'I got all this music in my head'

The padre of New Orleans chant, Dr John, talks to FEDERICO MONSALVE about a career that's encompassed thirty something years, five Grammys and a few stints in rehab


There were four types of trouble to be gotten into as a white man from the wrong side of the Louisiana tracks and by the time he was 16, Malcolm Rebennach had already tasted them all with the thirst of a party man during Prohibition times: "Them brawls, moonshine, crank, and jazz."

Sounds like my type of party, I tell Malcolm.

"Yeah well, when you a kid you crazy nuff to think it's all kicks," Malcolm - better known as Dr John - admonishes in a severe tone.

I've been warned the doctor can be cranky.

Apparently he likes his questions to be straight shooters, his requests unadulterated and his interviews short and snappy.

Who would blame him? Dr John, 62, spent the first 14 years of his musical career paying the dues of a white kid in the undisputedly African-American dominated genres of blues, spirituals and voodoo-infused struts. Legend has it he began writing tunes for Little Richard while still in high school.

He was the first white guy to enter the legendary AFO records, run by Ellis Marsalis.

"It ain't been an easy road, man," the doctor says affably.

He admits to moonlighting as a multi-instrumentalist at "them blood-bucket bars", as he calls the back-alley Louisiana jazz joints where his career got off to a messy start.

Dr John began moving in a world of "pimps, crank users and honkytonks".

"I seen suckers get shot dead, one being stabbed on the armpit with an ice pick ... next thing I know the manager of the joint come up and says here ... " His voice grows raspier. He says, 'Mac keep playing man, keep playing, we don't want these people causing a war in here', so we just keep playing loud and fast man, loud and fast while this guy's bleedin' to death."

It was during a gig in Florida that the Doc attempted to stop a brawl and got his finger blown off.

"I try and stop this guy from being pistol-whipped. I thought my finger was on the barrel and not on the cannon and BAM, the gun went off." His finger was sewn back on and, although completely lacking any feeling in it, he had some legendary guitar jamming sessions in London with Van Morrison years later.

Dr John's voice is a slow-cooking Cajun drawl more fitting of a ghetto-bred, stand-up bassist than the goateed hipster we see on his album covers.

A distinctly Kansas City jazz sound tinkers in the background at his hotel in Seattle where he's preparing for the Australasian tour that will bring him to Auckland. "A Kansas City album was the first sound that made me give a damn about music," he says. "My dad used to collect records and one day he turns up with a parcel from Kansas, and that sound, man, that sweet sound made me wanna play music. I didn't know that stuff wasn't from New Orleans. It was inspiring."

With his mixture of survivalist determination and undeniable talent, everyone in Crescent City began hiring Dr John for studio visits. "I had recording sessions with Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Van Morrison, Sonny Bono, Phil Spector. As a kid I'd never dreamed I'd work with some of the people I worked with. I mean it's not like I was saying it in my head, 'Oh, if I do this or if I do that I'll get to work with these guys' - no, it just sort of happened. I was doing shows and next thing I know Van Morrison's calling me up to do some work with him, Sonny Bono's giving me time in his studio. Those cats were my heroes and wow, there I was."

But it was not until 1971, after living in Los Angeles and experiencing a sort of spiritual awakening, that Dr John made a musical return to his Louisiana roots. The punch-drunk honkytonk met swinging London head on and what he calls the "blood-bucket" years began to coagulate.

His song Walk on Gilded Splinters marked the Doc's arrival at a style that was more Louisiana than the Mardi Gras. The tune was a mixture of voodoo percussion and spiritual choral sections that melted New Orleans multiracial strut with a subtle funk.

"New Orleans is a place like no other, man. You got French influence, you got African vibes, Cajun, Caribbean, Spanish, Creole. Even in the food you can't say you'll be eating Spanish food in Louisiana. You got New 'Leans Spanish, you got New 'Leans Italian."


His following album, Sun, Moon and Herbs, with guest appearances by Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, was heavily infused with a psychotropic voodoo sound, its distinctive husky, imperfect vocals and piano sound charming charts from LA to Paris.

"We were working on vibes, man, the whole thing was about a spiritual communication and I started realising that when you let the spirit take over, the shit that's bound to happen happened.

"If you let the success get to your head then it don't mean nothing. You gotta let the spirit play through you and into the people and then let that spirit come out of them listening. It was an attitude thing."

His vocal style could be described as a narcotic emotional turbulence, the same bellyful of blues that has inspired Tom Waits and the type of incantation as rooted in Africa as it is in Woodstock.

Thirtysomething years, five Grammys and a few stints in rehab later, the padre of New Orleans chant is still as flexible in his collaborations.

Dr John has evolved musically by performing alongside a younger generation of musicians and film-makers. His deliciously poppish album Anutha Zone had cameos by members of Spiritualized, Portishead, Supergrass and Paul Weller, and his older tunes are still being remade and re-sampled by acts as diverse as PM Dawn and Beck (who uses Walking on Gilded Spirits in his song Loser.)

"I love playing with these younger cats. I like to see young ones taking something old and doing it different."

Continuing collaborations may have kept him in good working order, but the question remains, can Dr John keep doing house visits all by himself?

His latest solo albums have been sliding into import-only releases (City of Lights, All by Hisself, and Babylon) and Creole Moon was given a lukewarm reception.

So what's next?

"I don't talk about the future. I got all this music in my head, if I let it out that's it - the spontaneity is gone, the spirit is out there.

"All I know is I've lived my life sticking to what I thought was true and dang I'm glad I ain't doing no blood bucket night shifts no more."

* Dr John plays Auckland Town Hall on April 1.