The Allen Toussaint Interview

Life Is a Carnival By Allen Toussaint It was all about Robbie Robertson. He was the one who found me in New Orleans. I didn’t know who he was. Even when I went up to meet him, I didn’t know who he was or who The Band were yet. The way he found me was that he called the Sheriff’s Department. I don’t know how that tied in, but the sheriff found me, saying, “This Robbie Robertson wants to get ahold of you.” I thought, “Wow, the sheriff calls. I hope he hurries up and explains the nature of the call....” Robbie wanted me to come up and write some horn arrangements for a couple of songs, so I went and met him at Gramercy Park Hotel in New York. “Life Is a Carnival” was the song, and I got right to it. When I first heard the song, it was quite different music. Not just different from my music, but different from other things that were out there. When I first heard that intro, it was hard to place exactly where the One was. I thought, “How wonderful! Let me hurry up and start writing before I find out where the One is, because then I might become stock and I don’t want to be stock.” For the Academy of Music shows, I came up to NY, but my bag had gotten lost at the airport. Someone picked up the wrong bag. When I got all the way to Woodstock, I discovered I had the wrong bag. There was no way to retract that. So they gave me a cabin out in the woods, in the trees, all windows with no shades on them, a long room in the back. I put on my pajamas and began writing these arrangements over and over again. That’s the best thing that could have happened, because I was writing these arrangements in the place where the songs were created. It snowed outside. It was absolutely beautiful. Identities Become Unimportant Technology has had a lot to do with everything about the cycles of the music. Even tuning the instrument, the tempos of the instrument. Television and the media could turn the whole world onto the same thing at the same time. The other element was putting everyone into one great big bowl, as opposed to this section and that section. You could turn it all on at the same time. Sometimes music identities become unimportant. Worldly trends or national trends became more important than regionalism. These things are not better or worse. Being born and raised in New Orleans, I was full of the nourishment and feel of the music seeping up out of the streets. We did have a gentlemen who was way ahead of the others named Dave Bartholomew. We were just kids, and Dave was a bit older and already in business. We heard a lot of gospel, and as a boy, especially the Baptist Sanctified: that was magical. It was so rich, because it was done for its own purpose, not to be sold or anything like that. I heard a lot of hillbilly music on the radio. When I started to play the piano, I didn’t specialize in any one genre. I had a definite love for boogie woogie and blues. Late at night I’d hear a lot of blues on the radio. It was a very rich musical scene. The music of the Mardi Gras Indians wasn’t made to be commercial. They were making it because of the subject matter. It was coming strictly from the soul with no ulterior motive about “whether I’m going to make a hit or not.” They just sang because that’s the direction the spirit moved them. Soul and Spirit Lowell George was the epitome of the love in music. His love and respect for the music were just phenomenal and so upfront in every moment, every time. I don’t know anyone on the planet who was any hipper than Lowell George. He also had the wisdom of a much older being. He was a kind-hearted guy: it was all about his heart and love first. There was a moment in my life when we were on tour together right after Southern Nights came out. I had a real down moment, and he gave me some comforting words that I so badly needed at just the right time. I will forever respect him for being such a young and hip guy with such soul and spirit. Read Your Heart Even tuning the instrument has changed music. You need a meter to get things done, when before you used to read your heart. Some of the stuff that you found out in the tuning is what made you you. After a while you begin to look at a needle on a meter. I’m not saying it would be good to play out of tune, but out of tune isn’t always “out of tune.” Once you begin to operate on this very thin straight line and “now we’re ready to go,” you’re ready to go because that meter dictated that you’re ready to go. It is correct that it is totally in tune, but if you’re not careful your life of music can become that way. It has become a thin rule, and the tempos never move, and it’s more important to stay in tempo, not to speed up a little here or a little there. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, I’m just saying it happened.

Added 8 Apr 2026