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¶¶
We'll be right back. with the doo-wop group the Belmonts, named after Belmont Avenue and the Bronx neighborhood in which they lived.
Dion's other hits included A Teenager in Love, Where or When?
Donna, the Prima Donna, Run Around, Sue The Wanderer, and later Abraham Martin and John.
His fan, Bruce Springsteen, gave the introduction when Dion was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.
Dion recorded a couple of Springsteen songs on his album Deja New, which was released in 2000 and was the occasion for our interview.
We started with a track from that album, Dion singing Springsteen's If I Should Fall Behind.
We said we'd walk.
That come the twilight.
Should we lose our way?
If, as we were walking, Time should slip free, I'll wait for you.
Should I fall behind?
Wait for me.
We swore that we would travel Darling side by side And we'd help each other to stay in stride.
But each lover stepped far.
Girl, I'll wait for you If I should fall behind.
Wait for me Now.
Everyone dreams of a love lasting and true.
Dion, welcome to Fresh Air.
Good to be here.
What's it been like for you finding new material?
I think a lot of people when they think of your songs, they think of the songs you did when you were very young.
That were, some of them, very explicitly teenage songs like Teenager in Love or even The Wanderer.
It's a song about...
It's a song of a young man who in some ways is real hot stuff.
So, I mean, you're not a teenager anymore.
And the song that we just heard is a real adult song.
Has it been difficult for you to find songs that reach your audience, that you like and that are adult songs?
I don't know.
Songs to me have always been kind of like a diary.
You know, say when I did Teenager In Love, maybe I was 16.
Those questions in that song, even though it's a very simple song and it seems like kind of claptrap or something.
But it's not.
To the unknowing ear, it would seem, you know, if you just listen to the surface of it.
But it had a lot of heart, it had a lot of soul and it asks some relevant questions that you could ask today.
And songs like I Wonder Why was the first hit record I had.
We didn't know how to write lyrics too good, so we invented this kind of percussive rhythmic sound.
We'd make up these...
We'd go down to the Apollo Theater and hear the horn players and we'd come back to the neighborhood and give the vocal group I'd conjure you know.
I'd recruit guys and say, do this, do that, you know, and I'd try to get them to sound like the horn section down at the Apollo Theater.
Like a song like Ruby Baby, I would, you know.
I love a girl in a ruby, yes her name.
I have to go ruby, ruby, ruby baby.
It was like.
They were like horns, you know.
And uh, all that stuff was uh uh arranged.
You know I, the group, was a poor man's horn section on the street corners.
That's what it was.
Even when I did Run Around Sue and they would...
That was a horn section that I heard at the Apollo Theater.
I just brought it back to the streets and gave it to the guys to sing.
Let me go back to the beginning with you.
When you were first listening to music.
You wrote in your autobiography that Hank Williams really influenced you early on.
When you were a kid, growing up in the Bronx, what did you hear in Hank Williams?
Well, Hank Williams seemed like so total to me, so committed to the lyric, he would actually rip the ends of the words off at the end of the sentence.
It sounded like he'd bite into the word and rip it off.
You know he would do like.
And I left my home down on the rural route.
Told my pa I was going to step in that and get the honky tonk blues.
Yeah, the honky tonk blues.
Well, Lord, I got them.
I got the honky-tonk blues.
You know, you see, I'd stomp into every place in town.
And he'd rip the word right off like, I got it.
And there it goes.
He was totally committed physically, lyrically, musically, spiritually.
I just said, what's this guy talking about?
And see, I had a guy on the streets that really helped me out a lot, too.
There was a guy in Bronx, New York City.
His name was Willie Green.
And he was the superintendent of a tenement building in my neighborhood.
And you know, basically what I do is like black music, filtered through an Italian neighborhood, comes out with an attitude.
Yo.
So Willie Green would be playing me all this John Lee Hooker stuff and you know, Sonny Boy Williamson.
He'd be playing like.
Gone down the road.
Stop it, Fannie Mae.
Tell my baby what I heard her boyfriend say.
Don't stop me talking.
Oh, Lord, tell everything I know.
I want to break up the signifying.
Oh, Lord, Jackie, some people got to go.
Jack gave his wife $5, go downtown, get some, you know, he'd do stuff like that or...
And I woke up this morning round for my shoes.
So I'm telling me, child, I got news of walking blue.
Yeah, I woke up this morning looking round for my shoes, child.
Some people tell me.
That damn worry blues ain't bad.
That worse old feeling I won't ever care, son.
People tell me that damn worry blues ain't bad, child, no.
Worry that worse old feeling.
He'd do stuff like that.
So I'd go into the studio and do the white version of that.
Really, but it sounds like what I'm hearing from you is that you heard country music through Hank Williams.
You heard all these blues recordings.
And what you found was this kind of Bronx version.
And a little doo-wop.
Yeah, well, that doo-wop was that for you.
This really, like for you, native version of all the music that you were loving.
Right, it kind of... But it was authentic because it was your music.
You weren't just doing stuff in the manner of somebody else.
Well, Willie Green, again the guy who was doing this, he told me he said Dion.
He said write about the people in the neighborhood.
Write about the things you know.
And to me, when I looked around my neighborhood, we had characters like Frankie Yunk Yunk, Joe BBI's Ralphie Moche.
There was a guy in my neighborhood, they called him Shakespeare.
He used to say, like, to be or not to be, which is my apartment?
I thought I'd get you with that, Terry.
But we had a lot of characters, you know, and they seemed bigger than life.
Like the Wanderer, his name was Jackie Burns.
He was a sailor who got tattoos all over him, you know.
And every time he'd date a girl, he'd get her name tattooed on his body.
You know, this guy was like...
Flo on my left arm, Mary on my right.
Janie is a girl I'll be with tonight.
Little girl, ask me which one I love the best.
I tear open my shirt, I show Rosie on my chest.
I'm a wanderer.
But this guy would walk around with his tank top on with all these names all over, you know.
What did you think of him?
Did you like him or?
He was kind of a loner.
He was like, I didn't know him that well.
But he just seemed bigger than life because he was older than me and he was in the Navy.
Right.
And he would come back and he'd have this kind of you know, and I kind of featured myself, you know, kind of.
Like a street corner poet you know, burnt to the bone with the fire of this new rock and roll music.
So I was, like you know, over there saying what could this guy you know, like how can we put this guy to music?
And I don't think he ever knew the song was about him.
He took off.
I don't even know if he's alive today.
But The Wanderer is a sad song.
It says, I roam from town to town.
I go through life without a care.
I'm as happy as a clown with my two fists of iron, but I'm going nowhere.
It's about a guy who just is stuck in a very kind of shallow lifestyle, you know?
Before you started listening to rhythm and blues and blues music and stuff like that.
I know when you were 11 you used to sing in a bar in your neighborhood and it sounded like you were a real local attraction.
What did you sing when you were 11?
Ah, yeah.
I would do, I knew 70 Hank Williams songs.
Would you believe that?
I would even sing his Luke the Drifter series.
You know, in the world's mighty gallery of pictures.
Hang the scenes that are painted from life.
I was like 13 years old.
I thought I was a philosopher.
I didn't even know what I was singing about.
I sang honky-tonk blues.
I sang jambalaya.
If you an Italian from the Bronx, I had no idea what jambalaya meant, but it sounded so good and felt so good coming out of my mouth.
You know.
You know, jumble like crawfish pie and a feely gumbo.
I didn't know what gumbo was.
I knew what rigatoni was, but gumbo I had no idea.
And, you know, I got caught up. in this music.
And I guess it's like anybody else when you get caught up into something.
It just took me away.
Why don't we pause here and listen to the first Dionne on the Belmonts recording, which is?
I Wonder Why, with those great harmonies?
That's a good attitude song.
Yeah.
Let's hear it.
In what year is this, Dionne?
This is 57, beginning.
And you were how old?
I was 17.
Okay, let's hear it.
I love you like I do.
I do.
Don't know why I love you, Don't know why I care.
I just want your love to share.
I wonder why I love you like I do.
Is it because I think you love me too?
There's a song that you wrote on the new CD that I really want to play, because I think your singing now is really similar to what it's always been.
I think some of the material has changed, but I think your singing still has everything in it that you've been talking about all those influences, the urgency that you've been talking about.
So let me play a song from the new CD, but before I do, I want you to introduce it for us.
And this is called Every Day That I'm With You.
Tell us about writing this, what inspired it.
Well, this is a story, but I'm going to tell it.
The CD is called Deja Nu, and the song that you're about to play in fact the whole CD, all the songs in it are a movie soundtrack for a movie called The Wanderer that Chaz Palminteri wrote a screenplay for.
And I was writing these songs for different scenes in the movie.
And the movie got bogged down this year, so I just released the CD.
But anyway, every song on the CD is written for a certain purpose. piece of the movie.
This song was written for a montage scene in the middle of it.
I traveled with Buddy Holly and Richie Valance on that tour.
We were co-headlining a tour.
And we were on this little yellow school bus.
Not one of these luxury line custom-made coaches today.
It was just a yellow school bus.
We were riding through the Midwest in 1959, February of 1959.
And it was cold.
It was like 30 below zero.
We were freezing.
But we really kind of bonded on this tour, Richie Buddy and myself, because we had the first Fender guitars that were issued, these new Stratocasters, and we were in a kind of a competition to see who would make them ring the longest.
And two weeks into the tour Buddy got kind of fed up with the bus breaking down and he was trying to recruit people.
He chartered a plane.
And he said, because the more people you get aboard, the less it would cost.
So he said, you know, it'll be $36, he tells me.
And he hit the magic number for me.
I grew up with my parents screaming and yelling at each other, for the rent in Bronx, New York City at the time was 36.
So my mind hadn't stretched out to that place, where I could spend a whole month's rent on a 45-minute plane flight to Fargo, North Dakota.
So I said, no.
So he gives me his guitar.
He says, here.
He says, you know, take care of my guitar.
He says, you better take care of it.
So he took his laundry.
That's what he wanted to do.
He wanted to get a haircut.
He wanted to do his laundry.
Gives me the guitar to take care of.
So now I'm wondering, I wonder how his guitar sounds compared to mine.
So I go in the dressing room and I take the guitar out, plug it in, and I'm singing.
I was telling Chaz Palminteri, as he's writing this story, around this book, The Wanderer, that I wrote.
And the movie was called The Wanderer.
So he said, you know, we could do a Buddy Holly song here in the movie.
Like, it doesn't matter anymore.
I said let me write something to go through me sitting in the dressing room playing his guitar and singing with it.
And while... this scene takes place of them leaving, us driving to Fargo, arriving the next morning.
So this song was written for that scene, because I thought I could capture this thing, because in my heart I've always wanted to express this relationship that I pondered at times, or reflected on at times, that I had with Buddy Holly, and it came out in this song.
And I just want to say, for our listeners who don't know the end of the story, that Buddy Holly took this plane that you decided not to take.
The plane crashed, killing Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.
Right.
And the other thing is, so Chaz Pometary's movie is your biography?
That's what he's trying to say?
Yeah, he wrote a screenplay around this... Around your autobiography, The Wanderer.
All right.
So that's what this whole album is.
It's actually a soundtrack.
In fact...
Soundtrack of your life.
I don't think it would have came out as good if I tried to write songs and put out an album.
I kind of did it inadvertently.
I kind of backed into it, you know, and it's interesting the way it came out, you know.
So let's hear every day that I'm with you, this song that's, I guess, inspired by Buddy Holly and about that chapter of your life.
This is a song written and performed by Dion from his new CD, Deja New.
Every day I stare down trouble.
Heaven knows that's what I do.
Every day I raise my fist for the struggle.
And I've got time My interview with Dion was recorded in 2000.
He turned 86 in July.
Last year, he released the album Girlfriends, featuring duets with female singers.
This year he released the single New York Minute and had a new book called The Rock and Roll Philosopher a collection of conversations with a friend.
After a break, we'll conclude our archive series RB Rockabilly and Early Rock and Roll with Alan Toussaint, the great New Orleans pianist singer, songwriter and producer.
And jazzist star, and Kevin Whitehead will remember alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who was born 100 years ago today.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air.
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To conclude our archive series RB, rockabilly and early rock and roll, we have the interview I recorded with Alan Toussaint, who is in our studio at the piano and sang some of the early hit songs he wrote.
Toussaint was an important but mostly behind the scenes figure in New Orleans rhythm and blues during the 50s and 60s, when RB was shaping the sound of early rock and roll.
Early in his career, he was the chief songwriter producer, arranger and pianist for Minute Records, which at the time was the most important New Orleans record company.
He and a partner formed their own label in the 60s.
The songs he wrote and or arranged and produced include Working in a Coal Mine, Mother-in-Law Lipstick Traces, Ruler of My Heart, It's Raining.
Right Place, Wrong Time.
Lady Marmalade Yes, We Can.
And Southern Nights.
Among the musicians he worked with were The Meters, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, The Band and Paul McCartney.
After stepping out from behind the scenes, Toussaint also became known for his own recordings and performances, including his collaboration with Elvis Costello.
Toussaint died in 2015 at the age of 77.
I spoke with him in 1988.
Alan Toussaint, welcome back to Fresh Air.
Thank you.
I'm going to ask you I'm going to start with a request to play one of the songs, one of the first songs that was a big hit for you, that you wrote Mother-in-Law.
Oh, yes, it was one of our very first ones.
This was originally recorded by Ernie K. Doe.
Right.
Would you play it for us your way?
The worst person I know Mother-in-law, Mother-in-law.
She worries me so Mother-in-law mother-in-law, Every time I open my mouth She steps in and try to put me out.
How could she stoop so low?
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law Mother-in-law, mother-in-law Why Satan could have been her name Mother-in-law, mother-in-law To me they're about the same Mother-in-law, mother-in-law If she'd leave us alone We would have a happy home sent from down below mother-in-law mother-in-law mother-in-law mother-in-law i come home with my pain mother-in-law mother-in-law She asks me what I've made.
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law.
She thinks her advice is a contribution.
But if she would leave, that would be the solution.
And don't come back no more.
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law.
So how old were you when you wrote that?
Oh.
Let's see.
I guess 21.
Were you married?
22.
Oh, no.
But mother-in-law was a national joke.
That's true.
It really was at the time.
Things have changed.
The mother-in-laws themselves weren't natural jokes, but most comedians used to use that.
That's right.
So how did you first start writing songs?
Well, I came up imitating most people that I heard on the radio.
I imitated most piano players, of course, and all kinds of music.
And after I would play and become totally saturated with it, I would sit and randomly play around.
So little melodies came, and that started my writing.
I think two of your influences have been Fats Domino and Professor Longhair, two of the great New Orleans musicians.
I think they can be heard in your style.
Would you play something of theirs and tell us how they affected you?
Oh, yes.
Well, Professor Longhair, I must say, of the local people, local meaning New Orleans and the New Orleans area has been the strongest influence on my playing and even some of my writing, the way I construct certain things.
Early Professor Longhair...
Things like...
When I first heard that as a child, that just knocked me out.
And later on, Professor Longhair began to add things to his music like...
Yes, he was very, very important to me.
Was it hard to learn that when you were young?
Not hard.
It was very, very exciting.
Once I heard it, I could get involved.
It was just the idea of it, how...
Unique it was to me.
It was off the beaten path of most other things.
That were all generally related in some fashion, but Professor Longhair didn't seem related to anyone else who was out there at the time.
I remember one of your early recording sessions was filling in for Fats Domino because his piano track hadn't been laid down yet.
You really could play in Fats Domino starring Professor Longhairs and Ray Charles.
How did you learn how to play like Fats Domino?
Well, Fat Domino was flooding the market.
He had so many recordings out, and he discovered a secret to success with triplets.
So as a child, that was...
I could immediately hear what that was and most of his recordings had that in it, except for one, The Fat Man, which I thought was very exciting.
But he never recorded any more like that, which was a very different kind of piano.
It was kind of raunchy like...
Which was wonderful, but he never played like that again except maybe on one other tune.
The rest of them turned out to be mostly like the one I want you to know that I played on it.
Right, right, right.
Dave Bartholomew, who knew that I could play like.
Most of the folk that were out at the time called me in to play on a Fats Domino recording session.
We were up to two tracks at that time, so we could do wonderful things.
And he called me in to play like Fats would play this song, and I went in and did it.
Thank you.
That's really great.
My guest, if you're just joining us, is Alan Toussaint.
And I should say you know, whenever I've said your name, one day it would be Toussaint, and one day it would be Toussaint.
So I asked you how I should really say it, and you said Toussaint.
But your father's side of the family used to say Toussaint?
My father used to say Toussaint without a T on the end.
It seems very common for New Orleans families to have different pronunciations of their names.
Oh, yes.
Bonnerese, Bagnaris.
Yes.
We're listening to my 1988 interview with Alan Toussaint.
We'll hear more of it after a break.
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I'm going to ask you to play another song of yours, a song that you wrote.
Maybe do another one of your early hits.
Well, Lipstick Traces, the guy, Benny Spellman, that sung the bass part on Mother-in-Law.
He didn't know what it was worth at the time we were doing it.
But when Mother-in-Law came out and sold and went to number one, let's say, Benny Spellman that sung the bass part, made sure that everyone within the sound of his voice got to know that he sung that part.
And he would go around, he would gig based on, he sung the low part on Mother-in-Law.
And he encouraged me with much force to write him a song that he could use that concept.
And one result of that was this song, Lipstick Traces.
Your pretty brown eyes, Your wavy hair.
I won't go home no more cause You're not there.
I've got it bad.
Like I told you before, I'm so in love with you, Don't leave me no more.
Lipstick traces On a cigarette Every memory lingers With me.
Yet I've got it bad.
Like I told you before, I'm so in love with you.
Won't you come back home.
Won't you come back home, Cause I'm crazy about you, Can't do without you.
Won't you come back home?
Lipstick traces Every memory lingers with me.
Yet I've got it bad.
Like I told you before Mother-in-law mother-in-law, don't leave me no more.
I guess you can see how that happened.
He really owed you one after you wrote that for him.
Oh, thank you.
I love it when you can do both parts as you're singing the high part and the low part.
Oh, thank you.
Yes.
Another song you wrote.
That was a big hit.
I guess it was the early 60s, Working in a Coal Mine, that Lee Dorsey recorded it.
Now I remember when I interviewed you a few months back, you explained that you had never been in a coal mine when you wrote this song.
Not only never been, I don't know anyone who's ever been in a coal mine.
And I don't know why that came.
Lee Dorsey was a great inspiration for me.
When it was time to write for him, I would just sit back and begin to listen to the sound of his voice.
And one day...
While sitting on St.
Philip Street in New Orleans, I heard him saying, working in a coal mine going down, down, down.
I have no idea why, but he was a great inspiration.
His voice sounded like a smile to me, and I wrote lots of songs for him, yes.
Would you do it for us?
We'll give it a go.
I'm already up and gone Lord I'm so tired How long can this go on now?
Working in the coal mine, going down, down, down.
Working in the coal mine, about to slip down.
Of course I make a little money.
Hauling coal by the ton.
But when Saturday rolls around, I'm too tired for having fun.
Too tired for fun now.
Working in the coal mine, Going down down.
Working in the coal mine About to slip down.
Working in the coal mine Lord, I'm so tired.
How long can this go on?
That sounds great.
Songwriter, pianist, producer, singer, Ellen Toussaint is my guest.
And I'm going to ask you to do another song.
I've been listening to a lot of Irma Thomas lately.
She has a new record out and you wrote some of her early songs and you wrote a song she sings on her new record.
I'm going to ask you to sing one of her earlier songs that you wrote for her called It's Raining.
Would you do that?
It's raining so hard Looks like it's going to rain all night, And this is the time I'd love to be holding you tight.
I guess I'll have to accept The fact that you're not here.
I wish this rain would hurry up and end My dear.
I've got the blues so bad.
I can hardly catch my breath, And the harder it rains, The worse it gets.
This is the time I'd love to be holding you tight, But I guess I'll just go crazy tonight.
Is there a story behind writing the song?
Well, with Irma, again, she was sitting right there that day.
And it was raining.
And Irma was a great inspiration for me.
I could write for her all day long, and sometimes I did.
And she was sitting there and it was raining and I could see the rain hitting on the windowpane and it was just perfect.
Well it has really been such a pleasure to hear you play and sing.
Thank you so much for joining us, really.
Thank you very, very much.
My pleasure.
Alan Toussaint, recorded in 1988.
He died in 2015.
He was 77.
And with that, we conclude our archive series, R&B, Rockabilly, and Early Rock and Roll.
I hope you enjoyed it.
After a break.
Our jazz historian Kevin Whitehead remembers alto saxophonist Art Pepper, who was born 100 years ago today.
This is Fresh Air.
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Jazz saxophonist Art Pepper was born 100 years ago today.
He started on clarinet at age 9 and debuted on record with Stan Kenton at age 18.
Pepper had an intensive and creative alto saxophone style that kept his services in demand, but owing to personal problems, he'd drop out of music from time to time.
Then in the 70s, after a long hiatus, Art Pepper came roaring back.
Our jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has the details.
Nooooo!
Art Pepper's tune Mambo Koyama from 1978, when the saxophonist was enjoying one of the great jazz, comebacks after 15 years laying low.
His return would soon get a further boost from his candid autobiography, Straight Life.
As Pepper tells it.
There he was an unloved kid, afraid of everything, from closets to clouds, who then discovered two things he loved music early and, a few years later, the addictive narcotic heroin.
In his book, he makes the first time he shot up sound like coming home.
Art Pepper, the jazz musician, got early exposure in Stan Kenton's 1940s big band.
All the young alto players dug Charlie Parker's fleet brilliance.
But Pepper had his own bright tone, warm inflections, skittery phrasing, and floating swing feel.
¦ um Art Pepper on Stan Kenton's Dynaflow, 1950.
Other West Coast leaders sought Pepper out, but he could burn a little hot for LA's new cool jazz scene.
Shorty Rogers showcased him on an arrangement of Over the Rainbow which barely contained Pepper's energy and creativity.
¶¶
Thank you.
Art Pepper's life could be a mess, but he played with a lot of heart.
You really hear it on a pair of stark blues with bassist Ben Tucker from 1956.
On Blues Inn.
Pepper balances elegant lines and woozy splats, as if bearing his internal contradictions.
Um One thing Art Pepper fretted about a lot was that African American colleagues didn't respect him enough, Pepper being white and ever insecure.
He was anxious before a 1957 record date with Miles Davis' rhythm trio, fearing they'd cop an attitude.
But they couldn't have been nicer, and the album Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section was an instant classic.
Pianist Red Garland had suggested You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To where Pepper warms up his solo with some thick, slabby low notes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Art Pepper made more fine albums through 1960.
Then he didn't make one of his own for 15 years.
To be a drug addict was to be an outlaw, and Art did a few stretches in California prisons, followed by a stint in a drug rehab program.
He made sound like jail all over again, but he kept playing and keeping track of new developments, in particular John Coltrane's way of mixing form and freedom.
Comeback.
Pepper wrote some new style tunes like Mambo, Koyama and the sleek and streamlined Landscape.
The tune Landscape was a staple of Art Pepper's last years when he performed and recorded often.
I saw him a few times toward the end and his playing was a marvel.
Sometimes a bit rougher, but with his old beautifully sculpted phrases and headlong rhythm.
Here he is on Landscape from a festival set at the Kennedy Center.
¶¶ me Art Pepper, May 1982, on his final concert.
His abused body had been failing, and he died two weeks later.
That Pepper made it to age 56 owed much to his wife and co-author, Lori Pepper, who's issued many late-period live dates, like the one we just heard on her Widow's Taste label.
In the end, the saxophonist got all the acclaim he'd been craving from peers, critics and audiences.
Art Pepper's last studio dates were a close-listening duo with an African-American pianist he'd bonded with who's still with us, the formidable George Cables.
With Art Pepper's final performances, the old outlaw went out in a blaze of glory.
Thank you.
She'll talk about her decades-long career, how she first began her fitness empire to fund her activist work and why the first season of the Netflix series Grace and Frankie sent her back into therapy.
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I'm Terry Gross.
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