Photo: Bryce Lankard

Dr. John is not a real doctor. (really? sic!) But that didn’t stop Eric Clapton from seeking his advice when the two met backstage at the Lyceum in London.

“When I ran into him I told him I wanted to consult him as a doctor,” Clapton recalled. “He asked me what my problem was, and I told him that I needed a remedy. ‘What kind of remedy?’ I told him: ‘A love potion.’ I was calling his bluff, but he asked me to tell him more about the situation. So I told him I was deeply in love with the wife of another man [Patti Harrison, Beatle George’s missus], and that she was no longer happy with him but wouldn’t leave him. He gave me a little box made out of woven straw, and told me to keep it in my pocket, gave me various, long-forgotten instructions. I did exactly as I was told.”

A few weeks later Eric told George the truth, started his affair with Patti, and told the whole world about it on the Derek And The Dominos’ album featuring Layla and his other love songs.

Dr. John was in demand with the British rock elite. Clapton and Mick Jagger appeared on his 1971 album The Sun, Moon & Herbs, and Rebennack was asked to support the Stones on the road. He also played on the track Let It Loose on the Stones’ Exile On Main St. 

“Funniest crap was, they wuz mixin’ the album in New York, and I went to some shoot party and Keith Richards was real old-school, the coolest cat. They all loved the N’Awlins sound, so I got my man Didymus the gig on percussion and brought along the singer Tammi Lynn – Keith was all over the lady.

“I’d met ’em before that, in London, when that kid who died [Brian Jones] used to sit in the dressing room and talk for hours about southern music. I guess I influenced Jagger some, cuz people said he changed his vocal style after he met me, but so what? If it rolled with me, that’s cool with my ass. Who the hell knows where influence comes from? I don’t live in his brain. I know he heard something he could use.”

By Max Bell

( Classic Rock Magazine )

Don's Tunes

 Again I’ve said it before but we miss Mac and are the poorer for his passing . . . . .read his Under a Hoodoo Moon, its one of my favourite books!

2013 Official Americana Awards - Dr John "I Walk On Gilded Splinters"