Friday, October 18, 2019

Various Artists - Covered: Allen Toussaint, Volume 3: 1974-2009

This is the third and final album in my "Covered" series of Allen Toussaint songs. If you're not familiar with his music, give it a try. It's mostly fun, good time music that will get you dancing.

All the songs on this album are solid in my opinion, but there are fewer hits than on the previous two albums. That said, there are some big hits here, especially "Southern Nights," which was a number one song for Glen Campbell. Most of the rest are songs that have been covered by many different artists, and these just happen to be the versions that I like the best.

I generally avoid including different version of the same song within one artist's "Covered" series. But I couldn't resist putting Devo's version of "Working in a Coalmine" here, even though I included the original hit version by Lee Dorsey in the first volume. Devo drastically changed the song into a new wave hit, so I think it's different enough to merit inclusion. By the way, the Judds transformed it a different way and had a country hit with it a few years later.

Toussaint was a much desired producer all through the 1970s, and many artists he produced did some of his songs. But his kind of music went out of fashion in the 1980s, so you see a sudden lack of songs after 1981. Happily though, his music came back into vogue in the 2000s. This was helped by the fact that, after the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Toussaint began performing at benefits for New Orleans, and found that he liked it, and audiences liked it, so he became a much more active concert performer from that point to the end of his life in 2015. This revival is represented here by a few more of his songs done in the 2000s, including two from an album he did together with Elvis Costello.

01 Play Something Sweet [Brickyard Blues] (Frankie Miller)
02 Going Down Slowly (Pointer Sisters)
03 What Do You Want the Boy to Do (Bonnie Raitt)
04 Southern Nights (Glen Campbell)
05 Sweet Touch of Love (Etta James)
06 Night People (Robert Palmer)
07 Tears, Tears and More Tears (Nicolette Larson)
08 Working in a Coal Mine (Devo)
09 Broken Promise Land (Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint)
10 International Echo (Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint)
11 Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further (Ida Sand)
12 Victims of the Darkness (Tommy Castro)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fAYzY

The cover art photo dates from 2009.

1 comment:

  1. Another "missing link" on Zippyshare. And while I've been loving your "Covered" compilations, I finally found a track I will not "replace," but add a second version to, on my copy of this album once you re-upload it--Frankie Miller's "Brickyard Blues" is good, and so are the versions by Three Dog Night and B. J. Thomas(!). But I give priority of place for that song to Maria Muldaur--she absolutely knocks it out of the park--so if you've never heard her do it, you should!

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