Profile of Allen Toussaint on Famous Like Me

Allen Toussaint (born January 14, 1938) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer and one of the most influential figures in New Orleans R&B. In the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote numerous hits for artists including Lee Dorsey, The Meters and Solomon Burke and produced material for Dr John, Labelle, and Art and Aaron Neville amongst others. An accomplished pianist, lyricist and arranger, Toussaint wrote many songs which continue to be covered by artists to this day, including "Working in the Coalmine", "Get Out My Life Woman" and "Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky".

Toussaint soon launched his own solo career, which peaked in the '70s with the albums From a Whisper to a Scream and Southern Nights. For much of his career he partnered with Marshall Sehorn. They co-own and operate the Sea-Saint recording studio in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans. They also partnered in a record label, that went under various names. Along with many of his contemporaries, interest in Allen Toussaint's compositions was rekindled when his work began to be heavily sampled by hip-hop artists in the 1980s and 1990s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.

Toussaint was among those temporarily housed in the Louisiana Superdome in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. His first television appearance after the hurricane was on the September 07, 2005 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, sitting in with Paul Shaffer and his CBS Orchestra.

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