David Browne, rollingstone.com:
He was a talented kid who got his finger blown off, went to prison, then transformed into one of rock’s most outsized characters. Where did Mac Rebennack end and Dr John begin? As he would say himself, “I got some confusement here.”
Dr John was always modest about his place in the history of New Orleans music. “Everything I’m about, the old-timers showed me,” he once said. “Nothing I got is nothing original.” He’d be the first to admit that he picked up his spry, rolling-river piano-playing from predecessors like Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, and Huey “Piano” Smith. But few embodied the spirit of New Orleans, or helped take it to strange new places, the way Dr John did.
Even though he scored just one pop hit, 1973’s “Right Place Wrong Time,” his impact on modern music was huge, beginning with murky-swamplands masterpieces like 1968’s Gris-Gris and 1972’s Dr John’s Gumbo (a tribute to New Orleans that helped introduce rock fans to standards like “Iko Iko”).
Nineties kids know him from his theme song to the sitcom Blossom; Gen Z recognizes his voice from animated films like The Princess and the Frog; and anyone who remembers The Muppet Show knows the dapper bandleader Dr Teeth, modeled on Dr John. (The Bonnaroo festival was even named after his 1974 album, Desitively Bonnaroo.) “He wasn’t just New Orleans, he was worldwide,” says Aaron Neville, who met Dr John when both were teenagers. “He brought New Orleans everywhere.” Dr John died of a heart attack in 2019. He was 77.
Nice set from the good Doctor, Mac Rebbenack, from Big O this morning. Runs a bit hot and bright for me but a bit of equaliser tweaking and its perfectly listenable
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