Allen Toussaint - Go Back Home (ALON 9021)
Go Back Home
This is the B side of the great "Poor Boy Got to Move", which has been comped on CD. The record was released in 1965, and was one of the last things Toussaint ever did for Joe Banashak. Once again, it's years ahead of it's time... the piano, the guitar, that whole dark moody ambience thing - I love it!
The song takes on special meaning in light of all the misery and tragedy our beloved New Orleans is going through now, huh? In the early days after Katrina hit, it was being reported that Allen Toussaint was stuck down with the crowd at the Superdome, remember that? That's when the whole thing really hit home for me, man.
Allen Toussaint is THE MAN, pure and simple. Without him, our entire musical world would never have existed, know what I mean?
I always made it a point to go see him on the rare occasions he would come to town, as well as every year at Jazz Fest. I even became an "official" member of the fan club... 
I went to visit Sea-Saint Studios on Clematis Avenue in New Orleans sometime in the late 80s. Toussaint was there, and personally showed me around the place. He was so humble, and like accessible, man. To stand in that space where albums like "Rejuvenation" and "Desitively Bonaroo" were recorded with DA MAN at my side just blew me away! I don't know if you saw the pay-per-view benefit thing from Madison Square Garden, but it was really great to see Toussaint at the center of it all, finally getting some of the recognition he deserves.
posted by Red Kelly at 11:07 AM
8 Comments:
The sides of this record, I believe, are Toussiant's first solo vocal performances. He only did a handful of others prior to 1970. I think this is a very auspicious start to a blog with a good concept. Have fun with it, Red. I'll be back.
I think the Superdome sighting has been debunked, now. I heard an interview with him on NPR. He went to a downtown hotel, then got a ride out to Baton Rogue, I think, and went on to New York, where he is gigging and regrouping.
Nice fanclub card, man.
Keep up the good work.
Why thank ya, Dan... coming from you (king of the GROOVE), it's quite a compliment!
...and, yes, I read that story in Billboard about how Allen made it out... it was just the rumor that got me at the time...
Red
Nice job! Great tune to start with. I'll make sure to add you to the blog roll.
Larry
I'm blushing here guys, thanks so much!
I'll do my best to keep 'em comin'!
hey "red kelly",
i just stumbled across your site.
my brother read - as usual - larry grogan's site and had to leave home quickly.
then i sat down in front of the pc reading about a song on there.
you mentioned your new blog in the comment section.
now i went over here and listened to the song.
if i'm right i cant download this song, can i? you do that for copyright reasons or so, i reckon?
anyway i just listened to this "b side" for the 10th time in a row and it's so beautiful.
i had some tears in my eyes. don't ask me why, maybe i'm a bit emotional today but no doubt, it's a wonderful, wonderful piece of music.
i actually heard it before, somewhere, sometime, probable on the internet.
now i'll try to remember the track by name.
thanks and have a good start on here.
anna from germany
anna -
thanks for visiting my site, and I'm glad the power of this awesome Toussaint composition moved ya, man... it really is amazing, I agree.
as far as the inability to d/l tracks off of this page, it's really not a "digital rights" issue at all... It's more of a technical dilemma; I don't have any server space with any kind of real bandwith to link to, and this "audioblog" thing streams mp3s right to the page (without opening another one) for like $5 a month, SO I figure I'd try it...
(i've gotten around the d/l issue on other pages by using a recording program like 'audio hijack pro' and recording the stream as it plays...)
hope that helps... and I'm open to suggestions here, guys... after all I'm still feeling my way around!
UPDATE: ok Anna (and everybody else), I figured out how to include a link to download the tunes.
thanks for your patience.
I'll leave 'em up as long as they let me!
looking a very long time for this wonderful piece of soul. jay-z sampled this for his song "d'evils" on the blueprint album. jay-z is nice but this one here is unbelievable... thx a lot!
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