October 29, 2009

Lost Classics: Allen Toussaint's Southern Nights

Southern Nights is an American classic in every way: endearingly soulful, genre-defyingly experimental and every bit as funky today as it was back in 1975. Allen Toussaint may have been more commercially successful when he worked with other musicians (see Labelle's "Lady Marmalade"), but with Southern Nights he put his own indelible stamp on popular music. It's a shame that Glen Campbell's cover of "Southern Nights" is what climbed to number one on the charts and not Toussaint's original—a song he wrote about evenings spent on his family's front porch in Louisiana. But while often overlooked, the record nevertheless still gets its due in certain circles. Most recently, My Morning Jacket's Jim James credited it as an inspiration for his band's record Evil Urges (see "Sec Walkin"). With the Meters as Toussaint's backing band, the record simply plays itself.

Allen Toussaint - "When The Party's Over" (from Southern Nights)

Buy it at Insound!Allen Toussaint

1 comment:

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