Dr. John — Remembered

Updated with Music….

The old guard is rapidly departing this planet and the city of New Orleans in particular. Time is a mightier and crueler force then the worst hurricane because it leaves no survivors.

And by old guard, I mean Crescent City musicians who actually knew Fess and heard him play at places like the Caledonia Club. One such guy was Dr. John. He was a kid then going by his given name Malcolm John Rebennack, which I always thought was just as cool as his stage moniker.

Prowling the streets of Orleans, young Mac absorbed it all. And by all, I mean all: Fess, Fats, Huey and the Earls. Not to mention or forget those mean steamy streets and their non-musical denizens.

All of that neon and flowing booze, hookers and coffee, switchblades and frying oysters filled his senses. Heady stuff for anyone and he internalized every bit of it. So much so that he got a finger shot off in A fight. That is how hot tempered young musicians played in the parking lots of those juke joints in the Big Easy.

Mac added a drug bust and prison stretch to his resume before taking off to LA to concentrate on what he knew he was, a stellar musician. He showed those LA session cats what he could do and they were a hard crowd to impress. But they were impressed.

The talent was big and the ambition bigger and Mac had a notion to record Hoodoo Rock with those West Coast cats. No surprise here in that he convinced them to do it too. They went all in, big time, and with all sorts of feathered headdresses to boot.

Those early original albums are the ones to own. They brought a serious and spooky Afro-Caribbean beat to a Rock audience years before Eric Clapton even heard of Bob Marley. The Rock elite of the era got it. The mass Rock audience of the time, not so much.

Established among said elite, Mac’s confidence led him back to New Orleans pretty much for the rest of his life but not before he recorded one more record in LA. A parting shot if you will or maybe a final statement of who he was and where he came from. Gumbo was the album and it was one of the first things I ever wrote about on Medium: https://link.medium.com/8GKj8cEHjX

Gumbo should be in every Rock fans collection. It is a debt owed to those original artists and the City that made it all possible. Rock music wouldn’t have been the same without it and Dr. John shows you why in one convenient set of covers.

That puts us at about 1972 in Mac’s career so far. Twenty years later, in 1993, Rhino Records figured it was time to call it a day for Dr. John and issued the anthology Mos Scocious. Mac had other ideas and just kept going, racking up a couple more Grammys and a Rock Hall Of Fame Induction in the process.

Over such a long career that only just ended today, Mac delivered something for everybody’s taste. A farewell, however, he never got around to. He was too busy living. So you have to back up a bit to 1992 to appreciate how deeply talented he was.

Just when you would have thought there was nothing more Mac could say on the topic of the Crescent City, he released a follow up of sorts to Gumbo: Going Back To New Orleans. On that one Mac reaches back even further into the city’s history to testify to those Milneberg Joys. A history lesson there has never been that was so down and dirty.

But that was Mac. An Ambassador to good times and good music and good manners can politely be damned. He was a final link to a bygone era that gave us the tastiest hunk of American Pie. The one topped with a bourbon infused whipped cream next to a hot cup of chicory laced coffee.

The only solace I can take right now is that maybe in some unknown reality, Allen and Mac are gathered round Fess just as Earl Palmer kicks up that Rumba beat for some wall balling. We should do the same.

Cue up Big Chief or the Huey Smith Melody from Gumbo and try not to spill your Sazerac. RIP Mac and many thanks. You are in some good company now. Just about all of it.

Here is the briefest of looks at his music (As always, I am skipping the ones you know…):

1) Bad Neighborhood — Mos Scocious Anthology: Mac’s earliest music is hard to come by, for me anyway. But is it worth the hunt and listen? Hell yeah.

What little I have heard has all been great. The biggest surprise might have to be the confidence level.

Mac doesn’t seem intimidated at all by the rich, vibrant scene of the era and city. Moreover, he was clearly a Rock & Roller. A cross between Buddy Holly and Fats Domino.

2) Jump Sturdy — Gris-Gris: What made his 1968 Dr. John debut an instant landmark was its stunning originality, perhaps second only to Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland. In an era where World music would otherwise still be in Rock’s future, the good Doctor was laying a swampy, sexy Afro-Caribbean beat on the Flower Children.

Making it all that much more unforgettable was the level of musicianship and the production. You feel as if you are in the room floating above the band as they lay down these grooves.

This tune in particular cuts the tension of the others with a bit of light and Soul. Did those backing vocals here and throughout!

3) Loop Garoo — Remedies: No fluke that debut. Dr. John’s sophomore effort is no jinx. This one is of a piece with the menacing tone of some of the debut’s numbers. Here the good Doc threatens to put his foot to someone. Presumably not the listener.

4) Huey Smith Medley — Gumbo: The Dr. moves to a more traditional sound, paying tribute to the greats of Crescent City. And here is the thing, he included Huey — who as of this writing is still alive.

Huey was/is great and deserves to be better known. He was more of a Rock & Roller then a Orleans traditionalist and in that sense he blazed the trail Mac would follow. Hence the tribute and the debt paid forward.

5) Cabbage Head — Going Back to New Orleans: After Gumbo, Mac essentially put the Dr. John persona on hiatus. For 20 plus years his muse stayed grounded in a more traditional Orleans sound.

In the early 1990’s, however, he delved even further back into the pages of the City’s musical history and released this sequel of sorts to Gumbo.

Mac covered — with style — songs dating back to the 1920’s. Making the point along the way that this stuff is our musical heritage. And this one, is just freaking hilarious.

6) Food For Thot — The Best of the Parlophone Years: I suppose the ultimate sign of longevity in the music business is multiple anthologies. Of course many bands just endlessly repackage their best known songs and I am looking at you Who.

But such is not the case with Mac. In fact, there is probably room for a fourth distinct anthology in his now concluded career.

The first one is hard to find and covers his late 1950’s and early 1960’s work. The second is the must own Rhino Records collection entitled Mos Scocious.

Ironically, that anthology came out during an artistic retrenchment for Mac and it would have been easy to think — at the time -that this was about it for him, a final summary of his work. The irony being that he was about to relaunch his Dr. John persona for much of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

The collection from which this funky number comes, covers another period of prolific originality for Mac. To which, I might add, came 30 years into his career.

And he still wasn’t done yet. Unfortunately, it would take a devastating tragedy to usher in the final leg of Mac’s musical journey.

7) Mother Earth -The City Care Forgot:

Many of the New Orleans old guard were still alive when Katrina struck in 2005: Fats Domino and Clarence Gatemouth Brown for example. But they were both largely retired.

Mac and Allen Toussaint, on the other hand, were very much active despite their advancing years. Inspiration follows tragedy as well as triumph and both man would release some of their finest work in memory of the Katrina tragedy and — this cannot be stated with enough humble awe — as a charitable gift for the relief of those effected.

As it turned out, this would be the last aspect of both men’s legacies. In a sense, the circle was closed. They gave back to the city of New Orleans all that they could in repayment for all that the city had given them. To such lives we are grateful. Rest In Peace.

……

Send some Claps to let me know that you liked the man and his music!