Obituary of Dr. John | The music

Wherever the musicians gathered, Dr. John, who died at age 77, has been revered as a writer, composer, performer and pianist. He identified closely with the rich musical roots of his native New Orleans and his mastery of the various musical forms of Crescent City (blues, jazz, funk, boogie-woogie and rock'n'roll). its mysterious voodoo culture and folklore.

He began to develop a cult following the release of his first album, Gris-Gris (1968), an amazing beer of voodoo funk and strange incantations, illustrated by the scary eight-minute mantra, I Walk on Splenders Guilded . Nobody, including his label chief, Ahmet Ertegun, had heard of this. "Ahmet asked me," What is this record you gave me? Why did not you give me a record that we could sell? "Dr. John remembers the touring album with a Bayou-like show, with strange feathers, wizard robes and hairstyles. The act also featured a man who called himself Prince Kiyama, who was biting his head in front of live chickens on stage.

Two subsequent Gray-Gray albums – Babylon (1969) and Remedies (1970) – began to make him influential friends, including Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, both in The Sun, Moon & Herbs (1971) and En In 1973, he released the best-selling album of his career, In the Right Place. Produced by Allen Toussaint and accompanied by the Meters, he reaches No. 24 of the Billboard album and offers him an American top 10 single with Right Place, Wrong Time. There was also such an evening, that Dr. John would play at the group's farewell concert in 1976, filmed by Martin Scorsese in The Last Waltz. He has not yet achieved such sales, but has been widely acclaimed in the rest of his career and has won six Grammys for various albums and singles.

The real name of Dr. John was Malcolm John Rebennack, the same as his father. Rebennack Sr ran a home appliance store in eastern New Orleans, where he repaired radios and televisions and sold records. "Mac" grew up listening to her father's love of blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie, Louis Armstrong jazz, Miles Davis and King Oliver, as well as country music by Hank Williams and Roy Rogers. Her mother, Dorothy (née Cronin), who was a model and made her own clothes and hats, made her grandson appear in an advertisement for Ivory soap in the 1940s.

His family was intensely musical, with many aunts, uncles and cousins ​​who were amateur musicians. From an early age, Mac attended concerts in the area and, with the help of his father, attended recording sessions in the legendary J & M studio. It's a meeting with the pianist Professor Longhair at the age of 14 years who convinced him to pursue a musical career and he began performing in local clubs. When the Jesuit High School told him that he had to choose between school and music, he chose the latter. Mastering the piano and the guitar, at age 15, he starts playing on recording sessions and accompanies artists such as Art Neville, Toussaint and Joe Tex. At age 16, he began producing tracks and was hired as an artist and repertoire man by Johnny Vincent at Ace Records.

In 1960, he was involved in a fight while he was playing a show in Jackson, Mississippi, and had almost the ring finger of his left hand. He ended up recovering the use of the finger, but this affected his guitar playing and made him focus on the piano. Working in the clubs of New Orleans, he interferes in the criminal world of drugs and prostitution and acquires a heroin addiction while taking drugs himself.

After serving a two-year prison sentence in Fort Worth, Texas, for possession of drugs in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles and was in great demand as a studio musician. He has appeared on countless titles for producer Phil Spector for artists such as the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers, worked with Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, recorded with Bob Dylan and Doug Sahm and played with Frank Zappa , until Zappa fired him for drug use.

Gris-Gris was recorded in the studio and borrowed from Sonny & Cher, with whom he worked in Los Angeles and who helped him sign a contract with Atco Records. Produced by Harold Battiste, another native of New Orleans grafted on the west coast, this film marks the first appearance of the pseudonym Rebennack, Dr. John Creaux, aka Dr. John the Night Tripper.

After The Sun, Moon & Herbs, he released the album Dr. John's Gumbo (1972), conceived as a tribute to the music of New Orleans, especially to Professor Longhair's compositions. Following the positive response to In the Right Place in 1973, his next album, Desitively Bonnaroo (1974), was much less successful and turned out to be his last album with Atco. He moved to United Artists for the live album Hollywood Be Thy Name (1975), which was also received without enthusiasm.

Starting in the mid-70s, Dr. John began a long partnership with songwriter Doc Pomus, which led to the creation of songs for his City Lights and Tango Palace albums (both in 1979). He then directed the solo piano album Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack (1981), a virtuoso demonstration of his keyboard skills, and repeated the feat with The Brightest Smile in Town (1983). In 1989, the year of his signature at Warner Bros. and his addiction to heroin, he published In a Sentimental Mood, a collection of sleek standards, including Makin's Whoopee, a duet with Rickie Lee Jones , which earned him a Grammy. for the best jazz vocal performance. He won another Grammy for his second Warner album, Goin 'Back to New Orleans (1992), this time for the best traditional blues album.

In 1994, he published his autobiography, Under the Hoodoo Moon (co-written with Jack Rummel), a dark account of his musical life in New Orleans that did not fear details about drugs, violence, prostitution. and the dark side of the music industry. Nevertheless, he began to look like a respected elder, winning a third Grammy in 1996 for the SRV Shuffle title from the album A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan and a fourth in 2000 for his duet with BB King in Is You Is Where are you not my baby? Duke Elegant (2000), composed of John's, takes Duke Ellington's favorite pieces, while Mercernary (2006) pays tribute to another classic songwriter, Johnny Mercer.

The erasure of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 prompted Dr. John to publish the fundraising EP-album Sippiana Hericane, and City That Care Forgot (2008), a homage to his hometown. natal, seriously injured. He won Grammy number five in the category of best contemporary blues album. In 2013, Locked Down awarded him a sixth for the best blues album. New Orleans was once again in his thoughts when he returned Ske-Dat-De-Dat: Spirit of Satch (2014), a tribute to Armstrong, the founding father of jazz in the city.

Dr. John has played or recorded with countless other artists, including Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Levon Helm, Ringo Starr and his All-Starr band, Harry Connick Jr and Gregg Allman. He also appeared in the all-star version of Lou Reed's Perfect Day in 1997. Memorable covers of his own songs include versions of Cher's I Walk On Guilded Splinters and Paul Weller and Tom Jones's Right Place Wrong Time. . He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.

He is survived by his wife, Lorraine Sherman, and their daughters, Tara and Jennifer, another daughter, Karla, from her marriage to Lydia Crow, who ended her divorce in 1995, and her sister , Barbara.

• Dr. John (Malcolm John Rebennack Jr), musician, born November 20, 1941; died on June 6, 2019