[Cont. from 69] would call Pomus to ask where his
songwriter partner was. “Don’t tell ’em I’m here!” Dr.
John would tell Pomus. “My dad loved Mac as much
as he loved his own, but he would drive him crazy,”
says Felder. “He was always worried about Mac and
would get angry and upset at him.”
After his commercial heyday, Dr. John survived by
touring, singing jingles for Popeyes chicken, and ap-
pearing on soundtracks. He released solo piano al-
bums that revisited the barroom style of his youth,
and in the 1980s he helped pioneer the concept of
rock stars playing pre-rock standards onIn a Senti-
mental Mood. Along the way, he developed a casual
fatalism about the music business. “I’ve seen the re-
cord business from a lot of ways, and don’t nothin’
surprise me anymore,” he said in 1997. “I’ve been
dropped by a lot of labels, and the only thing that sur-
prises me is that they don’t drop me sooner.”
Around 1989, he finally cleaned up, checking into
rehab for his drug abuse. At Pomus’ funeral in 1991,
Dr. John played organ and gave a eulogy referring to
himself as “a guy who used to be a scumbag dope
fiend” who was saved by Pomus. Recalls Robertson,
“Years later, when I would see him I’d remind him
of one of these stories, and he would say, ‘Oh, yeah,
man, I try to put that shit behind me.’ ”
Disaster brought him back home. Newly clean, Dr.
John began recording and touring regularly, and at-
tending recovery meetings in New York. But after
Hurricane Katrina, he found a new mission. His
2008 album,City That Care Forgot, expressed his
anger over the neglect of New Orleans. Soon after,
he moved back to his native city. “He wanted to see
this city rebuilt and people come back to New Orle-
ans,” says his daughter Karla Pratt. He played a chari-
ty concert for displaced musicians in the Ninth Ward;
later, he personally went to a Walgreens to buy medi-
cations the musicians required.
In 2010, Auerbach felt the time had come for Dr.
John to return to the mood of his swamp-rock work.
After tracking down his phone number, Auerbach
called but could barely decipher anything, thanks
to Dr. John’s “smokescreen, extra-thick” accent. “I
found out later that this was his defense mechanism
for strangers,” says Auerbach. “He’d been ripped off
by so many different people over the years.”
Getting his address, Auerbach flew to New Orleans
and showed up, unannounced, at a duplex Dr. John
shared with a newly released ex-con friend. When Dr.
John opened the door, Auerbach recalls, he looked
“incredible... He was dressed in a guayabera shirt
and wearing full beads, hair perfectly braided. Not
necessarily a stage costume, but the most incredi-
ble thing you’ve ever seen.” Dr. John agreed to make
the album, although trombonist and producer Sarah
Morrow, one of Dr. John’s collaborators, recalls some
initial anxiety. “He really liked Dan, but I remember
Mac calling me and he was very uncomfortable,” she
says. “He was being pushed out of his comfortable
territory. But what Dan did for him was amazing.
That album was a modern-dayGris-Gris.”
Released in 2012,Locked Down came in the middle
of a comeback for Dr. John. He had just been inducted
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the album took
home the Grammy for Best Blues Album — which,
Auerbach recalls, “meant the world to him as vali-
dation.” Those who got to know the real man could
understand why. “Mac was surprisingly insecure for
someone who was this icon and beloved by so many,”says Morrow. “Even if you’re sober for years, you
still have that guilt or doubt you carry around with
you. He didn’t think he really deserved the fame, the
wealth, or whatever it is that he could have had.”
He remained tied to his city and its traditions in
other ways. He still dined occasionally on local deli-
cacies like possum and raccoon. During walks, he’d
pick up only certain-colored leaves for some type
of home altar (when leaving on tour, he would light
candles and ask that they burn out on their own for
good luck). Another friend, local bassist Jeff Benina-
to, looked on as Dr. John boiled a squirrel, removed
the bones, and affixed them to one of his canes. At
various times, one or another of his walking sticks
would include a yak bone and a pouch made from a
kangaroo’s scrotum.
When a Twitter account was set up for him a dec-
ade ago, he’d announce an idea for a post with “I got
a Twizzler for the computer machine!” “Characters”
were “care-actors.” Even his “textiles” (texts) — no
spaces between words — captured his swamp-frog el-
ocution. “I hope someone does a glossary of his lan-
guage,” says Bonnie Raitt, a friend since the 1970s.
“There was no possibility of auto-correct, ever.”
But as he entered his seventies, health issues
began to overtake him. Due to cirrhosis of the liver,
he could no longer eat his beloved New Orleans shell-
fish. He began spending more time with his kids,
splitting time between his son’s house on Lake Pont-
chartrain and daughter Karla’s house in New Orleans.
Karla would watch her father crack up watching re-
runs ofThe Carol Burnett Show. “He loved Tim Con-
way and Harvey Korman,” she says. “He would laugh
until tears were falling down his face.”
He continued performing despite increased phys-
ical discomfort. “He had this outward appearance
of being old and slow, but, man, you talk about
eagle eyes,” says bassist Roland Guerin, his last mu-
sical director. “He knew exactly what everybody
[in the band] was doing.” Starting around 2017, he
began making what would be his last album, record-
ing country covers and remakes of older songs like
“Such a Night.” Neville appeared on a cover of the
Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” a jolly song
about accepting one’s life and fate. “Mac liked it,”
says Neville. “He knew he was on the way out, and
he was at peace with it.” Karla begs to differ: “I do
not believe he knew he was about to die. He was
looking forward to getting out of there and getting
back to his old routine. He never gave up.” (The
album, completed before his death, does not yet have
a release date.)
Last year, Dr. John was diagnosed with aphasia, a
condition that impedes speaking; he eventually re-
ceived speech therapy and moved into a rehabilita-
tion center. On June 2nd, he was visited there by Jon
Cleary, a British musician who’d toured with him.
Cleary brought along a portable record player, and
the two listened to records from Dr. John’s youth, like
New Orleans singer-guitarist Smiley Lewis. Dr. John
held Cleary’s hand and, despite his inability to speak,
sang along as best he could.
After Dr. John’s death four days later, New Or-
leans gave him a traditional second-line funeral,
with revelers and a brass band snaking through the
city of his birth. Transported through the streets by
a horse-drawn carriage, his casket was trailed by
mourners, including one holding a poster with dual
photos: one of the young Night Tripper; the other,
an older, more dapper version. Right to the end,
the devilish and the debonair were always one and
the same.DR. JOHN#loveallways
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