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Allen Toussaint

ALLEN TOUSSAINT

YEAR

1998

INDUCTED BY

Robbie Robertson (The Band)

CATEGORY

Ahmet Ertegun Award

A rare talent forged in the fires of New Orleans’ red hot music scene.

Few people can produce, arrange, write songs or perform—Allen Toussaint did it all and then some with expertise and aplomb.

Allen Toussaint

Allen Toussaint

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Geoffry Himes

Few songwriters have summed up their artistic philosophy as neatly as Allen Toussaint did in his song “Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues),” which became a Top Forty hit for Three Dog Night.

“Play something sweet,” goes the refrain, “play something funky; make me lay back and grin like a monkey! Play something I can understand!” The funkiness comes from Toussaint’s hometown of New Orleans, a city where the streets are frequently filled with funeral processions and carnival parades.

Fueling the music accompanying both is a hip-shaking syncopation that is absorbed by the city’s residents from the time they’re old enough to tag along after the marchers and form a “second line.” The sweetness of which Toussaint sings, though, comes from his own special genius.

Read More
Class of 1998
A new musical gumbo - This new recipe was created by Allen Toussaint
Robbie Robertson (The Band)
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