded like you were a real local attraction. What did you sing when you were 11?
- [12:18]
Dion
Ah, yeah, I would do. I knew 70 Hank Williams songs. Would you believe that? I would even sing his Luke the Drifter series, you know. In the world's mighty gallery of pictures Hang the scenes that are painted from life. I was like 13 years old. I thought I was a philosopher. I didn't even know what I was singing about. I sang Honky Tonk blues. I sang Jambalaya, if you an Italian from the Bronx. I had no idea what jambalaya meant, but it sounded so good and felt so good coming out of my mouth.
- [12:56]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
You know, Goodbye, Jo Me gotta go me on My own, you know, jambalaya, crawfish, pineappilic, gumbo.
- [13:08]
Dion
I didn't know what gumbo was. I knew what rigatoni was, but gumbo, I had no idea. And, you know, I got caught up in this music and it. I guess it's like anybody else when you get caught up into something. It just. It just took me away.
- [13:25]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Why don't we pause here and listen to the first Dion and the Belmonts recording, which is I Wonder why with those great harmonies.
- [13:32]
Dion
That's a good attitude song.
- [13:34]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Yeah, let's hear it. And what year is this, Dion?
- [13:37]
Dion
This is 57 beginning.
- [13:39]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
And you were how old?
- [13:40]
Dion
I was 17.
- [13:42]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Okay, let's hear it.
- [13:50]
Singer (performing songs)
I love you like I do.
- [13:54]
Dion
Why.
- [13:55]
Singer (performing songs)
Do.
- [13:57]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Don'T know why I love you don't know I care I just want your love to share I wonder why I love you like I do Is it because I think you love me too? I wonder why I love you like I do Like I do I told my friends that we would never part they laughed and said to him that he would break my heart I wonder why they think that we will part.
- [14:39]
Singer (performing songs)
We will part.
- [15:04]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
There's a song that you wrote on the new CD that I really want to play because I think your singing now is really similar to what it's always been. I don't think. I think some of the material has changed, but I think your singing still has everything in it that you've been talking about. All those influences, the urgency that you've been talking about. So let me play a song from the new cd, but before I do, I want you to introduce it for us. And this is called Every Day that I'm with you. Tell us about writing this. What inspired it?
- [15:37]
Dion
Well, this is a story, but I'm going to tell it. The CDs called deja nous and the song that you're about to play, in fact, the whole cd, the whole. All the songs in it are a movie soundtrack for a movie called the Wanderer that Chaz Parmentieri wrote a screenplay for. And I was writing these songs for different scenes in the movie. And the movie got bogged down this year, so I just released the cd. But anyway, every song on the CD is written for a certain, you know, piece of the movie. This song was written for a montage scene in the middle of it. I traveled with Buddy Holly and Richie Valance on that tour. We were co headlining a tour and we were on this little yellow school bus. Not one of these luxury line custom made coaches. Today it Was just a yellow school bus. We were riding through the Midwest in 1959, February of 1959. It was cold. It was like 30 below zero. We were freezing. But we really kind of bonded on this tour, Richie, Buddy and myself, because we had the first Fender guitars that were issued these new Stratocasters. And we were in a kind of a competition to see who would make them ring the longest. And two weeks into the tour, Buddy got kind of fed up with the bus breaking down. And he recruit, he was trying to recruit people. He chartered a plane and he said, because the more people you get aboard, the less it would cost. So he said, you know, it'll be $36, he tells me, and he hit the magic number for me. I grew up with my parents screaming and yelling at each other for the rent in Bronx, New York City at the time was $36. So my mind hadn't stretched out to that place where I could spend a whole month's rent on a 45 minute plane flight to Fargo, North Dakota. So I said, no. So he gives me his guitar. He says, here, he says, you know, take care of my guitar. He says, and you better take care. So he took his laundry. That's what he wanted to do. He wanted to get a haircut, he wanted to do his laundry. Gives me the guitar to take care of. So now I'm wondering, I wonder how his guitar sounds compared to mine. So I go in the dressing room and I take. Take the guitar out, plug it in, and I'm singing. I was telling Chaz Parlementieri, as he's writing this story around this book, the Wanderer that I wrote. And the movie was called the Wanderer. So he said, you know, we could do a Buddy Holly song here in the movie. Like it doesn't matter anymore. I said, let me write something to go through. Me sitting in the dressing room, playing his guitar and singing with. And while this scene takes place of them leaving us, driving to Fargo, arriving the next morning. So this song was written for that scene because I thought I could capture this thing because in my heart I. I've always wanted to express this relationship that, you know, that I pondered at times or reflected on at times that I had with Buddy Holly. And it came out in this song.
- [18:56]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
And I just want to say for our listeners who don't know the end of the story that Buddy Holly took this plane that you decided not to take. The plane crashed, killing Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper.
- [19:07]
Dion
Right?
- [19:09]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
So, and the other thing is, so Chaz Pomintary's movie is your biography. That's what he's trying to do.
- [19:13]
Dion
Yeah. He wrote a screenplay around this, around.
- [19:17]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Around your autobiography, the Wanderer.
- [19:19]
Terry Gross
All right.
- [19:20]
Dion
So that's what this whole album is. It's actually a soundtrack.
- [19:24]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
In fact, it's a soundtrack of your life.
- [19:27]
Dion
I don't think it would have came out as good if I tried to write songs and put out an album. I kind of did it inadvertently. I kind of backed into it, you know. And it's interesting the way it came out, you know.
- [19:40]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
So let's hear Every Day that I'm with youh, the song that's, I guess, inspired by Buddy Holly and about that, that chapter of your life. This is a song written and performed.
- [19:50]
Terry Gross
By Dion from his new CD Deja Nu.
- [20:02]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Every day I stare down trouble. Heaven knows that's what I do. Every day I raise my fist for the struggle. Every day that I'm with you. Every day I wake up hungry, yeah. And I try to get my fill. Anyway, it's a great big country, I've got time to kill.
- [20:37]
Terry Gross
My interview with Dion was recorded in 2000. He turned 86 in July. Last year, he released the album Girl Friends, featuring duets with female singers. This year, he released the single New York Minute and had a new book called the Rock and Roll A Collection of conversations with a Friend. After a break, we'll conclude our archived series, R and B, Rockabilly and Early Rock and Roll, with Alan Toussaint. The great New Orleans pianist, singer, songwriter and producer and jazz historian Kevin Whitehead will remember alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who was born 100 years ago today. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH air.
- [21:19]
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- [22:11]
Terry Gross
To conclude our archive series R and B, rockabilly and early rock and roll. We have the interview. I recorded with Alan Toussaint, who is in our studio at the piano and sang some of the early hit songs he wrote. Toussaint was an important but mostly behind the scenes figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues during the 50s and 60s, when R& B was shaping the sound of early rock and roll. Early in his career, he was the chief songwriter, producer, arranger and pianist for Minute Records, which at the time was the most important New Orleans record company. He and a partner formed their own label in the 60s. The songs he wrote and or arranged and produced include Working in a Coal Mine, Mother in Law, Lipstick Traces, Ruler of My Heart, It's Raining, Right Place, Wrong Time, Lady Marmalade, yes We can, and Southern Nights. Among the musicians he worked with were the Meters, the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, the band and Paul McCartney. After stepping out from behind the scenes, Toussaint also became known for his own recordings and performances, including his collaboration with Elvis Costello. Toussaint died in 2015 at the age of 77. I spoke with him in 1988.
- [23:23]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Alan Toussaint, welcome back to FRESH AIR.
- [23:26]
Alan Toussaint
Thank you.
- [23:27]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
I'm going to ask you, I'm going to start with a request to play one of the songs, one of the first songs that was a big hit for you that you wrote. Mother in Law.
- [23:35]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, yes. It was one of our very first ones.
- [23:38]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
This was originally recorded by Ernie K. Doe.
- [23:40]
Alan Toussaint
Right.
- [23:41]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Could you play it for us your way?
- [23:51]
Singer (performing songs)
The worst person I know. Mother in law, mother in law she worries me so Mother in law, mother in law Every time I open my mouth she steps in and try to put me out how could she stoop so low? Mother in law, mother in law, mother in law, mother in law why Satan could have been her name Mother in law, mother in law to me they're about the same. Mother in law, mother in law if she'd leave us alone we would have a happy home Sent from down below Mother in law, mother in law, mother in law, mother in law I come home with my pay Mother in law, mother in law she asked me what I made Mother in law, mother in law she thinks her advice is a contribution but if she would leave that would be the solution and don't come back no more Mother in law, mother in law, mother in law.
- [25:22]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
So how.
- [25:23]
Terry Gross
Old were you when you wrote that?
- [25:24]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, let's see. I guess 21.
- [25:29]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Were you married?
- [25:30]
Alan Toussaint
22. Oh, no. But Mother in Law was a national joke.
- [25:35]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
That's true. It really was. At the time things have changed.
- [25:38]
Alan Toussaint
The mother in laws themselves weren't natural jokes, but most comedians used to use that.
- [25:42]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
That's right. So how did you first start writing songs?
- [25:46]
Alan Toussaint
Well, I came up imitating most people that I heard on the radio. I imitated most piano players, of course, and most all kinds of music. And after I would play and become totally saturated with it, I would sit and randomly play around so little melodies came and that started my writing.
- [26:05]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
You know, I think two of your influences have been Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, two of the great New Orleans musicians. Do you think that. I mean, I think they can be heard in your style. Would you play something of theirs and tell us how they affected you?
- [26:20]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, yes. Well, Professor Longhair, I must say, of the local people. Local meaning New Orleans and the New Orleans area has been the strongest influence on my playing and even some of my writing. The way I construct certain things early Professor Longhair, things like when I first heard that as a child, that just knocked me out. And later on, Professor Longhair began to add things to his music, like, yes, he was very, very important to me.
- [27:39]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Was it hard to learn that when you were young?
- [27:42]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Not hard.
- [27:42]
Alan Toussaint
It was very, very exciting. Once I heard it, I could get involved. It was just the idea of it, how unique it was to me. It was off the beaten path of most other things that were all generally related in some fashion. But Professor Longhair didn't seem related to anyone else who was out there at the time.
- [28:03]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
I remember one of your early recording sessions was filling in for Fats Domino because his piano track hadn't been laid down yet. You. You really could play in Fats Domino, starring Professor Longhairs and Ray Charles. How did you learn how to play like Fats Domino?
- [28:19]
Alan Toussaint
Well, Fat Domino was flooding the market. He had so many recordings out. And he discovered a secret to success with triplets. So as a child, that was. I could immediately hear what that was, and most of his recordings had that in it, except for one, the Fat man, which I thought was very exciting, but he never recorded any more like that, which was a very different kind of piano. It was kind of runchy, like, which was wonderful. But he. He never played like that again, except maybe on one other tune. The rest of them was turned out to be mostly like the one I want you to know that I played on it.
- [29:27]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Right, right, right.
- [29:28]
Alan Toussaint
Dave Bartholomew, who knew that I could play like most of the folk that were out at the time, called me in to play on a Fats Domino recording session. We were up to two tracks at that time so we could do wonderful things. And he called me in to play it, like Fats would play this song. And I went in and did.
- [30:04]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
That's really great. My guess, if you're just joining us, is Alan Toussaint. And I should say, you know, I always, I've, you know, whenever I've said your name, one day it would be Toussaint and one day it would be Toussaint. And so I asked you how I should really say it and you said Toussaint. But your father's side of the family used to say Toussaint.
- [30:19]
Alan Toussaint
My father used to say Toussaint without a T on the end.
- [30:23]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
It seems very common for New Orleans families to have different pronunciations of their names.
- [30:28]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, yes. Bonaris Begnaras. Yes.
- [30:32]
Terry Gross
We're listening to my 1988 interview with Alan Toussaint. We'll hear more of it after a break. This is FRESH air.
- [30:39]
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- [31:05]
Dion
This is Eric Glass on this American Life.
- [31:07]
Narrator/Storyteller
We like stories that surprise you. For instance, imagine finding a new hobby and realizing to do this hobby right.
- [31:14]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
According to the ways of the masters.
- [31:17]
Narrator/Storyteller
There's a pretty good chance that you're going to have to bend the law to get the materials that you need, if not break it. Yeah, to break international laws.
- [31:26]
Dion
Your life stories, really good ones. This American Life.
- [31:29]
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- [32:02]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
I'm going to ask you to play another song of yours, a song that you wrote, maybe do another one of your early hits.
- [32:09]
Alan Toussaint
Well, Lipstick Traces, the guy Benny Spellman that sung the bass part on Mother in Law, he didn't know what it was worth at the time we were doing it. But when Mother In Law came out and sold and went to number one, let's say Benny Spellman, that sung the bass part made sure that everyone within the sound of his voice got to know that he sung that part. And he would go around, he would gig based on. He sung the low part on Mother In Law. And he encouraged me with much force to write him a song that he could use that concept. And one result of that was this song. Lipstick traces.
- [32:58]
Singer (performing songs)
Your pretty brown eyes, your wavy hair. I won't go home no more Cause you're not there I've got it bad Like I told you people oh.
- [33:19]
Alan Toussaint
I'm.
- [33:19]
Singer (performing songs)
So in love with you don't leave me no more Lipstick traces on a cigarette Every memory lingers with me Yet I've got it bad Like I told.
- [33:43]
Dion
You before.
- [33:47]
Singer (performing songs)
I'm so in love with you don't leave me no more Won't you come back home? Or won't you come back home? Cause I'm crazy about you can't do without you Won't you come back home? Lipstick traces on a cigarette Every memory lingers with me Yet I've got it bad Like I told you before I'm so in love with you don't leave me no more Leave me no more don't leave me no more Leave me no more Mother in Law, Mother in law don't leave me no more.
- [34:46]
Alan Toussaint
I guess you can see how that happened.
- [34:49]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
He really owed you one after you wrote that for him.
- [34:51]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, thank you.
- [34:53]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
I love it when you can do both parts as you're singing. The high part and the low part.
- [34:57]
Alan Toussaint
Oh, thank goodness.
- [35:00]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Another song you wrote that was a big hit I guess was the early 60s. Working in a Coal Mine. Lee Dorsey recorded it.
- [35:06]
Alan Toussaint
Lee Dorsey? Yes.
- [35:07]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Now I remember. When I interviewed you a few months back, you explained that you had never been in a coal mine when you wrote this song.
- [35:13]
Alan Toussaint
Not only never been. I don't know anyone who's ever been in a coal mine. And I don't know why that came. Lee Dorsey was a great inspiration for me. When it was time to write for him, I would just sit back and begin to listen to the sound of his voice. And one day While sitting on St Philip street in New Orleans, I heard him saying, working the coal mine, going down, down, down. I have no idea why, but he was a great inspiration. His voice sound like a smile to me. And I wrote lots of songs for him. Yes.
- [35:51]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Would you do it for us?
- [35:52]
Alan Toussaint
We'll give It.
- [36:00]
Singer (performing songs)
Working in the coal mine Going down, down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down Working in the coal mine Going down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down Five o' clock in the morning I'm already up and gone Lord, I'm so tired how long can this go on now? Working in the coal mine Going down, down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down Working in the coal mine Going down, down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down of course I make a little money Hauling coal by the ton but when Saturday rolls around I'm too tired for having fun to die for fun now Working in the cold mine Going down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down Working in the coal mine Going down, down, down Working in the coal mine about to slip down Lord, I'm so tired how long can.
- [37:19]
Alan Toussaint
You.
- [37:20]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
God, that sounds great. Songwriter, pianist, producer, singer. Alan Toussaint is my guest and I'm gonna ask you to do another song. I've been listening to a lot of Irma Thomas lately. She has a new record out, and you wrote some of her early songs, and you wrote a song she sings on her new record. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna ask you to sing one of her earlier songs that you wrote for her called It's Raining. Would you do that?
- [37:47]
Singer (performing songs)
It's raining so hard Looks like it's gonna rain all night and this is the time I'd love to be holding you tight I guess I'll have to accept the fact that you're not here I wish this rain would hurry up and in, my dear I've got the blue so bad I can hardly catch my breath and the harder it rains the worse it gets this is the time I'd love to be holding you tight But I guess I'll just go crazy tonight.
- [38:38]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Is there a story behind writing the song?
- [38:41]
Alan Toussaint
Well, with Irma again, she was sitting right there that day and it was raining, and Irma was a great inspiration for me. I could write for her all day long, and sometimes I did. And she was sitting there and it was raining, and I could see the rain hitting on the window pane, and it was just perfect. Yes.
- [39:03]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Well, it has really been such a pleasure to hear you play and sing. Thank you so much for joining us. Really. Thank you very, very much.
- [39:10]
Alan Toussaint
My pleasure.
- [39:11]
Terry Gross
Alan Toussaint, recorded in 1988. He died in 2015. He was 77. And with that, we conclude our archive series. R and B, rockabilly and early rock and roll. I hope you enjoyed it. After a break, our jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who was born 100 years ago today. This is FRESH AIR.
- [39:35]
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- [40:03]
Narrator/Storyteller
I had like, angry clouds darkening over my head.
- [40:08]
Alan Toussaint
I was just sort of like starting to fume.
- [40:10]
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- [40:38]
Dion
Listen to.
- [40:39]
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- [40:45]
Terry Gross
Jazz saxophonist Art Pepper was born 100 years ago today. He started on clarinet at age 9 and debuted on record with Stan Kenton at age 18. Pepper had an intensive and creative alto saxophone style that kept his services in demand, but owing to personal problems, he'd drop out of music from time to time. Then in the 70s, after a long hiatus, Art Pepper came roaring back. Our jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has the details.
- [41:47]
Narrator/Storyteller
Art Pepper's tune mambo Koyama, from 1978, when the saxophonist was enjoying one of the great jazz comebacks. After 15 years laying low, his return would soon get a further boost from his candid autobiography, Straight Life. As Pepper tells it, there he was, an unloved kid afraid of everything from closets to clouds, who then discovered two things. He loved music early and a few years later the addictive narcotic heroin. In his book, he makes the first time he shot up sound like coming home. Art Pepper, the jazz musician got early exposure in Stan Kenton's 1940s big band. All the young alto players dug Charlie Parker's fleet brilliance, but Pepper had his own bright tone, warm inflections, skittery phrasing and floating swing feel. Art pepper on Stan Kenton's Dynaflow, 1950 other West coast leaders sought Pepper out, but he could burn a Little hot for LA's new cool jazz scene. Shorty Rogers showcased him on an arrangement of over the Rainbow, which barely contained Pepper's energy and creativity.
- [43:37]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
SAM.
- [44:07]
Narrator/Storyteller
Art Pepper's life could be a mess, but he played with a lot of heart. You really hear it on a pair of Stark Blues with bassist Ben Tucker from 1956. On blues in pepper balances elegant lines and woozy splats as if bearing his internal contradictions.
- [44:28]
Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
SA.
- [44:56]
Narrator/Storyteller
One thing Art Pepper fretted about a lot was that African American colleagues didn't respect him enough. Pepper being white and ever insecure, he was anxious before a 1957 record date with Miles Davis Rhythm Trio, fearing they'd cop an attitude. But they couldn't have been nicer, and the album Art Pepper meets the Rhythm Section was an instant classic. Pianist Red Garland had suggested you'd be so nice to come home to where Pepper warms up his solo with some thick, slabby low notes. Art Pepper made more fine albums through 1960. Then he didn't make one of his own for 15 years. To be a drug addict was to be an outlaw, and Art did a few stretches in California prisons, followed by a stint in a drug rehab program he made sound like jail all over again. But he kept playing and keeping track of new developments, in particular John Coltrane's way of mixing form and freedom. Comeback Pepper wrote some new style tunes like Mambo, Koyama and the sleek and streamlined Landscape. The tune landscape was a staple of Art Pepper's last years, when he performed and recorded often. I saw him a few times toward the end and his playing was a marvel, sometimes a bit rougher, but with his old, beautifully sculpted phrases and headlong rhythm. Here he is on Landscape from a festival set at the Kennedy Center.
- [47:31]
Singer/Musician (performing songs)
Sam.
- [48:00]
Narrator/Storyteller
Art Pepper, May 1982. On his final concert, his abused body had been failing and he'd die two weeks later. That Pepper made it to age 56 owed much to his wife and co author Lori Pepper, who's issued many late period live dates like the one we just heard on her Widow's Taste label. In the end, the saxophonist got all the acclaim he'd been craving from peers, critics and audiences. Art Pepper's last studio dates were a close listening duo with an African American pianist he bonded with who's still with us, the formidable George Cables. With Art Pepper's final performances, the old outlaw went out in a blaze of glory.
- [49:00]
Terry Gross
Kevin Whitehead is the author of New Dutch swing why Jazz and Play the way youy feel. Tomorrow on FRESH Air, our guest will be Jane Fonda. At the age of 87, the Academy Award winning actor is pouring her energy into activism. She'll talk about her decades long come how she first began her fitness empire to fund her activist work and why the first season of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie sent her back into therapy. I hope you'll join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews. Follow us on Instagram P R FRESH air Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our techno director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Brigger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Marie Boldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thaya Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Bauman and John Sheehan. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivi Nesbur. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.
- [50:22]
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Terry Gross
The crown jewels of the intelligence community.
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Shorthand for how do we know what's real?
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Narrator/Storyteller
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Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
If you have those answers, you're on.
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The inside and NPR wants to bring you there.
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Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
From the Pentagon to the State Department to spy agencies, listen to understand what's really happening and what it means for you.
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Sources and Methods the new National Security.
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Podcast from NPR Immigration raids, masked ICE agents, Operation Patriot.
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Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
Our podcast Here and Now Anytime is looking at Trump's agenda of mass deportation.
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Terry Gross
Through the eyes of one state.
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Dion
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Interviewer (likely Terry Gross)
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