Dr. John S/D

Its tighter and funkier than the original, but pretty good too - much better than Paul Weller's version!
Anyway, Dr. John is god and the "Sun, Moon" album is excellent.

Ah, I didn't think of looking at Sonny Bono solo stuff. That must be the one.

here's a question...i read that "sun moon and herbs" was originally slated as a 3lp...was all that material actually recorded and shelved or was it simply aborted before going into the studio?

someone needs to put out a box set of those four albums with crazy outtakes and the lost sun moon and herbs material. i can't believe i've never read about any bootlegs, whether of unreleased material or of live performances from the period.

-- walter kranz (kranz_walte...), December 6th, 2005.

I actually used to have this on vinyl.

http://www.rhinohandmade.com/covers243/7704.jpg

In the autobio Dr. John blames his manager at the time for absconding with the master tapes and fucking with them (editing, mixing, etc.). Similar to what happened with Remedies and the version of "Angola" that's on there. Anyway, I'd wager that extra LP of material from the Sun, Moon, and Herbs sessions is just lost and/or destroyed, but who knows...

whoa! the dr is rappin. top of the morn to ya gov'na
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dr-john-jet-set-1984/872347175

speaking of Sonny and Cher, I guess ya'll know Rebennack's associate from NOLA, Harold Battiste, arranged a lot of Sonny and Cher records? And this bizarre girl group, the Cake (they did a version of Jessie Hill's "Ooh Poo Pah Doo").

And speaking of AFO (Battiste's short-lived New Orleans collective record label), I recommend Dr. John and Ronnie Barron doing "Talk That Talk" on the AFO comp More Gumbo Stew: Original AFO New Orleans R&B.

http://thequietus.com/articles/04520-dr-john-interview-glastonbury-en-route-to-the-spirit-kingdom

I keep meaning to get his recent albums City that Care Forgot and Tribal but never did. Any good?

Here's a NY Times interview piece from today with him

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/fashion/22with.html?ref=style

WFT with his remark about the British?
I'm quite enjoying Tribal. Kind of a throwback to his earlier stuff — more bluesy and swampy.

Meant to say "funky" rather than bluesy.

Thanks. I wish I has seen his appearance in NYC last summer at a Ponderosa Stomp event with a bunch of old-time New Orleans folks.

Here's something I wrote about one track on City That Care Forgot, which album I couldn't get into otherwise:

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/rs_sotd/131/song-of-the-day-dr-john-and-the-lower-911-land-grab/

I like Tribal more -- especially the title track, which as far as I can tell is the only track where the hype about the album being a throwback to the weird avant voodoo funk of Gris Gris has any credence. But I have to say the album has shrunk on me with repeated listens, seems rather stodgy (not to mention long) in the long run. Not nearly a throwback to the Mardi Gras funk of Gumbo or the Southern rock swamp funk of In The Right Place either, though I wish it was. But if there are great tracks I'm ignoring, I'm curious what people think they might be. (Well, actually, Ben Ratliff in the NY Times already did -- see link below, and scroll down -- though I'm mostly not hearing what he's hearing, at least not yet):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/arts/music/02choice.html?_r=1

That remark about the British is hilarious. He might also have mentioned we kicked their ass in the Battle of His Hometown in the War of 1812.

http://blog.nola.com/entertainment_impact_music/print.html?entry=/2011/03/herman_ernest_longtime_dr_john.html

Herman Ernest, longtime Dr. John drummer, dies of cancer

Published: Monday, March 07, 2011, 12:41 PM

By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

Herman Ernest III, the longtime drummer in Dr. John’s Lower 911 band and a literal and figurative giant of New Orleans funk drumming, died Sunday of cancer at his home. He was 59.

Renowned for his larger-than-life personality, Mr. Ernest, known affectionately as Roscoe, was both a powerful percussionist and steadfast individual. He referred to his playing style as “diesel funk.”

He was featured on most Dr. John recordings going back at least 20 years, as well as on myriad albums by artists across the spectrum of New Orleans music. He starred in a 2004 New Orleans drumming instructional DVD alongside Herlin Riley, Johnny Vidacovich and Earl Palmer.

:(

He kept trying to play right to the end:

Most recently, Mr. Ernest cut tracks for “Nine Lives,” a forthcoming CD and musical based on Dan Baum’s book of the same title. Singer-songwriter Paul Sanchez recalled in a posting Sunday on the OffBeat message board how Mr. Ernest played through intense pain during the recording session.

Listening to "Babylon" for the first time ever this afternoon. What a bizarre record.

I just bought that myself. I really like it! Unique weird vibe, not really like "Gris-Gris" at all.

"black widow spider" off "babylon" is one of the greatest rhythm tracks ever.

Yeahhh!

I liked it too, I guess I should have clarified. Yeah, it seems to have less of its roots in "voodoo" or Haitian music (or whatever it is he's mutating on "Gris Gris") and more psychedelic rock and jazz and beat poetry. Mac sounds stoned to the gills on this one.

new album with Black Keys guitarist and others coming soon:

The keyboardist and bassist, Leon Michels and Nick Movshon, are from the El Michels Affair, one of the bands associated with Dap-Tone records from Brooklyn and the world of retro-funk that brought you the sound of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black” record. (They’ve also both played in the touring version of the Black Keys.) The guitarist Brian Olive, once of the Soledad Brothers, whose own solo album “Two of Everything” was produced last year by Mr. Auerbach, is part of the same fraternity of backward-looking obsessives.

This record will find some fans among those who loved “Back to Black,” and it should. But have you ever wondered how hip is too hip? “Locked Down,” with its down-cold James Black drum rhythms, distorted Fender Rhodes keyboards and free-range, organically farmed reverb, is a useful test case. (By the way, go back and listen to Dr. John’s complicated, spaced-out record “The Sun, Moon & Herbs,” from 1971, when all recordings were analog: are we trying to out-hip that on its own terms?) If Dr. John weren’t grounding it with his casual essence, it might collapse under the weight of its own studied scuff.

But some of it is beautiful, and I look forward to hearing it live. One can do that right

plus live in NYC:

a residency spread across three weekends. March 29 to 31 he’ll perform in “A Louis Armstrong Tribute,” which is just what it sounds like but different, including performances from Arturo Sandoval, Rickie Lee Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama. April 5 to 7 he’ll be performing “Locked Down” with Mr. Auerbach and band; and April 12 to 14 he presents “Funky but It’s Nu Awlins,” with guests from his hometown, including Donald Harrison, Davell Crawford, Ivan Neville, Irma Thomas and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/arts/music/dr-john-plays-three-weekends-at-bam.html?ref=music

The record has an African flavor beyond the rhythms. When Mr. Auerbach first approached Dr. John in 2010 about doing an album, he played him Ethiopian jazz by the vibraphonist Mulatu Astatke to give him an idea of the otherworldly keyboard sounds he was after. “I wanted it not to be a throwback album,” Mr. Auerbach said. “I wanted young people to hear it and fall for this stuff, not in a retro way.”

He then recruited young musicians steeped in African pop. They were anchored by the German drummer Max Weissenfeldt, who specializes in Ethiopian and Afro-pop beats, and the bassist Nick Movshon, a New Yorker who has mastered several African styles. They ate Ethiopian food and listened to African jazz during the 10 days in September when they wrote and recorded instrumental tracks at Mr. Auerbach’s studio, Easy Eye Sound.

“It was funny because we were sitting in his studio and we’d be on a roll from eating Ethiopian food and listening to Ethiopian jazz,” Dr. John said, “and then we’d cut something, and it kind of rubbed off. There is a lot of northwest African stuff in there and northeast African stuff, and there is some stuff that reminds me a little bit of Fela Kuti.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/arts/music/dr-johns-new-album-locked-down-and-bam-residency.html?pagewanted=2&ref=music

i don't have much use for the black keys dude but this album is p good. not sure dr john needs the hot-young-band critical reevaluation treatment as he's never really fallen off, digging it anyway.

npr talked with 'em this morning. Black Keys guy pushed the doc to write personal lyrics

http://www.npr.org/2012/04/03/149842728/dr-john-a-rock-legend-gets-personal

yeah album is pretty good. i despise the black keys but if this makes some more money for dr. john, helps him book better venues all the better.

I need to pick this up. On one cursory listen it doesn't sound radically different from his recent (non-Great American Songbook) recordings, but I'll admit I haven't been paying close attention to the last few. He was surprisingly great the last time I saw him though, and dug into some deep catalog titles.

If I were in NYC I would see “Funky but It’s Nu Awlins” in a heartbeat.

He was on Fallon last night, reading lyrics off of a sheet and looking pretty not-into-it. Best part of the song was Dr. John's keyboard solo, one-handed Astatke-meets-Fela kind of thing.

"here's a question...i read that "sun moon and herbs" was originally slated as a 3lp...was all that material actually recorded and shelved or was it simply aborted before going into the studio?"
In the autobio Dr. John blames his manager at the time for absconding with the master tapes and fucking with them (editing, mixing, etc.). Similar to what happened with Remedies and the version of "Angola" that's on there. Anyway, I'd wager that extra LP of material from the Sun, Moon, and Herbs sessions is just lost and/or destroyed, but who knows...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 6, 2005 5:18 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just read in Mojo last night that the dr's working on a version of the full thing for release next year.

O RLY

would buy!

Have any of the first 4 outside of Gris Gris been remastered remotely recently/ Or will that be the first one?
I'm assuming that Gris Gris must have been, cos its been reissued several times.

Just think my copy of Babylon is early 90s at latest. Must find the thing.

dunno. everything I have is on vinyl

am i the only one who finds that he sounds very much like captain beefheart on a couple of songs? which is great, obviously.

the good doctor's range is a bit narrower but in general yes

think they played on the same bill a few times in the 70s.

i was especially thinking of the new album which is not typical for him, i think. somehow i always associated him with more traditional american rock music. like swamp rock, blues and new orleans in general. but the new one is more adventurous, it has lots of psychedelic ingredients.

Have you heard Gris Gris?

yeah, gris gris is like the most psychedelic record ever.

man i said it on the album covers thread but Gris Gris is so fucking weird and swampy and psychedelic it's beyond fucked up awesome

haven't heard the new one but nothing with the black keys dude can be truly psych, they are like human cardboard

no i haven't, i have only had a cursory listen to dr. john's music up to now. looking forward to discover some good psych.

Gris Gris and Babylon are both pretty out there

haha yeah if you think this latest one is psychedelic just wait. any similarities to beefheart probably due to shared debt to howlin wolf right?

oh cool i didn't know he had any other records in that vein

for years i only knew dr. john from his kinda schmaltz-o appearance in The Last Waltz, but I heard Gris Gris a few years ago and was blown away. Such a cool record.

no, i don't think it has something to do with howlin' wolf. just listen to eleggua and you will know what i mean. that is pure, true beefheart in mexican mode,fantastico.

well, none of them are quite as spacey as Gris Gris. Babylon has a bunch of weird shit on it - children's choirs, odd time signatures, also this amazing song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b53cvwJdpXA

Remedies *wanted* to be a psych record but his manager fucked that one up pretty bad afaict. By the time he got around to Sun, Moon, and Herbs things had straightened out a little sonically but the material is all still in that voodoo-blues vein (also features Keith Richards and Mick Jagger iirc). Once he hooked up with the Meters he was pretty solidly in the fonk pocket.

it is really obvious how the manager/producer completely fucked this up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtcQCqpv_v0

Gris Gris is really great. Opening track is like taking a swim down the bayou with w/ an old stoned gator. Love all the layers of instruments/voices/sounds floating in and out and around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4J8VrprrGE

scratch vocal, three different takes just strung together one after the other etc.

xp

I interviewed him once (by phone) in 1997. Here are a couple of quotes I like that he gave me:

Talking about his recent live album -- "Music is basically meant to be played live. Music was meant to come from the spirit kingdom, go through the meat in our body, come back out, and go back into people's spirit. And the closest thing I think you can get to that on a record is a live record."

On longevity -- "I just always believe like Art Blakey—the idea that it'd be the nicest way to croak, on a gig. Might not be the most fun for the people watching that particular gig, but it kind of seems appropriate to go out doing what we do."

Professor Longhair died of a heart attack as well.

xpost He seems like he would have been a great interview.

I felt like the Nevilles comeback in the '80s did a lot of that, too. What was Dr. John's currency c., say, when "Yellow Moon" came out? Even Allen Toussaint seemed kind of marginalized by then. Tbh, the first I had really heard people talking about Dr. John beyond The Last Waltz and the Muppet Show was when he popped up on "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space."

In A Sentimental Mood, an album of standards, served as a comeback in 1989. Seems like it and Yellow Moon kind of turned the spotlight back towards New Orleans as a music scene.

Seems like both the Nevilles and Dr. John were staples of those big Blues package tours in the '90s too.

Right around the same time I remember buying a Buckwheat Zydeco record, there must have been a reason why I picked that particular one.

Hmm, the Buckwheat Zydeco record I bought was On Track, in 1992. Maybe I liked his cover of "Hey Joe?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wviu3L8h1Jg

I bought Buckwheat Zydeco's On A Night Like This in 1987, because I saw the movie The Big Easy and was like "What is this music with the accordions? This is great!"

I don't know that much about Dr. John's music, though, precisely because he wasn't really an entry point to New Orleans music for me the way he was for a lot of other people. Besides Buckwheat Zydeco, I also heard Professor Longhair first (somebody gave me a tape of Crawfish Fiesta in high school, so maybe 1988 or 1989, and that really spun my head backwards), but what's interesting about Dr. John anyway is that he wasn’t just an old-timey act like Leon Redbone; he put his own weird spin on stuff, at least early on. I feel like he became more of a traditionalist/keeper-of-the-flame/institution later. So I guess I need to figure out which are his most psychedelic weirdo funk records, vs. which are the ones where he's just paying tribute to stuff from before him. On Twitter, Ned kinda lumped Redbone, Dr. John and Tom Waits together as the last of a breed, and I get that, too. 21st century Bob Dylan may fit in that bucket, too.

All that said, I'm listening to his 2012 album Locked Down as I type this, and for a retro '60s garage-psych sort of thing, it's pretty good.

One of the prettiest piano pieces I know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij0QITJ1zrI

I also heard Professor Longhair first (somebody gave me a tape of Crawfish Fiesta in high school, so maybe 1988 or 1989, and that really spun my head backwards)

freaking awesome album is that. (sorry for none Doc John post - be he was a hero/mentor to him)

I could pretty much listen/dance to this on an endless loop today. Doc and Ronnie Barron recorded this under the name Drits and Dravy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7N38pW8MIU

unperson as far as dark psychedelic weirdo stuff, the first 3 or so LPs are where you want to be. Gris Gris is the masterpiece, the next few are patchy but there is some really out there stuff on them, incl. sidelong bad-trip freakout "Angola Anthem"

Yup to that.

Great thread here about the cover/gatefold art for In the Right Place

The cover of Dr. John’s “In the Right Place” is predictably freaky. We meet our hero as he’s riding on the moon, with multicolored hair and a wand. Below him, a spoon and a plate with arms and legs hold hands while fleeing a horse-legged lizard. pic.twitter.com/wDrp02pkRJ

— Randall Roberts 🦅 (@LilEdit) June 7, 2019

The stellar quality of Gris-Gris/"I Walk on Guilded Splinters" as entry points isn't simply that they're immediately appealing (they, of course, are), but that it, as I best understand it, was a project record that he became the public face of almost by accident, and that it was a grouping of people who were all from New Orleans but recording in LA with the perfect access to both the publicity and the technical side of the business. Pros working together, taking in what's around them and taking what they already know and going for it, and a perfect flashpoint of a frontman to boot.

love that Right Place album so much and it introduced me to the word "edumacated".

Great thread.

1) Others longer to New Orleans will have more essential memories, but I can desitively muster one worthy tale of the legendary Dr. John from having had the opportunity to write some dialogue for him on an HBO drama some years back. And to be clear....

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

I've been needing a new dn for a while. Thank you, Doctor.

I've always been curious about his actual relationship with the Mardi Gras Indians. Obviously a big influence, but it seems like he had some sort of honorary outsider status (or else he never would have gotten away with posing in a full suit for an album cover, right?)? Would love to learn the details sometime.

New Orleans showed UP for Dr. John! This second-line feels never-ending. pic.twitter.com/saDbvv7MMS

— NOLA.com (@NOLAnews) June 7, 2019

Great read here about his early years. Crazy times.

http://blog.ponderosastomp.com/2019/06/mac-rebennacks-wild-years/?fbclid=IwAR2ALgNPzYRHl4fvKxcy5CsR5lOxJYbuy0ILLiakvEfYhqgDuHZamtF8oN8

After preparing for a Dr. John tribute concert tonight, I've come to the conclusion that as much as I respect the piano playing and the particular style of slo-mo New Orleans groove that he came to own, I'm not really a Dr. John fan.

Fuck. How did I miss that he died?

:-( That's okay, I have enough fandom for both of us. xp

Ha, that's good. I like that people like him!

One of my fav deep cuts, from his early west coast days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR3Obpfcqlc

Wish some footage of that original Night Tripper band from the time fo Gris gris would appear.
Have loved that lp since I heard it in the late 80s, think I knew Walk On Guilded Splinters a while earlier.

Picked up the Atco box set a couple of years ago which is pretty great.

Loads of lovely live stuff been popping up since he passed. But do wish there was some more stuff a little earlier.

& the memoir Under A hoodoo Moon was a great read.

Did not know Dr. John had an ElectroFunk period

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4o2tWp8Vw

“Top of the morning to you, govna!”

That’s a fun oddity. I used to slip it into dj sets when I played out.

I wonder when his final album will ever be released.

Just picked up a sweet copy of Babylon after loving Black Widow Spider for years. Such a weirdo record. Does anyone else vouch for Zu Zu Man? I saw that at a store and passed recently, but maybe I should go back?

There are a zillion versions of Zu Zu man, containing more or fewer songs. None of it is in the trippy Gris Gris/Babylon vein, but the songs are worth hearing if you’re a Dr. John fan. He never did a straight country song like Just Like a Mirror again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBQ0xKARXQg

Final album came out Friday. I’ve listened twice so far and found it lovely, mostly downbeat and bittersweet. It’s perfect Sunday morning music. Not overladen with guest artists, and it holds to its original conception (a country album) fairly well, with thematic nods in the song selection that would be his final work.

I’m glad they didn’t go the Johnny Cash/Bettye LaVette route and have him doing Nine Inch Nails or Stones covers.
Apparently there was some after-the-fact “fixing” but overall I think it’s a fine farewell.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/dr-john-final-album-things-happen-that-way-1234595476/