Preservation Hall Jazz Band - 50th Anniversary

Allen Toussaint (born January 14, 1938) is an American musician, songwriter and record producer and one of the most influential figures in New Orleans R&B.

Allen Toussaint has crossed many paths in his illustrious 40 years plus career in music. He has produced, written for, arranged, had his songs covered by, and performed with music giants The Judds, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Patti LaBelle, Mac "Dr. John" Rebannac, Aaron and Art Neville, Joe Cocker, The (original) Meters, Glen Campbell, The Band, Little Feat, The Rolling Stones, Devo, Ernie K-Doe, Lee Dorsey, Irma Thomas, Etta James, Ramsey Lewis, Eric Gale and the countless others.

His songs/productions have been featured in numerous films, including but not limited to, Casino, Moulin Rouge, and Maid in Manhattan. He served as musical director for the off Broadway play, Staggerlee, which won the prestigious Outer Circle Critics Award.

Toussaint career began in his early twenties when hired by the local Minit Records to supervise its recording activities, awaiting their arrival of Harold Batiste. Toussaint quickly accumulated an amazing string of hits for the label, producing, writing, arranging and often performing on tracks by Ernie K-Doe, Irma Thomas, Art and Aaron Neville, Chris Kenner, and Benny Spellman, putting his signature New Orleans sound on the map, an obvious continuation of the Domino/Bartholomew era.


Toussaint got his shot as a solo artist with a record for RCA. Two of his earliest tunes, “Java,” which became a mega-hit for trumpeter Al Hirt and “Whipped Cream," the Herb Alpert hit, became instrumental standards. Toussaint then went onto team up with Lee Dorsey, who was often backed by the funky rhythm section known as The Meters, turning out a string of hits that included Working in the Coalmine; Holy Cow; Ride Your Pony; and many others. Working in the Coalmine was then recorded by The Judds; Yes We Can became a smash hit by The Pointer Sisters; Sneaking Sally thru the Alley was recorded by both Robert Palmer and Ringo Starr. Toussaint continued to put his mark on the music business with his arrangements on LaBelle's hit, Lady Marmalade, continuing on with Patti through the early stages of her solo career. After establishing himself as one of the greatest songwriters, accredited to him by BMI Music, Toussaint was honored with a Grammy nominee for 1977's song of the year, Southern Night, performed by Glen Campbell. Years later Southern Night was featured on the MCA's Grammy nominated compilation CD, Country, Rhythm, and Blues, where Toussaint teamed up with Country legend Chet Atkins, to perform his hit.

His career has spanned over 40 years, all adding up to include being inducted into the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame." After years of writing, producing, recording, arranging, performing and conducting, Toussaint's music is continuing on. Several of his songs are commercial themes, Yes We Can (Slim Fast) and Working in the Coalmine (WalMart). His productions are continuously sampled, introducing it to an entire new arena of listeners (Louie--ODB and Lady Marmalade (Christinia Augillara, Lil Kim, Missy Elliot). Songs Java and Southern Night have both been credited and cited for over 2 million airings. The most recent of Toussaint’s long list of honors and accolades is the Grammy nominated pop/vocal album of the year, The River in Reverse; Toussaint’s collaboration with Elvis Costello. As Mr. Toussaint Hurrican Katrina was the best booking agent and with that he has started to tour and perform before a whole new audience. The truly amazing part is there's more to come...

Formed some six and a half decades ago, The Blind Boys of Alabama are the Iron Men of the music industry. They predate Elvis, Little Richard and Al Green yet they are still at the top of the gospel charts and have earned impressive honors by winning consecutive Grammy Awards for the past fours years. Recently, they've recorded moving renditions of songs by everyone from Tom Waits to Prince side-by-side with their traditional material, and appeared as guests on record and on stage with an equally diverse array of artists, from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper.

It's funny how a record comes together," says Del McCoury—and with fifty years of music-making already under his belt, he's a man who knows what he's talking about. "You get one song from here, another from there, and then you get one from out of left field, and you don't even know where it came from. This record, it was really fun to do, and I think the reason is because the songs were so different."

Del's not kidding about that "different" part, and it's a big reason why Family Circle, the latest on his own McCoury Music label, is so special—it's not only an enjoyable, exciting set of music, but an unmistakable sign that, at the age of 70, he's more ready than ever for a musical challenge. Others in his shoes might have stuck with the award-winning tried and true so brilliantly embodied in the epic Celebrating 50 Years Of Del McCoury, the McCoury Music boxed set issues earlier this year, but not this bluegrass legend. He may own Grammy awards and International Bluegrass Music Association trophies by the case full, he may play to enthusiastic audiences from Conan and Letterman to Bonnaroo, the New Orleans Jazz Fest and Merlefest, and guest with artists like the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band and country superstar Dierks Bentley, but Del's not resting on his laurels; it's just not the McCoury way.

That way has led Del through an unparalleled career in bluegrass. A product of the rowdy Baltimore bluegrass club scene in the late 50s, he jumped onto the national stage when he joined the music's original band, Bill Monroe And His Blue Grass Boys in 1962, and though his memorable stint with the Country Music Hall of Famer was followed by several decades' worth of part-time band leadership as he worked logging industry day jobs and raised a family, his stature grew steadily within the tightly knit bluegrass community. When he moved to Nashville in the early 1990s—his now-grown sons in tow and in his band—to devote himself to a full-time career, he was rewarded with a flood of acclaim from that community, including an unsurpassed string of IBMA Entertainer of the Year awards. At the same time, his blend of musical integrity and open-mindedness, fierce intensity and easygoing charm and willingness to look for new opportunities to present his crackerjack Del McCoury Band to the world at large began to bring him new audiences, aided by public admiration from popular fellow artists like Elvis Costello and Phish.

By the time Celebrating 50 Years Of Del McCoury came out, then, Del McCoury, along with sons Ronnie (mandolin) and Rob (banjo), long-time fiddler Jason Carter and bass player Alan Bartram had hit a groove that was both immensely successful and artistically rewarding—and yet it was at precisely that point, as Del began to think about his next album, that his sense of adventure began to take the upper hand. "I didn't really have anything in mind," he recalls with a trademark chuckle. "I just started looking through things I had that people sent me—people send me stuff all the time, I've got a box full of it. So got the box out and started listening, and I was surprised at some of the stuff that I found."

Among the songs that weren't surprising were entries from favorites like Shawn Camp, whose "My Love Will Not Change" has become a favored closer or encore on shows, and Billy and Terry Smith—Del's been recording songs of Billy's since the early 90s—but even there, it turned out there was room for a twist. "I didn't write any of the songs this time," he notes, "but it's a funny thing: I really liked that song of Billy and Terry's, but I got to thinking that it was a little short, so I wrote another verse for it and asked Billy if it was ok, and he said, sure—and then I wound up doing the same thing with a song that Jim Lauderdale had sent me. They had a different ending on the song, and it was kind of short, and I thought it would be better if I just came up with another verse for it. And then I saw Jim at a show, and I said, you know, Jim, I wrote another verse to that song and recorded it, I hope you don't mind. And he listened to it and said, yeah—it matches!"

Others given the familiar McCoury touch include West Virginian Alan Johnston's "Sweet Appalachia," the Alaskan story, "White Pass Railroad," a simmering "Revenuer's Blues," written by son Rob with long-time family friend—and country hit songwriter—Ronnie Bowman, and a nifty remake of a 40s movie song, "I Remember You," that Del got from country singer Slim Whitman, who grazed the charts twice with it. "Of course, I remember hearing Slim do it years ago," he says, "but then I think I heard it again on the radio. And sometimes, if I hear a song, I'll write the title down on a little piece of paper and stick it on the wall in the stairway at the house, and I had that one stuck on there. So I told my grandson, Jacob, see if you can get this song on the computer—and he downloaded it, and that's how I learned it."

For most of the rest, though, it's another story. "I kind of had to work on some of those, because they were so different from what I'm used to doing," Del admits with a laugh. "Like 'Does My Ring Burn Your Finger.' Someone told me it was a hit for Lee Ann Womack, but I heard it done by [soul legend] Solomon Burke on some kind of compilation of things by different artists—we had a cut on there, too—and I really liked it, but it took me a while to get, because the melody is so different. And then there's that song of Joe New's—I had met him back when he lived in Nashville, before he moved back to California, we did one of his songs a couple of records ago, and there's two of his this time, and one of them is called 'Barbaric Splendor.' I wasn't too sure about it at first, but the more I listened to it, the more I really liked it—there's a lot of mystique in that song, and that's the reason I recorded it—but that took some work, too."

Then there was "Hello Lonely—a "mystery song" that Del decided to record nearly at the last minute. "At the very end, I got to thinking, there aren't too many harmony songs on this album, I'd better see if there's something that needs some harmony vocals. And there was a CD sitting on my kitchen counter that didn't have a thing written on it—I didn't know whose it was at all. But I played it, and there was a real slow song on there that I thought, that'd be good for harmony at a fast tempo. And when I got to the studio, I got it out, and I was singing it, and Ronnie was starting to learn it, and then Jason walked in and said oh, that's my buddy there—I went to high school with the guy who wrote that. And I said, so that's whose song it is!"

Perhaps most surprising –at least for those who know him only by reputation as a keeper of the bluegrass flame—is Del's soulful cover of Mark Knopfler's "Prairie Wedding," given a wistful reading that, he says, came about mostly by accident. "My bass player, Alan Bartram, brought that in, and I remember, the guys were working it up in a hotel room somewhere when we were on the road. And they were doing it from listening to his record, which was in the key of C, and he sang it pretty low there. Well, I thought, I don't think I can sing it that low—but they've got the parts worked out already, so maybe I better sing it in that key! Because, you know, I really did like the song."

Yet while some might think that Del's new reach for left-of-center material was spurred by the younger generation of McCourys, and though he's quick to give son Ronnie credit for the instrumental arrangements—"all of the guys are good at that, but Ronnie usually takes the lead; he'll suggest things like all the playing the melody together that you hear in 'White Pass Railroad'"—Family Circle is arguably one of Del's most hands-on albums. "I guess I produced it," he says in a typically modest way. "With Ron and Robbie and Jason and Alan doing more on their own now with the Travelin' McCourys, I pretty much put this together on my own—and I really like it. I didn't start out to do something different, but that's how it turned out!"

Indeed, Family Circle is likely to turn more than a few heads, and open more than a few new ears. For while his love for the hard drive and mournful wail of classic bluegrass burns as brightly as ever, Del McCoury's still got a passion for great songs, no matter where they lead him—and a way of somehow still making them his own that's as fresh today as it was 50 years ago.

What do Givers give? It is an often overlooked, yet all too important question concerning these starry-eyed melodi-mystic rebels. They take hearts, this much is known. They certainly take away any restraint one may have had concerning revealing dance moves. They take time, they take care, they take naps, they STEAL attention… but what do they GIVE?! I stare intently between songs, through lasers, feathers, sweat, confetti, paint, at these friends who i must now call people as they are at once also strangers in the throes of the prismauditory hallucination that is their music. The colors, tones, shapes, and threads, up-beat, weaving, psych-folk, meshing, afro-delic, beckoning my mind out into the open, much as a dream catcher above one’s bed. Then it hits me: Givers give dreams. Seeing them perform is to be overloaded with blissful information. More than one’s mind could ever hope to descramble and classify within any 24-hour period. Their music is not only music; it is motivation, inspiration, and a celebration of the world around us. To experience it is to be changed forever, for the better; to know that you yourself have more to Give. -LastFM

“The new record, Circuital, is named after the title song,” explains Jim James, of My Morning Jacket’s sixth studio album. “On that song I sing about ending up in the same place where you started out. And that makes a lot of sense for this album… I hate the phrase ‘going back to our roots’, but for this record we came home and made it in Kentucky. And it just felt a lot like it did when we were first starting out...”

My Morning Jacket formed at the tail-end of the 1990s, when Jim James’ group Month Of Sundays folded, and he began recording new songs with ex-members of local rockers Winter Death Club. At Above The Cadillac Studios – in reality, a shed on the grounds of guitarist Johnny Quaid’s grandparents’ farm – the group took shape, drawing upon their rich knowledge of classic rock, country, soul and psychedelia, and spinning these influences into fresh, life-affirming rock’n’roll and aching, haunting balladry. My Morning Jacket made their early reputation off the three sublime albums they recorded at Above The Cadillac – 1999’s The Tennessee Fire, 2001’s At Dawn and 2003’s It Still Moves – and legendary live shows that proved here was a truly magical group for the ages. It Still Moves marked a move to the major labels for the group, while its heavy touring cycle prompted the amicable exit of Quaid and keyboardist Danny Cash from the ranks.

Album number four, 2004’s Z, was a brave step outside of the group’s comfort zone, recorded in New York’s Catskill Mountains with the aid of respected producer John Leckie (Stone Roses, Spiritualized), and with new members guitarist Carl Broemel and keyboard player Bo Koster making their debut appearances on tape, their skilful performances swiftly proving themselves cut from the same cloth as their bandmates. The album also saw James stretch his song-writing chops beyond the familiar reference points of My Morning Jacket’s earlier work, an impulse he furthered with 2008’s Evil Urges, which scattered the group’s ragged rockers and tender, keening ballads with subtly sensual grooves and tracks that sounded like heavy metal laced with psychedelic soul and feral funk. Both albums helped grow ever-swelling following, a grass-roots movement that’s spread like wildfire in the wake of their many long and glorious tours, and already-legendary shows like their 4-hour 2008 Bonnaroo head-lining performance, which captured one of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll groups at their most masterful and alive.

Circuital is the first album the group have made in Kentucky since It Still Moves, recording it in the gymnasium of a Louisville church under the aegis of producer Tucker Martine. Jim bonded with Martine while recording backing vocals for Laura Veirs’ 2010 album July Flame, which Martine, Veirs’ husband, also produced. “We hit it off right away,” says Martine, who later helped set up a home studio in James’ Louisville home, where he’s working on a future solo album. “As a group, we’ve always been hoping to find ‘our guy’,” says James. “And we’ve worked with some great people, but we’d wanted to find someone who was, like, ‘one of us’. And Tucker fit in perfectly, and he had a whole set of skills we didn’t possess. He’s real smart, and fun to be with.”

Converting the gymnasium into a recording studio wasn’t an easy task, says Martine, but the extra effort yielded unique results. “It’s a big project, to record in a space like that. It has so many limitations, compared to working in a modern studio, but they were limitations we were all drawn to. The focus became on communicating and interacting, and not on what modern trickery we could use later.” At the group’s insistence, the album was recorded live, with few overdubs;
James’ vocals were recorded at the same time as the band’s performances. “We were going for full takes; we wanted everybody running back to the control room afterwards, freaking out and wanting to listen back to the take,”remembers James. “We’re A Band, and so I want our records to be made that way, with us being A Band. Capturing performances, that intangible thing between us, some kind of soul. When friends have been through as much as we have together… It’s not something I could even describe. We wanted to capture the sound of us just playing, being in the same place and just feeding off each other.”

“This is truly a great band, and they play so well together, it would be wrong not to document that,” adds Martine. For James, the new album finds a sweet understanding between the questing creative impulses of Evil Urges and the more familiar feel of My Morning Jacket’s earlier work. “The album’s like a rolling, gentle soundwave,” he says, in comparison to Evil Urges’ jagged edges. “But I don’t feel Circuital sounds like our earlier recordings. We’re always trying to go in new directions.” His memories of the sessions for Circuital are only fond. “There was no AC, no-one had their laptops. We recorded everything on tape. It was like, we’re just who we are, with what we have with us at the moment, and that’s all we have. It was a beautiful thing, and it really cemented what we all mean to each other, as people and as a band. We’ve learned, slowly over the years, how to function more healthily, I guess, so we don’t all combust. Making this record, it felt like our friendship was only strengthened.”

A protégé of legendary songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark, Steve Earle quickly became a master storyteller in his own right, with his songs being recorded by Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Travis Tritt, The Pretenders, Joan Baez and countless others.

The new album has been met with overwhelming critical acclaim including a 3 1⁄2 out of 4 Star review in the Los Angeles Times while the New York Post stated that the album was "American roots music at its best" in their 3 1⁄2 out of 4 star review. I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive was released alongside his debut novel of the same name (published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The novel imagines the troubled life of Doc Ebersole as he is haunted by the ghost of his former patient and friend, Hank Williams. Patti Smith stated, "Steve Earle brings to his prose the same authenticity, poetic spirit and cinematic energy he projects in his music. I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive is like a dream you can't shake, offering beauty and remorse, redemption in spades." Recognized as an actor from the overwhelmingly acclaimed series The Wire, Steve Earle is also a cast member on HBO's acclaimed series Treme, currently in its second season.

Steve Earle lives in New York City with his wife, the critically acclaimed singer songwriter, Allison Moorer, and their one year old son, John Henry.

Music is in his blood. Fusing the folk styles of his family heritage with contemporary rock-n-roll, Tao Seeger’s music breaks all barriers of traditional folk bringing a unique and distinctive sound to the table.

Born in Poughkeepsie, New York, Tao is the eldest grandchild of folk singer Pete Seeger. Tao spent his childhood in Nicaragua where his father, Emilio Rodriguez, was a war correspondent, making documentary films about the Sandinista revolution. With little access to pop music in Nicaragua, Tao cherished his AC/DC and Metallica cassettes as well as the two tapes he had of his grandfather’s music. Surrounded by the Nicaraguan revolution, here began the merging of rock'n'roll and folk music that would come to influence Tao in his musical career.

After nine years in Nicaragua, Tao returned to the United States and moved into the home of his grandparents, Pete and Toshi Seeger. Listening to his grandfather perform, Tao became frustrated with his grandfather’s poor Spanish and approached him. The legendary banjo picker turned the criticism around saying, “Well if it’s so bad, why don’t you help me out?” In 1986, a fourteen year old Tao joined his grandpa Pete at a Hiroshima Day rally in front of an audience of more than half a million people in Japan for their first concert together. Thus began the musical partnership between Tao and Pete that would take them around the world together.

Tao is co-founder of the folk/rock groups RIG (Rodriguez/Irion/Guthrie) with Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion and The Mammals with Mike & Ruthy Merenda. The Tao Seeger Band is a revolving cast of wonderful characters including Laura Cortese on fiddle and vocals, Jason Crosby on keyboards, Charlie Rose on pedal steel and banjo, Jake Silver on bass and Robin MacMillan on drums. Their music can be described as a fusion of rock'n'roll and folk with a “rootsy and psychedelic” sound. The newly formed band has performed at an impressive lineup of events including the 2009 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Newport Folk Festival and The Clearwater Concert: Creating the Next Generation of Environmental Leaders at Madison Square Garden where they stood in as the evening’s house band. Together they have also toured throughout the northeast and Denmark. You can catch the Tao Seeger Band on tour this summer and at the Mountain Jam festival, Hudson River Clearwater festival, Winnipeg Folk festival, Vancouver Folk festival and the Newport Folk festival.

In 2007, Tao was featured in the Emmy winning documentary film, Pete Seeger - The Power of Song, where he performed at Carnegie Hall with Arlo Guthrie in his annual Thanksgiving concert. In January 2009, Tao performed at the inaugural concert for Barack Obama alongside Bruce Springsteen and Pete in front of over 1.5 million people. An exciting day but the chilling temperature proved to be too much for his guitar, which cracked during their inaugural performance. However, Tao will always consider it his lucky guitar because the President Elect took the time to sign it, “This Land Is Your Land – Barack Obama.” The May 2009 performance at Madison Square Garden was filmed for the PBS series Great Performances and will be made into a DVD that will be released later this year. Recently Tao was approached by Sesame Street to write and record two original songs for Plaza Sesamo, the Spanish edition of Sesame Street, and star in their music videos.

Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews' is a rare artist who can draw both the unqualified respect of jazz legends and deliver a high-energy rock show capable of mesmerizing international rock stars and audiences alike. With such an unprecedented mix of rock, funk, jazz, hip-hop and soul, he had to create his own name to describe his signature sound: Supafunkrock!

"Mos Def is a name that I built and cultivated over the years, it's a name that the streets taught me, a figure of speech that was given to me by the culture and by my environment, and I feel I've done quite a bit with that name. but it's time to expand and move on."