Allen Toussaint: a musical giant in running for first Grammy Toussaint, whose 76th birthday was celebrated with a benefit concert in his honour at Harrah's New Orleans Theatre last week (January 14), recorded the album at New York nightspot Joe's Pub, in Lafayette Street, in 2009. It was produced by Paul Siegel. Allen Toussaint. His songs have been recorded by eminent musicians for the past 50 years, including Lee Dorsey, The Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Palmer, Lowell George, Otis Redding, Dr John, Irma Thomas and Elvis Costello. He has joked about his song Fortune Teller (which is also on the new album) being covered by the Rolling Stones, saying: "I was so glad when the Stones recorded my song - I knew they would know how to roll it all the way to the bank." Toussaint took up music as a boy and was encouraged by his mother Naomi and father Clarence, a mechanic on the L&N Railroad. They bought a piano for him to use in their house in Gert Town, a poor section of New Orleans. He has never lost his love for the piano playing of Professor Longhair (he calls him his "Bach of popular music") and is as excited by music now as he was as a child. Toussaint says he is happier in the background, where he has built a formidable reputation as a skilled arranger and producer. He modestly says that "my life hasn't been performing; it's been in the studio," but he is a charismatic performer, as his Grammy-nominated album shows. I was honoured to meet him at the 2011 Brecon Jazz Festival, which was sponsored by the Telegraph, and was struck by his gentle humour and modesty. "I really am surprised at how far I've come," he said. He was charm itself to the organisers, even composing a new song about the delights of the Welsh countryside. President Barack Obama with 2012 National Medal of Arts recipient Allen Toussaint GETTY IMAGES Music fans will have their favourite Toussaint songs, such as Working In The Coalmine, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley, A Certain Girl or Whipped Cream - or even be Here Come The Girls, which went back into the UK charts in 2007, 37 years after Ernie K Doe recorded it, when Boots used it asthe basis for a Christmas advert. "I thought that song was laid up for dead," Toussaint joked. Thank God for adverts. The song I find especially delightful is Southern Nights (1975), which was a hit for Glen Campbell and remains Toussaint's own favourite, a beautiful evocation of his pastoral Louisiana childhood, which Toussaint performs at a slower pace than Campbell. Toussaint, who appeared in the HBO series Tremé, is already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has been awarded an American Music Association Lifetime Achievement Award. But he has never won a Grammy (his 2013 nods will make it six nominations). It would be a fitting tribute to the man praised by Obama for going back to New Orleans post-Katrina and "doing everything he can to revive the legendary soul of the Big Easy." Allen Toussaint: Songbook is out on Rounder Records