By Cédric Vernet 
At the Vox’n Blues festival, Nico Wayne Toussaint steps in front of the camera. In this interview, he discusses passing the music on, his move from harmonica to guitar and the MiSSSippi Trio. And that’s not all: we also bring you four live videos from his festival performance! These videos were produced by Tibo Degraeuwe as part of a series of three interviews, also featuring Vincent Bucher and Ady One Woman Band.
🎙️ Nico Wayne Toussaint on camera
Interview by Cédric Vernet, filmed by Tibo Degraeuwe.
You’re at the Vox’n Blues festival tonight, a festival that places passing music on at the heart of its mission. What does that idea mean to you?
Passing music on means sharing information and passion and, in a way, passing the torch, just as it was passed to me. When you’re a musician, you want to pass the torch to other musicians. But when you’re also a performer, you simply want to share with the audience your passion and your conviction in championing this music.
A tradition can only survive if it is willing to evolve. When did you realise that playing the blues was not enough, and that you also had to bring something personal to it?
I think I understood that quite quickly, but making this music your own takes almost a lifetime. Even B.B. King wanted to play like T-Bone Walker. When you listen to him, I think that, in his head, he wants to sound like him, or perhaps a little like Django Reinhardt.
From my first record on Dixiefrog in 1998, I put my own stamp on the music by recording songs in French. I could play the blues as well as possible, like the Americans, but no American would make the French-language song I was going to make. So I recorded “Bye Bye” and “Pour toi”. At a very young age, I understood that there was room to make our own interpretation of this music personal, while remaining deeply respectful of its heritage. Shaping that personality then takes a great deal of time.
“Making this music your own takes almost a lifetime.”
Since you began, the boundaries between genres have become more fluid, and a new generation is less attached to labels. What has changed the most: the blues itself or the way we listen to it?
What has changed greatly in the blues is people’s lived experience. I am already no longer part of the direct legacy of the Chicago blues tradition, even though I claim that heritage. I have tried to get close to as many musicians as possible, to draw on their lifeblood and make it my own, but there is already a world between us.
What continues to stretch the blues like an elastic band is time, and the decades separating us from Robert Johnson, from Buddy Guy and Junior Wells when they created Chicago blues, or from Magic Sam. There are excellent performers today. But when do they become the bearers of a personal story that can carry as much weight as R.L. Burnside’s? It’s complicated. We will never have the same thing again. We live in a different world.
Since your latest album, we have also discovered you as a guitarist. Where the harmonica expressed a certain virtuosity, the guitar seems to allow you to explore greater vulnerability. What does it reveal about you that the harmonica could not?
The guitar allows me to play alone, which the harmonica did not. Playing alone makes me entirely responsible for the emotion I offer. The only obstacle between the emotion I want to convey and the audience is my technical ability.
I have played with excellent guitarists who inspire me, but their musical language was sometimes too sophisticated compared with my influences, such as Louisiana Red and other very raw bluesmen. I think my vulnerability allows me to come a little closer to theirs.
You say that playing the guitar had been a secret dream since you were 15. Why did you keep it secret, and what prevented you from pursuing it sooner?
I studied classical piano when I was young, and I no longer wanted anything to do with an instrument that required practising scales. I chose the harmonica because you couldn’t see anything on it, and I felt as if I were creating the notes without relying on any theory at all. I didn’t want theory; I simply wanted expression.
For a very long time, I looked at the guitar as if it were a witch’s broom and did not want to put my hands on it. Yet, as a blues lover, I love guitarist-singers, and I can sing dozens of solos by Muddy Waters, Albert King or Albert Collins. Some of their attacks are completely ingrained in my mind.
But I left the guitar to others, because I was lucky enough to play with guitarists who gave me everything I hoped to hear, such as Florian Royo, Michel Foizon, Henri Rax and Lacour. Much later, I told myself that I could try playing it for my own pleasure, without aiming for any particular level. The guitar opens the door to solo vocal expression, with its rhythm accompanying my singing.
“The guitar opens the door to solo vocal expression.”
You have shared the stage with a great many musicians. Who made the strongest impression on you, not necessarily through their talent, but through what they taught you as a person?
All of them. You learn from everyone, even those with whom things go badly. In a musical career, there are flashes of anger and sparks with eminent musicians. You learn from all those moments.
I remain very attached to Killer Ray Allison, who was James Cotton’s drummer and who, in the 2000s, picked up a guitar to free himself from a boss who told him where to go, even though he was touring with Koko Taylor or Buddy Guy. We toured together, and I got to know him in Chicago.
He takes me back to an experience of Chicago blues that I discovered in the early 2000s, but which, in many ways, brought me closer to the blues of the 1960s and to a whole range of legendary clubs. Through him, I experienced the atmosphere of the South Side clubs. Some of the moments we shared still stay with me.
If you could speak today to the 15-year-old boy who dreamed of playing the guitar, what would you tell him?
I wouldn’t tell him anything. I would let him get on with it.
Looking back, do you think that sometimes you need to live a little before you can truly play the blues?
I believe you should never stop yourself from doing anything when you feel like doing it. With time, perhaps you become better at things you started a little too quickly, at full speed. You should never impose any limits or barriers on yourself at any point in life. That is why, later in life, I am allowing myself to play the guitar.
You have now become someone who passes the music on in turn. If you had to play three records for someone who thinks the blues belongs to the past, which would you choose?
I wouldn’t try to convince them. If they believe the blues belongs to the past, they should listen to whatever they want to hear. But in the car, I would certainly put on a Buddy Guy record.
“You should never impose any limits or barriers on yourself at any point in life.”
After From Clarksdale with Love and this new solo format, is a project or a new album already beginning to take shape?
Yes, I am actively working with a trio in which I play guitar and harmonica, and sing. It is called the MiSSSippi Trio. We got together last September, about ten months ago now, and we play together very regularly.
With this group, I am enjoying exploring other tunings and more Malian or Tuareg sounds. It also addresses the question of music blending across cultures. Today, in the 21st century, we can also listen to Tinariwen. Muddy Waters may not have known that this band would exist, or that people in Mali played the ngoni. That is our good fortune. With the MiSSSippi Trio, new ideas and new sounds are emerging. I am very eager to record with this trio and with that vulnerability.
Find out more: https://www.nicowaynetoussaint.com/
And finally, a wonderful encounter with Vincent Bucher, who will be the subject of our next interview!