<< Back 6/12/02 Dr. John brings road show to the Handlebar By Hunter Pope Who: Dr. John with special guest t.b.a. Where: The Handlebar in Greenville When: Thursday, June 13 at 8:30 pm How much: $29.50 — Go see this show at all costs. The price is high, but I guarantee you’ll forget the price when the man begins to cootchie-coo the piano. He is a legend, and there’s not another icon of his stature that you can still see for fewer than thirty bucks (i.e. see the mile high prices for the Rolling Stones). For more info: including directions, and how to purchase tickets, call 1.864.233.6173 Some big old voodoo man was lurking in my dreams the other night. It’s my own fault. I pretty much summoned the shadowy fellow when I became immersed in his bygone literature. His words ballooned in my room, creating figures and spells that are used to swirling under a bloody moon. There was the Loop Garoo, a werewolf that used to carry its head around his home swamp, or the incantation of Guilded Splinters that could make you stutter and turn your heart to butter. You might know this dark priest. Voodoo chants aren’t his only specialty. A pinch of Earl King, eye of Duke Ellington, and wing of Professor Longhair fall into his repertoire cauldron. He stirs this concoction slowly, brewing it until it becomes his own. Millions sway to his incantations, and even popular media like USA Today has fallen under his hoodoo. Some call him the Night Tripper. Braver individuals whisper his real name — Mac Rebennack. But most of the faithful horde (including myself) know him as the man that “can cure all your ills”— Dr. John. Although, he hasn’t resided in New Orleans in more than 30 years, he is as revered as Louis Armstrong (ironically another exile) and Fats Domino. His music sweats the New Orleans sound, creating beads of classical, funk, Latin, R&B, rock, and nameless others. Mac’s gravely voice interlinks these inescapable grooves, a sandpaper growl that’s become as familiar to American culture as Elvis’ swagger. Understanding Mac ... I mean the Night Tripp ... no wait, Dr. John requires a sizable glossary. Being versed in N’awlins dialect helps. “Toin” is turn, “podnah” is partner, and he even has terms that are created by fusing two words together. His hit song, “Mos’ Scocious” is an example — “Mos Scocious, that’s like a phrase that you could only hear on the streets of New Orleans,” Rebennack wrote in the liner notes for the ‘Dr. John Anthology’. “It’s like two different words turned around. There are a lot of phrases like that here. Take the words ‘positive’ and ‘absolutely’. People here will mix’em up and say, ‘posilutely’.” Dr. John was not just a persona. Back in the 19th century, a Bambarra prince named Dr. John Montaine lived in New Orleans. His specialty was selling gris-gris spells and offering healing remedies. For a small fee, Montaine would place or lift a hex, soothsay the future, or offer healing herbs to a minority that believed in the swamp magic. Rebennack happened upon Montaine while delving through a bunch of old books on Haitian voodoo that were at an antique store where his sister worked. Mac soaked up every discernible word and picture. He began attending voodoo sessions and purchased candles, good luck floor wash and potions at the Cracker Jax Drug Store back in New Orleans. 1967’s “Gris Gris” (which was recorded from seized studio time from a Sonny and Cher session) was the first under the Dr. John name, and introduced the world to the snaky summons of voodoo music. It also gave people who had never visited the Crescent City an ear tour of the underbelly of New Orleans. The road that led to Mac’s transformation into Dr. John began at near birth. You might say he was chosen. Being part of the public eye came before walking. As an infant, his face was so angelic that it appeared on Ivory Soap laundry detergent boxes. Music filled the Rebennack household much like the juke joints that adorned almost every alley, store corner, and street in New Orleans. By age 3, Mac’s fingers had grafted onto the piano, and he was able to sing harmonies and melodies. His hip Aunt Andre taught him Texas boogie on the piano and how to hold his fingers on the keys correctly. In the background were his father’s 78s that packed the house with the sounds of hillbilly and blues. The 78s came from his father’s appliance store, where he repaired TV’s, radios, and public address systems. The store carried primarily “race records,” and the younger soaked up all those sounds despite the heavy shadow of segregation blocking complete immersion into the black or white cultures. Mac’s father realized his son’s talent and sent him to music school at age 8. The younger was immediately bored by the stale material. The confines of his room became his music academy, and his teachers became the thick black records that spouted the gospel of blues daddies like Lightnin’ Slim. Mac’s father realized that his son would never be one for structure, and hired Walter “Papoose” Nelson, a guitarist for Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew. Papoose was in high demand for gigs, and he soon left for the road. Mac got turned over to Roy Montrell, who became the younger’s longest running instructor. The lessons began to pay off. In 1954, he began attending Jesuit High School, a prestigious Catholic School known for its immaculate academic reputation. Mac was quite popular, wowing students with his Chuck Berry licks and his encyclopedia knowledge of music. At 16, he was put in charge of overseeing talent for the recording company Cosimo’s Studios (the owner was good friends with Mr. Rebennack) — “I was still a teenager,” he told USA Today’s Edna Gundersen. “My family was laughing, saying, ‘This kid can’t even find his shoes in the morning, and you want him to run a record company?’ I still can’t find my shoes.” At 17, Mac quit school, confident that his ABCs came from the sounds that oozed out of every pore of his native city. Why should he be in school? He had his own band, the Skyliners, he was being tutored at the studio by greats like Professor Longhair, and he was learning the common sense codes of the streets that could get rougher than a three-day beard. Gigs were plentiful and young Mac was honing his sound in all night bars and strip clubs. The most extraordinary thing was his parent’s blindness toward the segregation that strong-armed the Crescent City. “It wasn’t about black and white — my pa trusted me with guys that had been around,” he told Offbeat Magazine. “He knew I was working in clubs and strip joints, but if I was with older guys, he trusted something about that. We had a lot of black studio cats coming by the pad and the problem with that was the landlord was giving my pa flak, but I didn’t know that. My pa was really open and gave me a lot of enthusiasm. My mother used to do the contracts for me so she was supportive, too. I was real blessed to be around them.” The ‘60s came on Mac like a dark cloud full of ill will. As horrific as these events were, there probably wouldn’t be a Dr. John without them. The first was a shooting at a hotel in Jacksonville, Fla. One of Mac’s fellow musicians, Ronnie Barron, got into an argument with the hotel manager, and Mac jumped in the middle. A scramble ensued, the gun fired and Mac’s left index finger was shattered, hanging on mere threads. Though doctors were able to do reconstructive surgery on the finger, it took a year to heal. Slightly disheartened, Mac played bass in some Dixieland clubs on Bourbon Street, although the homogenized sound for tourists was hard to stomach. He began to play piano again and learned to play organ with the help of New Orleans great James Booker. Rebennack took the furlough from guitar as a blessing: “Of course, I got back to playin’ everything eventually, but that stint offa guitar gave me time to think through what I wanted to say with the instrument.” The second tempest came in the form of Earling Carothers “Jim” Garrison, who was voted in as district attorney for the City of New Orleans. Garrison cracked down on clubs, and many began to close because their owners couldn’t afford to stay open or they were just plain scared. When the clubs closed, musicians lost their only income. In a 1998 interview, Mac called Garrison “A real asshole ... they f***** up whole chunks of the city to make some money, they tore down half of the clubs to put up the hotel we’re sitting in right now.” The third maelstrom was a heroin addiction that had plagued Mac since the late ‘50s and then put him into a Ft. Worth prison from 1963-1965. Slightly recovered (he wouldn’t fully kick the habit until 1989), Mac needed a new city. Los Angeles had become a new proving ground for several Crescent City alums, and an old friend, Harold Batiste. Mac headed west. Batiste was producing Sonny and Cher and was able to land Mac a gig with the duo. He also landed studio gigs and became a productive songwriter. On a good day he could write up to 25 songs. It was during this period that hoodoo voodoo man began to be a tenant in Mac’s soul. In 1967, Batiste had some extra studio time left from Sonny and Cher session, and decided to bring Dr. John and a mishmash of New Orleans expatriates to record “Gris-Gris.” The result was a flourish of chants and spooky instrumentations that could be downright ... scary. Hits like “Gris Gris Gumbo” (which introduced the medicine barker Dr. John selling all his potions) and “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” (which was essentially about hexes) summoned images of rituals held near a bloated swamp. The hippies loved it. The studio owner, Ahmet Ertegun, hated it. The album, however, became an underground hit, thanks in no small part to the freaky live shows that the “new” Dr. John had assembled. The music was accompanied by real Voodoo rituals (one participant was called the Chicken Man), snake dancers, and a group of stellar studio musicians. The success of “Gris Gris” spurned several more voodoo slanted albums, including “Babylon,” “Remedies,” and “The Sun, the Moon, and the Herbs.” The latter album was perhaps his most star-studded. Dr. John had fired his manager in London on the eve of the recording, and Rebennack found that he was left with only a drummer. The giants of the rock-n-roll community came to his aid, with heavies like Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton providing studio time alongside an armada of studio musicians. Strangely, the album sold poorly and Rebennack found himself mired in debt. For the next album, “Gumbo” (1972), Rebennack shed his voodoo persona and went back to the roots of his early days. Rebennack introduced a willing public to Earl King, Professor Longhair, and Huey Smith. His success geysered, and Mac found himself playing to sold out shows in Europe and the U.S. The next couple of years turned Mac into Midas. Every recording he came near shone with gold. In 1973, he hooked up with legendary performer and recorder, (and another one of New Orleans’s finest) Allen Touissant. The producer’s house band at the time was none other than the founders of funk, The Funky Meters (which instrument for instrument may be the greatest band ever assembled). A couple of tasty albums ensued, turning Dr. John from the underground medicine show shaman into a world-renowned performer. The first, “In the Right Place” had the top ten hit, “Right Place, Wrong Time.” The demand was high for Rebennack, and the subsequent tour with the Meters and Professor Longhair is now in the annals of the legendary. The next album, “Desitively Bonaroo,” has been called one of the greatest albums ever, and many claim that it was both the best Dr. John album and the best Meters album. Although it didn’t sell well, Rebennack had proved that he could make the authentic New Orleans sound in Los Angeles. In the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Dr. John did recordings for Aretha Franklin and Doc Pomus, produced one of Van Morrison’s albums, appeared in the Band’s “The Last Waltz,” and even took commercial time to promote Wendy’s and Popeye’s Chicken. His biggest victory was kicking the heroin habit for good in 1989. “The whole turnaround thing was nothing I planned on” he said in an interview excerpt found by Marshall Bowden, “it just happened when it happened. God looks out for chumps and assholes. That’s what makes life interesting.” “Goin’ Back to New Orleans” (1992) was an appropriate title for his “comeback.” Replenished in life, the CD’s music covers his early New Orleans roots through his boogie days with Touissant and the Meters. “Pupils” filed in droves to get listening instruction on Rebennack’s history of New Orleans, and the album became a commercial success. Back in the saddle, Rebennack chucked out album after album, each one done with meticulous thought and necessary risk. His most interesting was “Duke Elegant,” where he covered a batch of Duke Ellington songs, including one (“On the Wrong Side”) that was never performed live by Ellington. Still a New Orleans expatriate, Rebennack currently lives in New York. Now in his early 60s, Mac still loves to tour, although you’ll be hard pressed to see any voodoo ceremonies of yore. He still dazzles on the piano, and witnesses to his live shows say his guitar work is downright supernatural. The hoodoo man is still in Rebennack, his charms still able to make the body gyrate, the mind expand, and the head a bobbing. I wasn’t jesting when I said that Dr. John had infiltrated my dreams. There’s so much magic to his music that it only seemed appropriate that he appeared in my other world. His Gris-Gris got in my ear and now my whole circulatory system is infected. Luckily, there’s no antidote.