When Dr John first emerged in the late Sixties, it was as if a voodoo priest had risen up from the Louisiana swamps and immediately landed a record deal. It was an image the New Orleans-born singer-songwriter played up to, dressing like a medicine man in an elaborate feather headdress and performing with skulls and candles strewn around his piano. His real name was Mac Rebennack, and he was a 26-year-old session pianist for Sonny and Cher when he recorded his mind-bending 1968 debut album Gris-Gris, a bubbling gumbo of lysergic grooves, ritualistic percussion and growled incantations.
Rebennack embraced his shamanic character over the course of his half-century solo career, which took him to a host of unexpected places. He appeared alongside The Band during their farewell concert film The Last Waltz in 1976 and crooned the theme to Disney’s bayou-set The Princess and the Frog in 2009. Rich and intoxicating, his...
Rebennack embraced his shamanic character over the course of his half-century solo career, which took him to a host of unexpected places. He appeared alongside The Band during their farewell concert film The Last Waltz in 1976 and crooned the theme to Disney’s bayou-set The Princess and the Frog in 2009. Rich and intoxicating, his...
- 9/22/2022
- by Kevin E G Perry
- The Independent - Music
Five Months Before Dr. John’s death in June 2019, the singer’s son Max Rebennack sent an email to producer and musician Shane Theriot.
Rebennack began corresponding with Theriot about the album Dr. John had made over the previous year. The collection, recorded over a series of sessions in and around New Orleans, was a profound, beautiful document of a singer, weakened by age, reflecting on his life over a collection of mostly old country standards from his youth. Over email, Theriot and Rebennack discussed the special guests, tracklisting, and eventual mastering of the album.
Rebennack began corresponding with Theriot about the album Dr. John had made over the previous year. The collection, recorded over a series of sessions in and around New Orleans, was a profound, beautiful document of a singer, weakened by age, reflecting on his life over a collection of mostly old country standards from his youth. Over email, Theriot and Rebennack discussed the special guests, tracklisting, and eventual mastering of the album.
- 9/20/2022
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
From Warren Zevon and David Bowie to Gregg Allman and Pop Smoke and Mac Miller, posthumous albums recorded during an artist’s final months have become a sadly inevitable part of the pop landscape. That’s also the case with Things Happen That Way, the album Dr. John was working on when he died of a heart attack in June 2019. Now, three years after his passing, the album, which includes covers as well as some of his last newly written songs, will finally be heard when Rounder Records releases it on Sept.
- 5/5/2022
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
In December of last year, guitarist Shane Theriot got into his car and drove to Mac Rebennack’s New Orleans house with a completed version of the record he had just produced for the Hall of Fame pianist, singer-songwriter and producer ubiquitously known as Dr. John. Rebennack’s health was declining by that point; his walking had slowed to the point where it had become an effort for him to leave his house. Six months later, his family would announce his death as a result of a heart attack.
But...
But...
- 6/11/2019
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
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