Dr. John

Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, R&B, soul and funk.

Active as a session musician from the late 1950s until his death, he gained a following in the late 1960s after the release of his album Gris-Gris (1968) and his appearance at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music (1970). He typically performed a lively, theatrical stage show inspired by medicine shows, Mardi Gras costumes, and voodoo ceremonies. Rebennack recorded thirty studio albums and nine live albums, as well as contributing to thousands of other musicians' recordings. In 1973, he achieved a top-10 hit single with "Right Place, Wrong Time".

Early life and career

Rebennack was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 20, 1941. He was the son of Dorothy (née Cronin) and Malcolm John Rebennack, and had German, Irish, Spanish, English, and French heritage. His father ran an appliance shop in the East End of New Orleans, fixing radios and televisions and selling records. Growing up in the 3rd Ward of New Orleans, he found early musical inspiration in the minstrel show tunes sung by his grandfather and a number of aunts, uncles, sister, and cousins who played piano. He did not take music lessons before his teens and endured only a short stint in choir before getting kicked out. When Rebennack was a young boy, his father exposed him to jazz musicians King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, who later inspired his 2014 release, Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch. Throughout his adolescence, his father's connections enabled him access to the recording rooms of rock artists, including Little Richard and Guitar Slim. Later he began to perform in New Orleans clubs, mainly on guitar, and played on stage with various local artists.

When he was about 13 years old, Rebennack met Professor Longhair. Impressed by the professor's flamboyant attire and striking musical style, Rebennack soon began performing with him, and began his life as a professional musician. He later recalled that his debut in the studio, in about 1955 or 1956, came when he was signed as a songwriter and artist by Eddie Mesner at Aladdin Records. He joined the musicians' union at the end of 1957, with the help of Danny Kessler, and then considered himself to be a professional musician.

At age 16, Rebennack was hired by Johnny Vincent as a producer at Ace Records. There, he gained experience working with many artists, including James Booker, Earl King, and Jimmy Clanton. While a struggling student at Jesuit High School, he was already playing in night clubs, something the Jesuit fathers disapproved of. He formed his first band, The Dominoes, while at the school. The priests told him to either stop playing in clubs or leave the school. Rebennack was expelled from the high school in 1954 and from then on focused entirely on music.

In late 1950s New Orleans, Rebennack led his own band, Mac Rebennack and the Skyliners, (Paul Staehle/Dennis "Bootsie" Cuquet, drums; Earl Stanley, bass; Charlie Miller, trumpet; Charlie Maduell, sax; Roland "Stone" LeBlanc, vocals), while playing gigs with others, including Frankie Ford and the Thunderbirds, and Jerry Byrne and the Loafers. His first (co-written) rock and roll song "Lights Out" (1957), sung by Jerry Byrne, was a regional hit. He had a regional hit with a Bo Diddley-influenced instrumental called "Storm Warning" on Rex Records in 1959. At A&R, he and Charlie Miller recorded monophonic singles on 45s for Johnny Vincent and Joe Ruffino for local labels Ace, Ric, and Ron. He oversaw the rhythm section while Miller wrote the horn arrangements and headed up the horns. This continued until Miller moved to New York to study music formally.

Rebennack's career as a guitarist was stunted around 1960, when the ring finger on his left (guitar fretting) hand was injured by a gunshot during an incident at a Jacksonville, Florida gig. After the injury, Rebennack concentrated on bass guitar before making piano his main instrument, developing a style influenced by Professor Longhair.

Rebennack became involved in illegal activities in New Orleans, using and selling narcotics and running a brothel. He was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to two years in the Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Worth. His sentence ended in 1965 and he left for Los Angeles.

Once settled in Los Angeles he became a "first call" session musician in the Los Angeles studio scene in the 1960s and 1970s and was part of "The Wrecking Crew" stable of studio musicians. He provided backing for Sonny & Cher (and some of the incidental music for Cher's first film, Chastity), for Canned Heat on their albums Living the Blues (1968) and Future Blues (1970), and for Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on Freak Out! (1966).

Voodoo influence

As a young man, Rebennack was interested in New Orleans voodoo, and in Los Angeles he developed the idea of the Dr. John persona for his old friend Ronnie Barron, based on the life of Dr. John, a Senegalese prince, conjure man, herb doctor, and spiritual healer who came to New Orleans from Haiti. This free man of color lived on Bayou Road and claimed to have 15 wives and over 50 children. He kept an assortment of snakes and lizards, along with embalmed scorpions and animal and human skulls, and sold gris-gris, voodoo amulets which supposedly protect the wearer from harm.

Rebennack decided to produce a record and a stage show based on this concept, with Dr. John serving as an emblem of New Orleans heritage. Although initially, the plan was for Barron to front the act assuming the identity of "Dr. John", while Rebennack worked behind the scenes as Dr. John's writer, musician, and producer, this did not come to pass. Barron dropped out of the project, and Rebennack took over the role (and identity) of Dr. John. Gris-Gris became the name of Dr. John's debut album, released in January 1968, representing his own form of "voodoo medicine".

1968–1971: Dr. John, the Night Tripper

Beginning in the late 1960s, Rebennack gained fame as a solo artist after adopting the persona of "Dr. John, The Night Tripper". Dr. John's act combined New Orleans-style rhythm and blues with psychedelic rock and elaborate stage shows that bordered on voodoo religious ceremonies, including elaborate costumes and headdress. In 1970, when Howard Smith asked him where the name "Dr. John the Night Tripper" came from, he responded, "Before that I was Professor Bizarre. Cats used to call me things like "Bishop" or "Governor" or somethin' but they started callin' me "Doctor" for a while, so I just hung it on myself for keeps." On the earliest Dr. John records, the artist billing was "Dr. John, The Night Tripper", while the songwriting credits billed him as "Dr. John Creaux". Within a few years, the "Night Tripper" subtitle was dropped, and Rebennack resumed using his real name for writing and producing/arranging credits.

Gris-Gris, his 1968 debut album combining voodoo rhythms and chants with the New Orleans music tradition, was ranked 143rd on Rolling Stone's "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. Three more albums, Babylon (1969), Remedies (1970) and The Sun, Moon & Herbs (1971), were released in the same vein as Gris-Gris.

During early to mid-1969, Dr. John toured extensively, backed by supporting musicians Richard "Didymus" Washington (congas), Richard Crooks (drums), David L. Johnson (bass), Gary Carino (guitar), and singers Eleanor Barooshian, Jeanette Jacobs from The Cake, and Sherry Graddie. A second lineup formed later in the year for an extensive tour of the East Coast with Crooks and Johnson joined by Doug Hastings (guitar) and Don MacAllister (mandolin). The same year, Dr. John contributed to the Music from Free Creek "supersession" project, playing on three tracks with Eric Clapton. Washington and Crooks also contributed to the project.

By the time The Sun, Moon & Herbs was released, he had gained a notable cult following, which included artists such as Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, who both took part in the sessions for that album. This album served as a transition from his Night Tripper voodoo, psychedelic persona to one more closely associated with traditional New Orleans R&B and funk. His next album, Dr. John's Gumbo, with drummer Fred Staehle serving as the band's backbone, proved to be a landmark recording and is one of his most popular to this day.