The pianist, singer, and songwriter—who died Thursday, at 77—straddled camp and tradition, authenticity and commercialism.
It’s hard to talk about Dr. John without giving in to New Orleans cliché. The Mephistophelian pianist, singer, and songwriter, who died Thursday, at 77, was happy to tempt that indulgence, just like he tempted listeners with so many other vices. There were the Mardi Gras Indian costumes he wore onstage; the checkered past, including an accidental gunshot wound; the hard living; the wry humor.
Just take the opening moments of his first solo record, which came out in 1968. First, a miasmatic swamp-guitar lick. Then the man himself, half singing, half talking huskily: “They call me”—beat—“Dr. John, the Night Tripper. Got my satchel of gris-gris in my hand.”
If this seems a little too redolent of Bourbon Street play-acting for tipsy tourists—Gris-Gris, the name of the album, comes from a voodoo amulet—let the record keep spinning, or streaming. Fifty-one years since its release, it remains shockingly weird. The mix of funk, blues, psychedelia, and Latin and African music prefigured jam bands (only actually greasy, and less meandering) as well as the cross-cultural borrowing common in today’s music. The album’s hit is the last track, “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.” It’s nearly eight minutes long and built on a repeating bass vamp and marginally intelligible lyrics. Yet it’s also irresistibly catchy: Cher released an excellent version of the song, at one-third the length, the following year.
Dr. John was born Mac Rebennack. He spent his nearly eight decades of life gleefully ignoring barriers: between pop music and outré explorations, black and white culture, authenticity and commerciality, tradition and innovation.
