The Ten That Made Springsteen: 5. The Animals - It's My Life

Of all the British Invasions bands the Animals may have had the most profound impact on Bruce Springsteen. In particular two songs, "It's My Life" and it's predecessor "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place". It is save to say that the British Invasion saved R&R. By the time the Beatles hit America R&R had been near death. Elvis enjoyed his stint in the army and came back to churn out increasingly uninspired Pop schmaltz, Jerry Lee Lewis was caught up in the scandal for marrying his 13 year old niece, Chuck Berry was doing prison time for sleeping with a 14 year old prostitute, Buddy Holly flew into a mountain and Eddie Cochran found his maker after a tragic car accident. On top of that the payola, a practice where DJs would be offered money or other services in exchange for airplay, was made illegal in 1960. This hurt the independent record companies, instrumental in pushing R&R, considerably as this was their main means for getting their material under the attention of DJs. Famous R&R DJ was caught up in the following witch hunt and lost his radio show and job. R&R had lost one of it's primary advocates. R&R's surviving performers, like Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison, or producers as Lieber & Stoller and Phil Spector, were now striving for a more sophisticated sound. Even though it meant that R&R gained some maturity, it also meant it lost some its edge.

The British Invasion, kicked off by the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, gave R&R its balls back. An entire tilde wave of acts inspired by the sound of early R&R by Sun in Memphis, the inner city Blues from Chess records in Chicago and the upcoming Motown sound of young America flooded the US charts. Among those acts were many of Springsteen's pronounced influences. From the Rolling Stones to the Kinks, from the Yardbirds to the Who, from the Zombies to Manfred Mann, the young Springsteen sucked it all in. Barely a year after the invasion found its way to the US Springsteen was playing guitar live on stage in his first band the Castiles. Somewhere in June 1964 "Twist and Shout" was the first song Bruce performed at an audition for the band formed by Tex Vinyard, who would promptly give him a spot in the line up. Soon after that the Castiles would start playing the Jersey shore. The R&R that was spawned from the British invasion, along with Bob Dylan, would prove to be the main ingredient for Bruce's early musical education. The British invasion would soon kick start the American Garage or Frat Rock scene, Springsteen was part of that and it would form his definition of R&R and instill in him an importance of having a band. The power blues of Led Zeppelin, The Yardbirds and Cream would prompt Springsteen to shortly experiment with the genre himself in bands like Steel Mill before settling back into classic R&R and British Invasion music with the E-Street Band.

Shortly after breaking through with "Born to Run" Springsteen was confronted with the uglier side of the R&R industry. The recording of the album had hardly been a breeze and Springsteen had at first hated the results. Maybe it was fear of failing acting up, what else was he going to do but be a R&R star. On top of that Springsteen had to deal with the draw back of the hype that was created around him. Although he wanted to make it big, I don't think Springsteen had ever considered what that would mean, the hassle that would bring with it. Springsteen was uncomfortable with the adoration, going from a small town kid with a R&R band enjoying moderate success on the Jersey shore to the messiah of R&R is not an easy transition to make. His manager Mike Appel had filed suit when he saw his young protégé slip from his control with Rock critic Jon Landau now in the picture as producer. As a result Springsteen could not return to the studio. Instead he was forced to go back on the road after the emotionally exhausting "Born To Run" tour to gain some revenues to pay for his legal battles with Appel.

During what would be called the "Chicken Scratch Tour" Bruce's frustration and disillusion would increasingly start floating to the surface. Some performances on this tour would proof to be his most personal. Although Springsteen threw some new self penned material into the mix, like the "Thunderroad" negative "The Promise", some songs of Eric Burdon's the Animals proved to be a better vehicle. The Animals had first broken the charts with Josh White's "House Of The Rising Sun". Although Both Bob Dylan and Nina Simone would cover the song with success before the Animals, Burdon's dark, brooding and intense vocal made their version the one that mattered. The Animals set themselves apart in the whole British Invasion by heavily relying on keyboards instead of guitars, add to that Burdon's uninhibited baring of the Soul the attraction for Springsteen is easy to see. The Chicken scratch tour would feature two songs made popular by the Animals. First there was Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill penned "We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place". Originally this song was intended as the follow up for the Righteous Brother's immortal smash "You've Lost That Loving Feeling", to be produced by Phil Spector. Through the intervention of the Animals manager Allen Klein the song found a much better voice with Eric Burdon. The song quickly grew out to be an anthem for soldiers serving in Vietnam and for small time teens wanting escape, a sort of prototype "Born to Run". Throughout his career Springsteen performed the song a handful of times, reflecting both interpretations.

The second song Springsteen would perform was the chilling "It's My Life". Springsteen would stretch out the three minute record to a full blown fifteen minutes starting with a long spoken intro in which he revealed much of his troubled relation with his father. The best recorded performance, on bootleg that is, in my opinion the November 4th 1976 version performed at the Palladium in New York (download here). With a subdued arrangement Springsteen would describe the confrontations he would have with his father in the kitchen of their house. The piercing guitar backed with the haunting glockenspiel, saxophone and cymbals would add to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the intro. Springsteen sets the scene perfectly, we can see his old man hunched at the kitchen table, over the empty cans of beer and his cigarettes. We can feel the apprehension Springsteen must have felt entering that kitchen, dreading yet another confrontation. Here we see a young Springsteen trapped in his relation with his dad, feeling suffocated by the small town he was growing up in, scared to death he'll end up like his old man with his dreams broken. R&R was Springsteen's means of taking control, of acting out his dreams and fantasies. And as "It's My Life" moves into Springsteen's venomous reading of the song, spitting out the chorus "It's my life and I'll do what I want", its not just his father anymore he's shouting at. Bruce is also directing his frustration at Appel, who's at that moment threatening to take away his dreams and means of escape.



When the lawsuit settled Springsteen was free to record "Darkness On The Edge Of Town". The direction he took in that spoken intro of "It's My Life" would prove to be instrumental for large parts of that album. The venom of that intro and song can be found back in "Badlands", a song decidedly more confrontational than "Born To Run". The latter was a statement, with the second we find Springsteen spitting in the face of his background and maybe even Appel. It's there in his affirmation of being a man in "Promised Land". More pronounced "It's My Life" echoes in "Adam Raised a Cain", here the song and intro have simmered to adolescence angst of biblical proportions. But the traces are found in "Factory" as well. Nowhere near as venomous as the first examples "Factory" is a song of a much more reflective nature. "Factory" might be one of the key tracks in his career. It is where Springsteen let go of the battle with his father for the first time and took an effort to see where his old man was coming from. Through understanding Douglas Springsteen he got a look into the lives of working class America, a look into the lives who hadn't had the means to escape it. Through his father he became to understand what moved that segment of America better, allowing him to write about them and for them with more intelligence and authority in the years to come.

"House Of The Rising Sun" - Josh White Jr.
"We've Gotta Get Out Of This Place" - The Animals
"It's My Life" - Bruce Springsteen
"The Promise" - Bruce Springsteen

The Ten That Made Springsteen: 2. Twist and Shout - the Beatles

"the first record that I ever learned was a record called "Twist and Shout", and if it wasn’t for John Lennon, we’d all be in some place very different tonight" Springsteen December 9th 1980.

The second major influence on Springsteen were the Beatles. During 1963"Introducing the Beatles" made it into the Springsteens' household and rekindled Bruce's interest in the guitar. Although the reports are somewhat conflicting, Bruce first got a guitar when he discovered Elvis at age eight to nine. At that time Bruce's hands were to small to even begin to play. The instrument sat in the corner. After hearing the Beatles Bruce wanted to pick up the instrument again. His mother, Adele Springsteen, got him one for Christmas. Close to thirty years later Springsteen would thank his mother when he wrote "the Wish". "Twist and Shout" is allegedly the first song Bruce learned to play, at least he admitted as much during a show the night after John Lennon got shot. It is highly possible that Bruce was already strumming along when the Beatles performed the song on the Ed Sullivan show early in 1964. Lennon's clunky strumming on his Rickenbacker and his strained belting caused a tilde wave that would cement R&R and make it an art form to be reckoned with.



As Bruce recently affirmed once more during a recent interview for German television, radio was at the time Bruce grew up his main source for music. Other than today, radio in the late fifties and early sixties did bring the best in music, or at least in R&R. At the Springsteens' house hold Adele had the radio on through out the day as her escape for her dreary live into the romantic world of Pop. It is therefore likely that Springsteen heard the Isley Brother's version of "Twist and Shout", originally a lack luster early Phil Spector production for the Top Notes, well before the Beatles issued their album in the United States. The cross over success the Isley Brothers enjoyed at Wand records with the song early in 1962 directly led to them being signed at Motown. During the sixties the sound of young America was omni present on the radio and would ultimately be a big influence on Springsteen as well. But it were the Beatles that proved to be at the nucleus of what Springsteen would become.

The Beatles first broke in the US with "Please, Please Me", a mid tempo bluesy song that according to John Lennon was inspired by the singles of Roy Orbison and Bing Crosby. Seeing how heavily the Beatles success was derived from Black American culture it does seem fitting now that the Black owned VeeJay got to break the Beatles in the American market when everybody was still underestimating the impact the Beatles would have. After all what were they but a bunch of middle class white kids from Liverpool recycling American music. As an independent label VeeJay probably jumped at the opportunity to distribute to make a quick buck, as the Beatles had already scored a minor hit back home with "Love Me Do". What record companies failed to realize at the time was that with Elvis in the army and Jerry Lee Lewis caught up in the scandal surrounding his marriage to his 13 year old niece, R&R had a gaping void. The market was dominated by Black acts and what white acts there were had gone over to sugar cane pop. White teenagers really hardly had any reference, as far as they were concerned R&R was something exotic performed by wild Black acts. Suddenly there were the Beatles proving you and your friends could be in a R&R band and make it big. Exactly the type of R&R mythology the E-Street Band still thrives on today.

Aside from what is now called the British invasion, the success of The Beatles caused a tilde wave of Garage bands to storm the scene. Amongst those bands were big Springsteen influences such as The Young Rascals, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Animals, the Rolling Stones and of course the Kingsmen who immortalized "Louie Louie" and did a mean version of "Twist and Shout" themselves. Part of this scene, albeit very minor, was a band Springsteen joined in 1965, the Castilles. If there was any doubt on the influence the Beatles had on the then zit infested Springsteen one only has to look at the hairdo of choice in that particular outfit. The Castilles would prove to be Bruce's first important school of R&R. It was with this band he did his first show, wrote his first songs and would ultimately record his first single "That's What You Get" with the flip side "Baby I". The single never saw the light of day. The band performed on some local dances and even at an insane asylum, what better place for R&R to thrive, but ultimately disbanded in 1967 at the dawn of the Summer of Love.

Though the Beatles busted it all wide open for Springsteen, his influences didn't stop there. Springsteen was that kind of kid who absorbed it all, borderline obsessive an head ache to his parents, his father especially. For his live presence the Garage or Fraternity Rock bands and the great Soul acts would ultimately be more important. "Twist and Shout" would ultimately become something of a staple in his sets when he formed the E-Street Band. Notorious for their long shows from the beginning the E-Street Band was confronted with too little original material to fill out a set. Besides, Springsteen as learned with the Castilles a R&R band would go over much better when they played a few hits from the radio that would allow the crowd to really shake it on down. Maybe that's why covers would be featured so prominently near the end of the set, to really tear the house down. These were the days before Born to Run became a R&R classic in its own right, Springsteen needed to lean into the hits of others. In developing his stage act, the Isley Brother's version of "Twist and Shout", with them calming the audience down before firing it up again as to get the audience in a frenzy became the template to which the E-Street Band set their encores. The Beatles may have busted R&R wide open, over the years Springsteen would become instrumental in keeping R&R alive.

"Twist and Shout" - The Isley Brothers
"Twist and Shout" - the Kingsmen
"Twist and Shout" - Bruce Springsteen (live, august 20th 1975)

The Fleshtones: Final Destination, R&R Station!

R&R is not defined by its stars. Although undoubtedly R&R in their hey days Elvis, the Stones or Springsteen do not define the genre. The may make up for its aspirations, but they are not at the core of what R&R is. At its heart R&R is literally thousands of bands busting their chops in the garages and sordid basements all over the world, dreaming to make it in the big league one day. The Fleshtones have been at this game for about 30 years now, never escaping the basement. In a sense they are the text book example of R&R. Joe Bonomo's book "Sweat" captures their ongoing search for ever elusive fame perfectly. Anybody familiar with the band couldn't have thought of a better tittle to this autobiography. The Fleshtones have been guaranteed to give the best R&R show around for as long as they've been together. Yet the subtitle to sweat, "30 Years, 2.000 Shows, 1.000 Blue Whales, No Hits, No Sleep" gives the perfect summary of what to expect when reading "Sweat".

The Fleshtones story starts in a basement in Queens. Much to the dismay of the neighbors, some of the key members of what later would become the Fleshtones, throw legendary Blue Whale parties while churning out raggedy R&R, barely being able to master their instruments. A Blue Whale apparently is quite the toxic mix of various kinds of alcohol, preferably served in big barrels. That loud and lethal mix of three chord R&R would be a constant in the band's bumpy career. It would get them kicked out of their apartments, make them lose record companies, would find them in bloody brawls, turn them in the gutter but would also make living legends out of them. Although there are way to little people to recognize them. For the lucky few who fell under their spell, they are R&R best hidden deities. For the lucky few who stumbled onto their albums the Fleshtones have come to symbolize sweat drenched good times at their shows, roaring saxophones, screeching farfisa organs, rambling guitar riffs, raggedy soul crooning and pure and simple R&R.

The Fleshtones came smashed between the burgeoning Punk scene of NY city in the late seventies and back to basic superstars such as Bruce Springsteen. Like the latter the Fleshtones went back to the core of R&R. They found their inspiration in a time when 45 was king. The core of the Fleshtones, Peter Zaremba and Keith Streng found themselves in their love for the format. Swapping obscure 7" records filled with R&R, ranging from Hank Ballard and the Midnighters to the Strangeloves. At the time when Punk and Springsteen were about to burst wide open, R&R had strayed from its true path. The scene was marred by various horrific super groups, making guitar based intellectual drivel that had very little to do with R&R. Both Punk and Springsteen were a counter reaction to that drivel. The Ramones brought R&R back to its (barely) three minute essence in a loud cartoon like mess. Blondie did much the same, giving R&R a new sense of ice cold cool. Building on the foundations Punk's god fathers, the MC5 and the Stooges, had built, NY busted R&R wide open again.

"Sweat" unravels the mystery why the Fleshtones, despite a killer live reputation and rave reviews, never managed to reap the benefits of that movement. In a sense R&R was the Fleshtones final destination. Though you couldn't accuse the Fleshtones of being a retro act, the strand of R&R they tapped into just didn't gel with the all too self conscious Punk movement, especially in NY where Punk was as much high fashion as it was a new form of musical rebellion. The Fleshtones simply didn't thunder down the same tracks the Punk movement lays down. In Bonomo's excellent write up of that scene it soon becomes clear that the Fleshtones' brand of good times and party hard R&R "danced" to a different beat than the Punk movement where shaking it up was branded out of style. Punk rebelled against the drivel of the day, but wasn't about to put the fun back in R&R. The very fuel that kept the Fleshtones running.

At the same time the Fleshtones never made R&R any grander than it was. Unlike Springsteen who infused his brand of R&R with big dreams and a lingering sense of melancholy. Where R&R was the door to ultra coolness for the Punks, to Springsteen it was the door to something bigger, an escape for his small town background. R&R as a means, R&R as a promise, not an end. To the Fleshtones R&R was the final stop. They live to recreate the exitement on the records of Larry Williams, The Kingsmen, Lee Dorsey and Link Wray. The Fleshtones never aspired to anything bigger, be it a fleeting sense of cool or the realization of bigger dreams. The Fleshtones simply wanted to be R&R and indulge themselves in the accompanying lifestyle of sweaty parties deep into the night, raving live shows, sex & drugs.



It's not that the Fleshtones never dreamed of making it bigger. Bonomo's book is drenched with frustration. The Fleshtones were chasing that same all to elusive dream of R&R stardom. Save for in Paris, where they were treated like R&R royalty throughout the years, they would find that dream always more than an arm's length out of reach. Although their career seemed to be off on a promising start when they got signed at Punk legend's Marty Thau's Red Star label in 1978, the band soon hit that brick wall they would ram in to on various occasions throughout their career. Red Star folded after the recording sessions, the Fleshtones' "American Beat" single fell of radar and their debut album never properly saw light of day. American Beat would be recorded in 1984, complete with a video for MTV, but the Fleshtones never fitted the video medium.



The Fleshtones would be forever stuck in the basement their story is defined by bad business decisions, botched album preparations, odd production decisions and sometimes disastrous tours drenched in and caused by a haze of alcohol and drugs. Although "Sweat" is superbly written, Joe's subject is what makes the book hard to stomach at times. I don't think that there are a lot of R&R biographies out there that are as honest and confrontational as "Sweat". Even though Joe is clearly a fan, he doesn't spare the band. Peter's and Keith's erratic moods are thrown right in their faces, they come off as troopers of R&R yet seldom as heroes. Through out the book you keep waiting for that release of success and career highs that are trade mark to most R&R biographies. That release never comes. Instead there's this uneasy sense of "what if.......". You can't help but escape the notion that with a little more luck and discipline the Fleshtones would have been inducted in the R&R Hall of fame by now, doing high priced reunion tours. In stead the Flsehtones stumble their way through their career, seemingly forever one step behind or beyond the zeit geist. Never really fitting into the Punk movement, too raggedy to go up against the super stars of the eighties, too upbeat for the chronically depressed Grunge movement and finally too old for the recent Garage revival.

Yet despite all the hard knocks and set backs the Fleshtones have managed to keep that train rolling down the track. They are still living it up on the road, albeit with moderate amounts of drugs and alcohol these days, garanteed to give you one of the best R&R shows you'll ever witness. They seem to have found a stable record deal at Yep Roc-Records, issuing some of the best albums in their career. A new Fleshtones album is slated for early next year. I don't think it will make any dents in the charts. Meaning that quite a few people will deny themselves some of the finest R&R there is to find.

"Theme From the Vindicators"
"Tribute To Hank Ballard"
"God Dammit"
"Good Good Crack"

Simply Toussaint

I wish I could say Allen Toussaint doesn't need any introduction. But for some reason he still does. Despite his '98, long overdue, induction into the R&R Hall of Fame, most people were very much in the dark on who Allen was when Elvis Costello decided to record with him last year for "The River In Reverse". Allen Toussaint doesn't need any introduction amongst Soul fans, not even amongst the more casual admirer of the genre. But beyond that people hardly have a clue of who he is, hardly have a notion of the vastness of his legacy. With "The River in Reverse" a critical success, commercially even being relatively successful, there has been some new attention to the man. His albums have finally all been re released hopefully leading to more of a notion again of Allen Toussaint's influence on the development of popular music. On top of that, Costello's and Toussaint's successful tour has been released on DVD. Allowing people to see the man live in action. A rarity since Allen has always been an artist that preferred to be in the shadows of R&B's greatest.



Toussaint, at first glance, is a perfect example of how the influence of Black artists on R&R generally seem to be forgotten. The sense of importance fading over time. Allen Toussaint was essential in developing the sound of New Orleans. A sound that eventually spread out through artists like Dr. John, the Band and the Rolling Stones to a world wide audience. The brilliance of those acts is heralded, the origin of their brilliance a fading memory. In the case of Allen Toussaint this might not be so surprising. He mostly created behind the scenes. Allen wrote, produced, arranged and played for the greats of Soul music. At the age of 18 Allen was already a very accomplished piano player, mimicking the style of the great Professor Longhair. Soon Toussaint found himself filling in for no other than Fats Domino in the studio. Fats being mostly on the road, where the real money was, hardly had the time to record. Toussaint would play the piano on the studio track laid down in New Orleans for Fats, the instrumental would then be sent to a studio in the neighborhood of where Fats was on tour at that moment, and Domino would simply do the vocal. To this day it's uncertain on which tracks Fats played himself and what tracks Toussaint delivered for him . His studio work would eventually lead to an album of instrumentals under the name of Tousan for the RCA label. Although the album failed to chart and Toussaint was dropped from the label, it gave him enough clout to become a producer.

Toussaint's work at Minit records in the early sixties is an essential part of R&B history. Toussaint wrote numerous hits for the likes of Lee Dorsey ("Ya Ya"), Irma Thomas ("Ruler Of My Heart"), Chris Kenner ("Land Of A 1000 Dances"), Benny Spellman ("Lipstick Traces") or Aaron Neville ("Over You"). Meanwhile "Fortune Teller"recorded by Jessie Hill would become a staple for a great variety of British Invasion acts, such as The Who and the Rolling Stones. Minit and Toussaint defined the sound of New Orleans as much Stax did for Memphis or Motown for Detroit. Toussaint did as much to create what we now call Soul as those two labels did. It is therefore highly ironic that his biggest commercial success came when he let bubble gum cocktail Pop artist use his "Whipped Cream" on what would become one of the most successful albums of the sixties. Believe it or not, but at the time Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass Band outsold even the Beatles. The instrumental would go on to be used as the trailer for the immensely popular TV show "The Dating Game". The royalty checks of that one song must have softened the lack of commercial recognition for his own records later on down the road a bit.

After his service in the army Toussaint went on to produce a second string of impressive hits with his own production company Sansu, formed with partner Marshall Sehorn in the early sixties. At Sansu his sound would become decidedly funkier. Classics 45s like Lee Dorsey's "Ride Your Pony" or "Working In The Coal Mine" are floor fillers even today. On Sansu Allen also started his collaboration with the Meters, a funk band whose influence on the genre is trumped by James Brown only. Even though it is very possible that Toussaint's work with Dorsey and the Meters is where Brown found the raw material for his polyrhythmic revolution. Brown may claim otherwise, but nothing is born in a vacuum. Brown ants came crawling in his pants all the way down from New Orleans to Augusta Georgia. In turn the sound of the Meters was highly indebted to the earlier mentioned Professor Longhair, who created that mix of R&B and Rumba that became so typical for the New Orleans sound. The history of Funk originates in New Orleans and beyond. It was born out of a sweaty fusion of styles and Toussaint was one of its main ingredients.

Finally in 1968, after recording so many brilliant sides for others, Toussaint started to explore his own voice at Bell records with a string of three singles, amongst which the upbeat civil rights anthem "We The People" and his own version of the Lee Dorsey hit "Get Out My Life, Woman". Together with the album that followed those 45s, "Toussaint", these singles our now re-released on yet another great Kent records compilation, "What Is Success: The Scepter & Bell Recordings". "Toussaint" was somewhat of a mixed affair. It became a showcase of his talents. Mixing instrumentals with new materials and re-recordings of a few songs he had earlier produced for Lee Dorsey. Especially when you hear the latter you can't help but wonder why he didn't record for himself sooner than he did. Maybe it has something to do with his demeanor. Toussaint has always been a quiet force, lacking the gusto and bravura that is so common in the world of Soul. Allen is a man of a gentle smile sooner than a roaring laugh, more at ease in the back ground it seems. But as "Toussaint" demonstrates he has a voice to be reckoned with. Allen's delivery is gentle yet commanding, somewhat distant but simmering with contained emotion through out. Toussaint continuously sounds warm and gentle, even on his more confrontational songs.

"Toussaint" is filed with gems. There's the painful "From a Whisper To A Scream", after which the album would later be named when released in the UK. "From a Whisper" has emotions simmering to a boil. The song finds us looking into a relationship falling apart because of blindness. Subtle guitar work underscores the desperation of one of the partners as he franticly tries to make amends, yet we feel it all falling apart. "Whisper" would later be brilliantly covered by Esther Phillips. The instrument "Pickles" lightens things up a bit after that, smooth, seductive and sexy. But also a demonstration of Toussaint's forte as a pianist. Allen was never the musician to let it all hang out, always subtly supporting the songs he recorded for others, always in the service of. On "Pickles" we finally hear how great a pianist he really is. The re-cut of Dorsey's "Everything I Do Is Gonh Be Funky" is every bit as catchy as Lee's version. The album's center piece "What is Success" ask some very confrontational questions. It might be Toussaint's most personal song on the album. But it doesn't stay that way. "What is Success" is one of those songs that forces you to reevaluate your own life. The song is a mirror to your own Soul, questioning you on your own personal happiness. It is one of those songs that, to a willing ear, can kick start change in one's life.

For some reason Kent chose to mix up the playing order of the original album. Mixing the Bell singles with the album. This does take away some of the power the original album held. When "Toussaint" was originally released on Tiffany, "From a Whisper to a Scream" for example was followed by "Chocking Kind", adding to the claustrophobic feel relations can sometimes have. I'd like to advise using the program function on your CD player to restore the album to its original glory. Even though "Toussaint" failed to make a dent on the charts, it did take Allen's career to the next level. Bonnie Rait soon covered "What is Success" on her classic "Streetlights" album. Allen went on to produce for and with the Band, Doctor John, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney. Toussaint gained the recognition he deserved amongst his peers at least. "Toussaint" led to him being signed at the Warner subsidiary Reprise, where he recorded two of Soul's finest albums, "Life, Love and Faith" and "Southern Nights". Both albums were re-issued last year as well.



"What is Success"
"Pickles"
"We The People"