Dr. John

Latest Release

Essential Albums

  • Desitively Bonnaroo
    Desitively Bonnaroo
    Desitively Bonnaroo

    Desitively Bonnaroo (Cajun for "better than the best") is the final installment of Dr. John's early-'70s New Orleans funk trilogy, with producer Allen Toussaint and matchless instrumental quartet the Meters again onboard. The funk runs deep in both uptempo tracks like the subtly discofied "What Goes Around (Comes Around)" and the slow slide into sadness of "Me Minus You Equals Loneliness." Horns, female backing singers, and the bandleader's oily rumble generate Big Easy perfection.

  • In the Right Place
    In the Right Place
    In the Right Place

    Working with producer Allen Toussaint and the Meters, the second installment of Dr. John's early-'70s New Orleans funk trilogy resulted in a righteous hit single ("Right Place, Wrong Time") and funk arrangements synchronized like the gears of a finely tuned watch. Dr. John borrows "I Been Hoodood" from his minstrel-singing grandfather, illuminates "Life" with flashes of New Orleans piano boogie, and takes a raffish soft-shoe stroll through the Crescent City demimonde on "Such a Night."

  • Dr. John's Gumbo
    Dr. John's Gumbo
    Dr. John's Gumbo

    After inhabiting his hoodoo-murmuring Night Tripper persona for four albums, Dr. John returned to his roots for a celebratory Mardi Gras revue of timeless New Orleans hits from the '50s. Featuring the great Lee Allen on tenor sax, Gumbo unleashes high-stepping reinterpretations of rollicking Crescent City standards like "Iko Iko" and "Little Liza Jane." He demonstrates his substantial piano mettle on Professor Longhair's "Tipitina" and delivers an authoritative "Junko Partner."

  • Gris-Gris
    Gris-Gris
    Gris-Gris

    In 1968, New Orleans keyboardist Mac Rebennack reinvented himself as a slightly sinister swamp spiritualist known as Dr. John, the frog-voiced Night Tripper. Rebennack and his crew's strange brew mixed San Francisco psychedelia with New Orleans R&B, which sounds especially effective in "Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya" and "I Walk on Guilded Splinters"—heavily percussive, chant-driven tracks suggesting something ominous rising from the swamp. "Mama Roux," meanwhile, whips up its own Afro-Cuban magic.

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Singles & EPs

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About Dr. John

No performer embodies the deeply funky, audaciously swinging spirit of New Orleans music more than singer/songwriter/pianist Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John. Born in The Big Easy in 1941, Rebennack dropped out of high school to gig tirelessly and record as a guitarist—before losing the use of a fretting finger in a gun fight and making the switch to piano. Following two years in jail on a heroin charge, Rebennack moved to Los Angeles, where he joined fabled studio sessioneers The Wrecking Crew. His 1968 debut, Gris-Gris, introduced his alter ego, Dr. John the Night Tripper, a beaded and befeathered hybrid of voodoo exoticism and Big Easy conviviality. After four albums of cult-pleasing swampadelic soul, he returned to his roots in 1972 with Dr. John's Gumbo, a stirring celebration of his hometown's keyboard-centric rhythm-and-blues tradition. The following year, he shrewdly hired preeminent Nawlins instrumental quartet The Meters for an album containing his biggest hit, the classic-rock standard "Right Place Wrong Time." His distinctive growl graced memorable commercials (notably, Louisiana mainstay Popeye's) and sitcom themes (including Blossom), and inspired Dr. Teeth, leader of Muppets house band the Electric Mayhem. In later years, he filled albums with the more than 115 songs he co-wrote with Brill Building legend Doc Pomus and provided voodoo vibes for projects by Spiritualized and Gregg Allman. In 2014, Dr. John brought it all back home in celebration of New Orleans jazz pillar Louis Armstrong on Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch, his final album before his death in 2019.

HOMETOWN
New Orleans, LA, United States
BORN
November 20, 1941
GENRE
Rock

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