Biography
Mac Rebennack, the singer/pianist/guitarist who performed as Dr. John, embodied a cross-section of New Orleans' musical history; by his 2019 death he was high on the list of the city's most-revered musicians. Born in the 3rd Ward, he was already active as a session guitarist by age 15; as a teenager he scored two regional hits with Jerry Byrne's rockabilly "Lights Out," which he wrote and produced, and his own instrumental "Storm Warning" (respectively in 1957 and '59). At the time he was primarily a guitarist, but in 1960 had a finger shot when he interfered in a fight involving a bandmember; this led him to play mainly piano. By the mid '60s he was working sessions in Los Angeles with fellow New Orleans expat Harold Battiste, who'd become Sonny & Cher's musical director. Money from these sessions funded the recording of Gris-Gris (1968), a concept album he'd written around the folk character of voodoo healer Dr. John. Another singer, Ronnie Barron was slated to be the Doctor but when Barron's manager said no, Rebennack took the role himself. Though based in New Orleans traditions, the sound of the record was decidedly trippy (he even christened the character "Dr. John, the Night Tripper"), causing it to be embraced by the hippies and the underground. He stayed in the voodoo groove for the first batch of albums, by the time of 1971's The Sun, Moon & Herbs the likes of Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger were joining him in the studio. He first shifted gears with the following year's Gumbo, an homage to the hometown R&B he'd cut his teeth on. He then worked with producer Allen Toussaint and backup band the Meters on In the Right Place, a funky and commercial-sounding album that provided his two signature numbers, "Such a Night" and "Right Place, Wrong Time," his only Top 20 single. From the mid-'70s onward Dr. John was known as a ubiquitous player and a colorful personality, among his many sessions were albums with B.B. King, Van Morrison and the Rolling Stones (Exile on Main Street). He played The Band's Last Waltz concert in 1976 and toured with Ringo Starr in 1989. The mid-80s were a relatively fallow period due to heroin addiction, though he did make his only two solo-piano albums in this era. Cleaned up by 1990, he began another period of recording prolifically, and touring with a band he dubbed the Lower 911. In 2000 he sang "Merry Christmas Baby" with Christina Aguilera, one of his more famous latter-day guest shots. He also worked with younger artists and in 2012 gained new visibility by working with Black Keys member Dan Auerbach on Locked Down, which won the Grammy Award for Best Blues Album. His final album, 2014's Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch, explored the Louis Armstrong catalogue with a roomful of guests including Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval and the Blind Boys of Alabama. However health problems led him to quit performing in 2017; after two quiet years he died on the morning of June 6, 2019.
