Blues biography dr john

For some time a man named Prince Kiyama toured with the band, and during the performance would bite the head off a live chicken and drink the blood. That all came to a screeching halt when they were arrested after a show in St. John was a member of the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra, better known today as The Wrecking Crew — a group of A-list session musicians that backed nearly every record coming out of Southern California in the s.

He also partly inspired the Muppets character, Dr. Teeth , leader of the all muppet band, The Electric Mayhem. John has won six Grammy awards and been nominated over a dozen times. Let the record show, however, that the very first W. John played guitar. The Katrina aftermath — Although Rebennack had relocated to New York some years earlier, the destruction that Hurricane Katrina wrought on his beloved hometown in , left him angry with the politicians and devastated by their lack of concern.

He also led the way in raising funds to assist displaced musicians. His mother, a fashion model herself, got his cherubic face on boxes of Ivory Soap. Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel. Rebennack was expelled from the high school in [ 11 ] and from then on focused entirely on music. His first co-written rock and roll song "Lights Out" , sung by Jerry Byrne , was a regional hit.

He oversaw the rhythm section while Miller wrote the horn arrangements and headed up the horns. This continued until Miller moved to New York to study music formally. Rebennack's career as a guitarist was stunted around , [ 13 ] when the ring finger on his left guitar fretting hand was injured by a gunshot during an incident at a Jacksonville, Florida gig.

Rebennack became involved in illegal activities in New Orleans, using and selling narcotics and running a brothel. He was arrested on drug charges and sentenced to two years in the Federal Correctional Institution, Fort Worth. His sentence ended in and he left for Los Angeles. Once settled in Los Angeles [ 8 ] he became a "first call" session musician in the Los Angeles studio scene in the s and s and was part of the so-called "Wrecking Crew" stable of studio musicians.

John persona for his old friend Ronnie Barron , based on the life of Dr. John, a Senegalese prince, conjure man, herb doctor, and spiritual healer who came to New Orleans from Haiti. This free man of color lived on Bayou Road and claimed to have 15 wives and over 50 children. He kept an assortment of snakes and lizards, along with embalmed scorpions and animal and human skulls, and sold gris-gris , voodoo amulets which supposedly protect the wearer from harm.

Rebennack decided to produce a record and a stage show based on this concept, with Dr. John serving as an emblem of New Orleans heritage. Although initially, the plan was for Barron to front the act assuming the identity of "Dr. John", while Rebennack worked behind the scenes as Dr. John's writer, musician, and producer, this did not come to pass.

Barron dropped out of the project, and Rebennack took over the role and identity of Dr. John's debut album, released in January , representing his own form of "voodoo medicine". Beginning in the late s, Rebennack gained fame as a solo artist after adopting the persona of "Dr. John, The Night Tripper". John's act combined New Orleans-style rhythm and blues with psychedelic rock and elaborate stage shows that bordered on voodoo religious ceremonies, including elaborate costumes and headdress.

In , when Howard Smith asked him where the name "Dr. Cats used to call me things like "Bishop" or "Governor" or somethin' but they started callin' me "Doctor" for a while, so I just hung it on myself for keeps. John records, the artist billing was "Dr. John, The Night Tripper", while the songwriting credits billed him as "Dr. John Creaux". During early to mid, Dr.

The same year, Dr. John contributed to the Music from Free Creek "supersession" project, playing on three tracks with Eric Clapton. Washington and Crooks also contributed to the project. By the time The Sun, Moon, and Herbs was released, he had gained a notable cult following, which included artists such as Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger , who both took part in the sessions for that album.

His next album, Dr. John's Gumbo , with drummer Fred Staehle serving as the band's backbone, proved to be a landmark recording and is one of his most popular to this day. Along with Gris-Gris , Dr. John is perhaps best known for his recordings in the period — In his autobiography, Under a Hoodoo Moon , Dr. John writes, "In , 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 s and s.

I tried to keep a lot of little changes that were characteristic of New Orleans, while working my own funknology on piano and guitar. In the album was ranked number on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the greatest albums of all time. With Gumbo , Dr. John expanded his career beyond the psychedelic voodoo music and theatrics which had driven his career since he took on the Dr.

John persona, although it always remained an integral part of his music and identity. It was not until 's Anutha Zone that he again concentrated on this aspect of his music wholly for a full album. In early Thomas Jefferson Kaye produced an album featuring a collaboration with Dr. In the same way that Gris-Gris introduced the world to the voodoo-influenced side of his music, and in the manner that Dr.

John as one of the main ambassadors of New Orleans funk. In describing the album, Dr. Still in heavy rotation on most classic rock stations, "Right Place Wrong Time" remains his most recognized song. Artists such as Bob Dylan , Bette Midler , and Doug Sahm contributed single lines to the lyrics, which lists several instances of ironic bad luck and failure.

John attempted to capitalize on In the Right Place ' s successful formula, again collaborating with Allen Toussaint and The Meters, for his next album, Desitively Bonnaroo — from part of which a Tennessee festival took as its name — released in Although similar in feel to In the Right Place , it failed to catch hold in the mainstream as its predecessor had done.

In the mids Dr. According to Pomus' daughter, Dr. John and her father were very close friends as well as writing partners. John delivered one of a number of eulogies and performed with singer Jimmy Scott at Pomus' funeral on March 17, , in New York City.

Blues biography dr john

In , he collaborated with the legendary Professor Longhair on Fess's another nickname for Henry Byrd last recording, Crawfish Fiesta , as a guitarist. The album was awarded the first W. Handy Blues Album of the Year in and was released shortly after Longhair's death in January In and , Dr. John recorded two solo piano albums, Dr. In these two recordings he played many of his own boogie-woogie compositions.

John was also a prominent session musician throughout his career. He played on three songs on Maria Muldaur 's solo debut album, including his composition "Three Dollar Bill". He sang on four songs and played piano on two songs on Muldaur's Louisiana Love Call. He was co-producer on Van Morrison 's album A Period of Transition and also played keyboards and guitar.

He played keyboards on the highly successful solo debut album by Rickie Lee Jones. In , Dr. John on this album. He also performed as the first American artist at the Franco Follies festival in John's longtime confidant and former personal manager, Paul Howrilla, was responsible for moving Dr. John's image from the s to the s. Paul Howrilla was the brains behind the scenes, as Dr.

John would attest. They remained close friends. John moved back to Louisiana in From the late s to , Dr. John co-wrote over songs with legendary Brill Building songwriter Doc Pomus. Some of the songs created with Pomus were recorded by Marianne Faithfull , B. King , Irma Thomas , Johnny Adams , and others. On March 17, , Dr. John performed "My Buddy" at the funeral for Pomus.

His movie credits included Martin Scorsese 's documentary The Last Waltz , in which he joined the Band for a performance of his song "Such a Night", the Beatles-inspired musical Sgt. His version of the Donovan song " Season of the Witch " was also featured in this movie and on the soundtrack. In , he performed the song " Cruella de Ville " during the end credits of the film Dalmatians.

He wrote and performed the score for the film version of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row released in John was also featured in several video and audio blues and New Orleans piano lessons published by Homespun Tapes. Between July and September , Dr. In , he appeared on the charity single version of Lou Reed 's " Perfect Day ". In the same year, he played piano on the Spiritualized song "Cop Shoot Cop Frontman Jason Pierce , a fan of Dr.

John's music, reciprocated by guesting on Dr. He recorded the live album Trippin' Live with drummer Herman V. This was for the relief of Hurricane Katrina victims, following the devastation of his hometown of New Orleans. On May 12, , Dr. He performed the opening theme music to the PBS children's program Curious George , broadcast since On July 30, , Dr.

John performed the theme music to the Fox drama K-Ville. In January , Dr. John sang the opening tune, " Down in New Orleans ". On May 13, , Dr. The name of the festival was taken from the Dr. John album, Desitively Bonnaroo. The Los Angeles Times said that it showed Dr. John "exiting a period of relative creative stagnation by creating something magical, the embodiment of everything he's done but pushed in a clear new direction".

It won a Grammy Award, as did Auerbach for producing it. John described the inspiration of the album as Louis Armstrong coming to him in a dream and telling him "do my music your way". The Los Angeles Times said, "Tribute albums come and go, but it's a real rarity that can snap a listener to attention like Dr. John's new salute to jazz founding father Louis Armstrong.

John and an all-star band which included event producer Don Was on bass. John recalled in Down Beat that "we used to work a lot of clubs and backed up about five or six local singers, like Jerry Byrne and Frankie Ford. Soon hired by Ace Records, where he worked illegally in studio sessions, he made an album of instrumental numbers under the name Mac Rebennack, but only one single was released, "Storm Warning.

He continued to do prolific studio work until , when under-the-table dates started to be policed by the musicians' union. Until that time, Dr. John had been primarily a guitarist, but he lost partial use of one finger on his left hand in in an incident where he tried to wrestle a gun away from a motel owner who was confronting the lead singer in a band he was playing with at the time.

The gun went off, leaving Dr. John's left index finger hanging by a small strip of skin. It was reattached and rehabilitated by doctors, and although he continued to play the guitar, often working out original songs on the instrument, he focused mostly on the piano from then on. John continued to pick up small jobs at strip shows and with local bands in New Orleans.

In Dr. John Creaux the Night Tripper—a name soon reduced to Dr. John—on his own. In Down Beat, Larry Birnbaum described the stage act as that of "a heavy-lidded, gravel-throated chanter. Born Malcolm Rebennack Jr. Web site—Dr. The resulting album, Gris-Gris, featured some of the finest New Orleans musicians of the time. Gris-Gris soon picked up a cult following, and from then on the musician toured under his Dr.

John persona. He also won a following among rock and roll fans with such LPs as his most famous, a collaboration with Allen Toussaint titled In the Right Place, which spawned a hit single of the same title. In the s Dr. John enjoyed television, radio, and movie exposure. He recorded several albums while living in New York City and also wrote some commercial jingles for Popeye's Chicken, TicTacs candy, and Wendy's hamburgers.

He continued to perform at jazz festivals around the country, spreading his distinctly New Orleans style of music. A durable proponent of the genre, Dr. John commented in Melody Maker that Louisiana rhythm and blues "will survive as long as there are guys that take some real interest in preserving not only the form and structure but this special quality.

John departed from his regular mode of recording by releasing In a Sentimental Mood, a compilation of ballads that won critical and popular success. Birnbaum declared the album "an extraordinary meeting of musical minds—a loose, spontaneous interaction among three mature masters … that showcases each of their strengths in an unaccustomed context.

John also released a video in titled Dr. The tapes were aimed at intermediate level piano players and explained the techniques of famous New Orleans musicians, including Longhair, Toussaint, Fats Domino , and James Booker. A reviewer in People found that "Dr. John cuts a colorful figure at the baby grand, singing, playing and dispensing musical wisdom," and concluded that the video "offers a rollicking two hours of fun.

John prepared to release his Goin' Back to New Orleans album, which would earn him a solo Grammy Award he has also shared collaborative awards with rock vocalist Rickie Lee Jones and with blues star B. Never aspiring to superstar status in the music world, he continued to perform his unique type of music. John declared: "If you're sincere about music I think it's worth all the hassles to stick to it.

John recounted his varied experiences in the music industry in his autobiography, Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of Dr. John the Night Tripper, published by St. Martin's Press. He released the album Television on the jazz-oriented GRP label that year. In he distilled eight nights of appearances at a London club down to album length and released Trippin' Live, the first official live album in his long career.

Concertgoers witnessed a slimmer Dr. John, who had also kicked a year heroin addiction at the urging of his fiancee, Cat Yellen; the two later married. John's album Anutha Zone saw him collaborating with alternative performers such as Spiritualized and Supergrass, but for the most part his albums and performances continued to draw on classic New Orleans styles.

He was signed to another jazz label, Blue Note, and released his first album for that label, Duke Elegant, in The latter release featured guest appearances by Louisiana musicians such as Cyril Neville, and it was hailed by V. Peterson of People as "a sublime disc that's part musical tribute, part treatise on livin' and dyin' in the Big Easy. Much of Dr.

John's time and energy in the mids was spent coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated his hometown of New Orleans in August of I'm angry at politicians from top to bottom. I feel devastated by a lack of concern for people. John, although he had relocated to New York some years before, led the way in raising money to aid displaced musicians, and expressed confidence that New Orleans music would survive.

In he returned to a jazz vein with Mercernary, an album of songs by classic pop composer Johnny Mercer , as well as another album, Blues Biography. He continued to be a fixture on tour wherever New Orleans music was played. John the Night Tripper, St. Martin's, John," Dr. John gale. Learn more about citation styles Citation styles Encyclopedia. John Pianist, singer A prolific session player who started recording in his mid-teens, Dr.

Creole Persona Dr. Selected discography With others Gris-Gris, Atco,