CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES; EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES; GILLES PETARD/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES68 | Rolling Stone | August 2019
Longhair, Fats Domino, and Huey “Piano” Smith. But
few embodied the spirit of New Orleans, or helped
take it to strange new places, the way Dr. John did.
Even though he scored just one pop hit, 1973’s “Right
Place Wrong Time,” his impact on modern music
was huge, beginning with murky-swamplands mas-
terpieces like 1968’s Gris-Gris and 1972’s Dr. John’s
Gumbo (a tribute to New Orleans that helped intro-
duce rock fans to standards like “Iko Iko”). Eight-
ies kids know him from his theme song to the sitcom
Blossom; Gen Z recognizes his voice from animat-
ed films like The Princess and the Frog; and anyone
who remembers The Muppet Show knows the dap-
per bandleader Dr. Teeth, modeled on Dr. John. “He
wasn’t just New Orleans, he was worldwide,” says
Aaron Neville, who met Dr. John when both were
teenagers. “He brought New Orleans everywhere.”
And with Dr. John’s death near New Orleans at
age 77 on June 6th, of a heart attack, rock lost one
of the last links to its Wild West days. He witnessed
the grimy, gangster-ridden underbelly of early rock
& roll, coming away with a heroin habit, a prison
sentence, and half a finger blown off in the pro-
cess. His surly-tomcat rasp conjured the Southern
Chitlin Circuit and funky bars where R&B and rock
were birthed. “He was a human melting pot, grow-
ing up with different races and experiences,” says
the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, who produced Dr.
John’s 2012 comeback album, the Grammy-winning
Locked Down, “and it made him the most incredi-
ble mutt ever.”
From Bob Dylan to Lana Del Rey, musicians have
regularly wiped their slates clean, but few did it with
as much style as Rebennack did when he became
Dr. John in the late 1960s. He always carried him-
self with a sense of mystery, addressing the world
through witty pronouncements from behind his mo-
lasses-thick swamp-rat drawl. Where did Mac Re-
bennack end and Dr. John begin? As he would say
in one of his unique phrasings, “I got some confuse-
ment here.”M
ALCOLM REBENNACK JR. wasn’t neces-
sarily destined to become Dr. John. As
a baby in New Orleans’ Third Ward, a
middle-class neighborhood, Mac was
so adorable that he was featured in an
Ivory soap ad. Harry Connick Jr. had a relative who
lived next to the Rebennacks, and, in light of Dr.
John’s mangy image, was surprised to find out how
conventional young Mac’s house was. “It’s in a pret-
ty nice part of town,” Connick says. “It was hard for
me to imagine that neighborhood would be his.”
Yet the late-night side of town proved irresistible
for Rebennack. His father owned an appliance store
that carried records — what his son later called “gos-
pel, bebop, real filthy party records, and hillbilly stuff
like Hank Williams” — and repaired sound systems at
local venues. Tagging along with his dad on club vis-
its, Mac glimpsed legends like Professor Longhair.
His aunt gave him piano lessons as a kid, but he soon
switched to guitar. “New Orleans produced a lot of
good piano players and some good drummers,” he
said, “but for some reason there weren’t a lot of gui-
tar players around, so I kind of filled the need.” By histeen years, he was playing sessions and writing songs
for local acts. “We called him ‘the ratty dude,’ ” says
Neville, who sang on an early Rebennack session.
“He was hip. Instead of ‘How you doing?’ he’d say,
‘Where you at?’ He was a bad dude on guitar.”
In 1961, Dr. John was on the road with soul singer
Ronnie Barron when a motel manager pulled a gun
on Barron, who may have been sleeping with the
man’s “old lady.” Rebennack reached for the weap-
on and it went off, leaving part of his left ring finger
“hanging by a thread,” as he wrote in his 1995 mem-
oir, Under a Hoodoo Moon. The shooting was a pivot-
al moment in Dr. John’s life, forcing him to switch to
bass and then piano. But the injury also accelerated a
heroin habit that had already begun. “At the moment
I was shot, I saw not just my life, but my career, pass
before my eyes,” he wrote. “To get through it all, I
tried to make myself as null and void as possible — a
state I achieved through a heightened habit.” Busted
for possession, he wound up serving time in a federal
prison. According to Neville’s brother Charles, during
an earlier prison stint, Dr. John became known as the
“zuzu man,” selling cigarettes and sweets.
Upon his release in 1965, he wound up in L.A.,
home to many relocated New Orleans musicians.
(He would long blame district attorney Jim Garrison,
played by Kevin Costner in JFK, for clamping down
on New Orleans nightclubs and depriving local musi-
cians of steady work.) He became a session player for
Sonny and Cher, Buffalo Springfield, and other pop
acts, but he also wanted to make his own music. With
other New Orleans transplants, he recorded his first
album, Gris-Gris, in 1967. It was named after the term
for the charms, amulets, and incantations used byNIGHT TRIPPER
“He always spread
juju whenever
necessary,” says
Robbie Robertson.THE FULL EFFECT
Above right: In his
headdress, 1973.
“I was just tryin’
to hustle money,”
he said, explaining
the origin of his
character.GOOD-TIME GUYS
Right: With Keith
Richards in 2001.
“We played together
a few times,” Rich-
ards said. “He liked
to have a great time,
and so do I.”DR. JOHN, 1941-2019
PRE-MED
Left: As a young
guitar player in- By his teens,
Dr. John was playing
sessions and writing
songs for New
Orleans acts.
POWER TRIO
Above: With
saxophonist Fathead
Newman (rear) and
drummer Art Blakey,- The three
formed a group,
Bluesiana Triangle.
Senior writer DAVID BROWNE wrote about Hootie
and the Blowfish in the June issue.