Dr. John :The Doctor Is In (3)

UNDER A HOODOO MOON

Although Bonaroo didn't sell well and Dr. John only recorded one LP between 1974 and 1978 (Hollywood Be Thy Name, which sank without much trace), he was a very busy man, working on tracks by Aretha Franklin ("Spanish Harlem") and Carly Simon & James Taylor ("Mockingbird"). He produced Van Morrison's A Period of Transition album as well as Levon Helm's RCO All-Stars. He also made an appearance at the Band's farewell concert, The Last Waltz, playing a relaxed, beautiful version of his song "Such a Night". No longer under contract with a major label, he recorded the incredible LP City Lights for Horizon Records in 1978.

The 1980s were a time of regrouping for Dr. John, but he continued to work, writing with Jerome "Doc" Pomus (with whom he had worked on City Lights) and appearing in commercials for Wendy's and Popeye's Fried Chicken. He recorded back to back solo piano albums for Baltimore's small Clean Cuts label, Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack and The Brightest Smile In Town. These are extremely important documents of Rebennack's oft-ignored piano chops as well as offering a chance to hear him perform both old N'awlins favorites as well as unexpected delights like Jimmy Rodger's "Waiting For a Train". In his 1994 book Under a Hoodoo Moon, Mac says: "The thing I enjoyed most about these sessions was that they confirmed a turn I had been taking in my music-mainly, that I was on to doing more sophisticated music, not just the same old Mardi Gras or Gris-Gris stuff that I had been doing before. The audiences loved these earlier songs, but I found they were also ready for music on a higher plane, sounds that appealed to a spiritual awareness, not just that low-down meat level."

Indeed, the recordings that followed these solo piano forays saw Rebennack heading farther into a jazz groove. In a Sentimental Mood featured Cole Porter and Duke Ellington numbers, and Bluesiana Triangle/Blusiana Triangle II saw him working with jazz greats Art Blakey and Fathead Newman. This new sophistication and seriousness with his music reflected something else that happened to Dr. John in the few years from 1989 into the early '90s: he managed to kick his drug habit for good. "The whole turnaround thing was nothing I planned on" he says, "it just happened when it happened. God looks out for chumps and assholes. That's what makes life interesting."

In 1992 Dr. John returned, trying to incorporate his newfound sense of spirituality with the "meat" of his earlier recordings. Goin' Back to New Orleans is a history of New Orleans music, from Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton, the Mardi Gras Indians, right up to the funky music of Allan Toussaint and the Meters, not to mention Dr. John himself. The album was a critical and commercial success, and it put Dr. John back on the map. He spent the rest of the '90s recording prolifically, recording the albums Television, Afterglow, Trippin' Live, Crawfish Soiree, Anutha Zone, and Duke Elegant. Though occasionally one of his albums may suffer from overuse of studio musicians or an attempt to inject a too-trendy concept into his sound, the songs are always good (how can they not be when most are written by Rebennack himself, often with collaborators like Doc Pomus), the arrangements are pure New Orleans classic R&B (again, Rebennack does many of these himself), and the core group of musicians continues to be a group of exiles from the 1950s New Orleans studio days. In short, some Dr. John albums are better than others, but you'll never really have a bad time with any of them.

On his most recent recording, Creole Moon, Dr. John's got a little of everything in store-a bit of gris-gris, some funk, a little soft shoe, a bit of R&B crooning, some Caribbean carnival, a dash of jazz, and a lot of great songwriting, piano playing, and singing. A denizen of New York since the 1980s, Mac Rebennack has been able to incorporate all of these influences into his Dr. John persona and give us all a taste of New Orleans the way we know it should be-not the frat party town of the Superbowl and Mardi Gras, but the dangerous, exotic place of our imaginations. A place that, like the mystic Isle of Avalon, has receded far into the mists of memory but which can be conjured back for those who believe. As Dr. John himself says: "No matter how far away from New Orleans I've gone and what I've done, sooner or later I always want to come back to my hometown for a roots recharge. LA and New York are cool, but neither holds the spell for me that New Orleans still does…for better or worse, New Orleans remains its own strange self, and more than a little bit out of sync with other places in the United States. This is one of its charms, but it's also a curse."

>>Review of Creole Moon