Rolling with the Punches: Allen Toussaint Songbook

Toussaint songs span seven decades of popular music. His prolific catalogue boasts an incredible number of hits and Pop/R&B standards, and he might well be the only composer whose songs have topped the Pop, R&B and country charts at various times.

Toussaint songs have advertised everything from Coca Cola and chocolate to Boots The Chemist (in the UK). They have been used as TV themes and featured in film soundtracks. He's scored hits in every decade from the 1950s onwards and is still doing so in the 21st century.

In addition he either discovered or nurtured the talents of a raft of pivotal R&B acts, among them Aaron Neville, Benny Spellman, Irma Thomas and Lee Dorsey, all of whom recorded some of Toussaint's best songs.

The two dozen songs on Rolling With The Punches - a CD which carries the personal approval and endorsement of Mr Toussaint himself - focus on a 20-year period that covers the 1960s and 1970s. The diversity of performers shows just how adaptable to all sorts of genres Toussaint's work is and offers an affectionate salute to his lyrical and melodic supremacy that has long been overdue.

It would be impossible to fit all of his most famous songs on one CD but our overview embraces several of his biggest as well as showcasing some beautiful songs that are no less worthy of great public acclaim.