My Affair With Allen Toussaint’s “Southern Nights”

When I put the CD on the box, the Film Babe said she’d been wondering when I’d finally get around to playing it. She knows that Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights is one of my very favorite albums. And she knows that I only play it when it’s hot and sweaty outside. It’s a summertime thing.

I had no answer for the delay in savoring it this this year. The mind is a strange thing. That it isn’t officially yet summer is no excuse. Southern Nights is off the shelf now and shall remain in rotation until there’s a scent of autumn in the air. Bliss.

It’s an odd history I have with this masterpiece, released as an LP in 1975. And, despite my love for the disc, I don’t use the term masterpiece flippantly.
I first heard it while visiting Martha’s Vineyard with a pal on a whim vacation, soon after the album was released. That trip is a story too.

I had two weeks off. It was Friday night of my last day at work before the hiatus. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do while off. I ran into the pal — actually the younger brother of a friend — at Phoenix Hill Tavern.

“What’s Up?”

“I’m hitching to Martha’s Vineyard in the morning to hook up with my girlfriend from college. Her family summers there.”

“Hey, I’ve got a couple of weeks off with nowhere else to go. Want a ride?”

That’s how things evolved back in the day.

Turned out his lady was the daughter of a famous national TV personality. Papa never made it to the Vineyard. At least when I was there. Seems he sent the family off so he could get some solace in the City. Alone.

Mom was the sister of a famous New York Times columnist. She’d been chewing on reds prescribed by New York’s famous Dr. Feelgood to the stars for a decade or more. A sweet lady, but not coherent. After breakfast, she would don her bonnet, grab a basket and go out to pick blueberries. She’d return mid-afternoon with no more than a dozen or so. Sad.

The girlfriend also had a couple of sisters. (And a younger brother, but he was away at camp in the Catskills.) One was 17, buxom, just discovering the sway she had over boys. Mandy had the disarming habit of walking around the house nude. Actually all three girls did from time to time, and their — and my — favorite jaunt was to Baldwin Beach. No clothes required since early in the 20th century. One night she and I drove to Oaks Bluff to see Harold and Maude. She drove. Much to my dismay.

When I commented on her less than stellar driving, she giggled. “Oh, I don’t have my license yet.”

The other sister was going to be a freshman the following fall at a Big Ten school. Her intention was to be a writer. All she could talk about was suicide. It didn’t seem a literary affectation. I’ve seen her name on some magazine articles through the years, though I don’t know if it’s the same woman.

So, in the mid 70’s, on vacation, I found myself in the midst of what I later came to know as family dysfunction.

To find some serenity, my pal’s gal lived in a tent in the yard. She ran some extension chords out there for lights and to hook up her stereo. To aid in her tranquility she played Southern Nights. Continually. As in over and over again. It’s about the calm this music fosters.

I found a place in town to find some peace myself. It was a swell couple of weeks actually. Watching Walter Cronkite stumble down the street in his cups at breakfast time. Sharing a table with Carly Simon and James Taylor at a deli. And one night I’m standing by myself at the bar in the island’s only club at the time and in walked a playmate from here in Louisville. Sometimes the Lord shines his countenance upon you.

Years later I came across the LP. Frankly it hadn’t grabbed me to any great extent during that visit. I guess I was too busy looking at the sisters in the buff. But it must have a calmed a nerve back there somewhere. I bought it. I’ve been hooked since. From the first tinkle of Toussaint’s piano. Years later I discovered the CD at Louisiana Music Factory, New Orleans’ premier music shoppe. It was a Japanese import. I bought all five copies they had for friends.

Why do I revere this album? Oh, to coin a phrase, let me count the ways.

First of all, it’s got a really evocative cover. A guy and his dog. Standing under mossy trees on the banks of the Mississippi. A big ol’ moon in the background. It perfectly conjures the music inside.

Which I really can’t describe. Too hard. I’m too locked in. It’s eerily hazy. It’s floating down that mighty stream on a raft. It is sweet. And sensuous. It is ever so soulful. It reminds me of my favorite town, New Orleans, in all its romantic glory. It’s a riverboat cruise. It is what bucolic is all about.

Not to mention that the tasty, laconic musicianship is stunning. Toussaint is backed by Crescent City stalwarts, including Zigaboo Modeliste on drums, Art Neville on organ, Leo Nocentelli on guitar and George Porter Jr. on bass. Yes, those are the Meters. They invented funk. But you’d never guess it from this laid back soulful strut.

Enough descriptors of the tuneage. I know that if it cuts to the core and resonates, that’s all that matters. Southern Nights does. (And, please, don’t be put off if you never liked Glen Campbell’s version of the title song. This is something else again entirely.)

I know that Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights takes me to a really serene place I cherish. That it rounds out the edges. That it is the aroma of honeysuckle, sugar magnolia, and it dazzles with the brilliant reds and purples of bougainvillea.

It confirms the I know what it means to miss New Orleans.

And it just ran its cycle on the stereo, so I need to walk in the other room and hit replay.

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