{"id":248458,"date":"2026-05-30T01:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/248458\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T01:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T01:56:13","slug":"when-a-reluctant-songwriting-star-found-refuge-on-a-new-york-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/248458\/","title":{"rendered":"When a Reluctant Songwriting Star Found Refuge on a New York Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toussaint wound up decamping to a high floor of a hotel near his home, where he left behind a Steinway piano as well as records and memorabilia. When the flood set in, he had to escape through water up to his calves, while, as he told The New York Times afterward,<\/a> \u201cshaking a fist at the hurricane.\u201d A friend arranged a ride for him to Baton Rouge \u201cfor a fee,\u201d he said then, and from there he flew to New York. \u201cHis sister lived in New York before she passed,\u201d Clarence Reginald Toussaint said. \u201cThat was the ideal place to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

In New York, Toussaint hooked up with a friend, Joshua Feigenbaum, a longtime record executive who had been his partner in an independent label, NYNO. Feigenbaum took him shopping at Barneys. \u201cAllen was a very dapper guy,\u201d Feigenbaum said of the hitmaker who appears on the cover of \u201cSongbook\u201d in a pinstriped suit with a pocket square matching his tie. \u201cHe literally showed up with a bunch of hard drives, what he had on his back and that was about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toussaint wanted to work so Feigenbaum hosted him and Bragin, of Joe\u2019s Pub, at his house in the Hamptons. \u201cHe had a camcorder with him,\u201d Bragin remembered of Toussaint. \u201cHe was asking me and my wife about how we got together, and turning the camera on us \u2014 turning the camera on anybody else but him, as, clearly, he was going through this strong trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n

That first Joe\u2019s Pub performance, a Sunday brunch benefit for hurricane survivors in September 2005, turned into a long run. Toussaint charmed audiences with his deep voice, endless song catalog, easygoing command of New Orleans boogie-woogie piano turnarounds and unexpected vulnerability in spoken-word stories about his roots and family. \u201cHe didn\u2019t have to worry about if the bass player knew the song,\u201d Siegel said. \u201cHe could just sit down by himself and sing anything he felt like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costello and Toussaint later connected after performing at a Madison Square Garden benefit concert, collaborating on an album, \u201cThe River in Reverse\u201d (2006), and a subsequent tour. \u201cThat was really the beginning of the renewal of his career,\u201d Feigenbaum said of the Joe\u2019s Pub shows.<\/p>\n

Toussaint returned to New Orleans for good in roughly 2008. His flooded home was unsalvageable, so he moved to the city\u2019s Lakeview neighborhood, onto a street named for the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. It was renamed Allen Toussaint Boulevard<\/a> by unanimous City Council vote seven years after his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cSongbook\u201d documents Toussaint\u2019s crucial New York period. \u201cHe would talk about how, when he walked around, which he did a lot, he would hear things,\u201d Siegel remembered. \u201cA symphony would come from the different sounds he was hearing as he walked around New York City. He was very inspired by New York.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toussaint wound up decamping to a high floor of a hotel near his home, where he left behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1593,83767,174,55579,9,24,55,54,56,83914,97076],"class_list":["post-248458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-allen","tag-bars-and-nightclubs","tag-content-type-personal-profile","tag-joes-pub","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-rhythm-and-blues-music","tag-toussaint"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}