#404 - Dr. John - Dr. John's Gumbo (1972)

MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:

Released on April 20th, 1972 on ATCO Records and produced by Harold Battiste and Jerry Wexler this is the fifth album by the New Orleans singer and pianist.

Born Malcolm “Mac” Rebennack Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1941 and raised in the 3rd Ward, Mac came from a musical family that exposed him to classic minstrel songs and Jazz.

He didn’t take lessons until his teens but Mac quickly started playing guitar in clubs.

Then when he was about 13 he met local legend Roy Bird, an early Rhythm and Blues singer and piano player who was professionally known as Professor Longhair.

He was so taken with the musicianship and personal style of “Fess” that he started performing with him in the mid-‘50s and began his professional musical career.

While still in high school he became a songwriter and artist at Aladdin Records and then became a producer and arranger for Ace Records where he worked with many greats.

By the late ‘50s while still a teenager he was playing guitar with lots of other musicians, writing Rock and Roll songs, and producing and arranging.

By the way, after having a hit he lied about his age by a year so he could get into gigs. It wasn’t noticed and fixed until 2018.

But after an injury to his finger hindered his ability to play guitar he switched first to bass and then to piano.

In the early ’60s Mac got caught up in some illegal activities and went to prison for two years.

When he got out in 1965 he found a lot of the club scene shut down in New Orleans so he followed many fellow musicians to Los Angeles.

There he quickly became an in demand session player as well as a member of the fabled “Wrecking Crew” group of studio musicians.

In 1968 he created a psychedelic voodoo persona that he called Dr. John, the Night Tripper originally for a musician friend of his but after that friend declined it Mac took it on and recorded his first album.

With a stage show featuring elaborate traditional costumes and voodoo rituals he released three more albums in that style.

But for his next album he went back to his roots.

In his autobiography he wrote, “In 1972 I recorded “Gumbo”, an album that was both a tribute to and my interpretation of the music I had grown up with in New Orleans in the late 1940s and 1950s. I tried to keep a lot of little changes that were characteristic of New Orleans, while working my own “funknology” on piano and guitar."

That traditional direction and the accessibility of those songs finally broke Mac through to mainstream listeners and paved the way for the success of his follow up album, “In the Right Place” which was his highest charting.

He remained a force of nature in the music industry and played with everyone from Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, The Band, Rickie Lee Jones, Frank Zappa, The Meters, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, and the Neville Brothers to The Edge, Spiritualized, and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys.

Among his many awards and honors are six Grammys, his 2011 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his birthday being recognized by the New Orleans City Council as Dr. John Day and November as Mac Month.

Sadly we lost Mac last year but his music and legacy lives on in New Orleans and all around the world.