Dr. John
For fifty years, Dr. John has been a leading light of New Orleans music. Starting out on guitar as a studio musician, he later switched to keyboards while cooking up his special gumbo mix of New Orleans R&B, jazz, funk and blues. His recordings have always mixed the deeply traditional with the most recent rhythmic innovations, spicing everything with philosophical insights wrapped in hip, earthy lyrics.In addition to the funkier music, his piano playing fits firmly in the tradition of piano professors like James Booker and Professor Longhair, keeping alive a distinctive style of acoustic piano playing that is very special, and very New Orleans. Dr. John's recent releases have covered a broad selection of musical styles all with a unique New Orleans flavor. He draws from the tradition of brass bands, jazz, second line funk, R&B and blues, while reinvesting each of those rhythms, approaches and attitudes with fresh energy all his own.One of New Orleans' –and America's—great musicians, he took time before his September show at the Blue Note Tokyo to talk, in his gravelly, worldly-wise voice, about music, the hurricane and life in general.
I'm going to record you, if that's all right? You might have to edit some crap, 'cause you know me, I cuss a little bit, especially recently.
About the hurricane? You weren't there then were you?
No, I was actually working in Minnesota, but my phone hasn't stopped ringing for a minute.I'm pissed off at the top of the government, the middle of the government and the bottom. I'm pissed off at everybody. It's just f***ed up.
So, you're still not sure where some people are?
Some are still MIA. That's just how it is. When the phones are screwed up there's no way to communicate and when they do, some people are still missing. A nephew of mine and another girl called me from a shelter and said her family wasn't there, and she didn't know where anyone else was. It sounded like a f***ing zoo. Herman [Ernest], the drummer's pad has water up to the ceiling.
People will be going back eventually, no?
They will, but now, like where my grandson lives, they're just talking about leveling the whole place. The water is so bad. They got crude oil in the water and benzene and chemicals. And it's the only state in the union that don't get money from offshore oil. If you breathe it in, it'll kill you, if you get it on your skin, you'll get cancer, and that's not even including all the viruses and eighty gazillion other things. This ain't nothin' new to nobody from south Louisiana. Bobby Charles wrote a song in the 80s when Reagan refused to sign the Clean Water Bill. What the f*** does that guy think? People can just live without water? Not to mention the fish. People around there in south Louisiana have been suffering for years. After all, the corps of engineers originally f***ed up the course of the river.
All those people need so much help now.
We have been doing a project just recently for this. We were doing a save the wetlands project, but we just cut a record about the hurricane to help the hurricane victims. About a week ago, right before we came here.
What did you put on that?
We did "Sweet Home New Orleans," with some new lyrics, and "Wade in the Water" only we kind of revamped it a bit. We did a Bobby Charles' tune, one about cleaning up all the waters in the world. Originally when he wrote it, Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan and all these people were going to go down the river in a riverboat, playing gigs on each side all the way to make people look at that problem. When that didn't happen, Bobby gave it to Clarence Gatemouth Brown, who just passed away in the hurricane. Where are you from?
Me? I'm from Kansas City.
No, shit, Kansas City. When I was a kid, Kansas City had Pete Johnson and Joe Turner. When I was a little bitty kid, I had this fantasy of being Pete Johnson. When I heard the song, "Piney Brown," I really wanted to play like him. My aunt showed me how to play boogie-woogie; she just passed away at 94. She knew how to play all those boogie-woogie tunes, like James Booker and a couple other piano players. There was a song called "Butterfly Stride," which I can't even do it no more. It's all these tricks. Like you have a tenth here and all these notes inside a chord. James Booker, a one-of-a-kind kind of guy, really mastered it and used it all through his career. It was just some local shit but very special, you just didn't hear that kind of stride nowhere else. I don't know where my aunt learned it. Later, when I heard all those badass piano players, I threw that idea out and started taking guitar lessons
.People would play bluesy style or it was New Orleans style?
Well, like with Professor Longhair, he always added that little Caribbean stuff, the calypsos and the rumba, all that music from the Caribbean. It made something kind of nice and different happen in New Orleans.
So, you thought of that as New Orleans' music?
No, when you're a little bitty kid, you don't think of it like anything. What do you know about anything? My father sold records and I just thought all the music was from New Orleans. I listened to bebop, traditional jazz, gospel and what they called race records, which was R&B and blues and stuff. Basically, he sold to a black college crowd, Dillard University, which also got ruined in the hurricane. It was the oldest black college in New Orleans. That was his clientele. There was also a lot of hillbilly songs, Hank Williams and other people, that were popular, too. That was the music I heard, so I thought that was all the music there was. I had no idea that stuff was from Kansas City or NewYork or wherever.
But you started on guitar?
I was a studio guitar player when I started out. That was in 1954, 55. I was on my second guitar teacher, I had three of them. He was the guitarist in Fats Domino's band, and he sent me to sub for someone, when I was just a student. It was a recording session for Paul Gayton. I was playing a lot of T-Bone Walker, which was what I upgraded to. Before then, I was playing like Lighting Hopkins, and he told me you'll never get anywhere with that kind of shit, you got to tighten things up.
I love Walter Wolfman Washington on your latest recording.
Nobody knew where he was right after the hurricane. He was missing for a long time, and they finally found him. I was worried sick about it. So many people at one time, nobody knew where they was. Then, people started turning up. There was people I hadn't even thought about who started turning up. Their names were on the lists and things.
On this latest CD ("N'Awlinz Dis Dat and Dudda"), you brought in just everyone you liked?
Well, Stu Levine brought in some people I wouldn't have even thought about. We talked about bringing in people like Mavis (Staples) and Etta James for a song or two. And then, at the last minute Randy Newman knew this one song. I was shocked; it wasn't even a hit or anything, unless he happened to be in New Orleans when people used to play it or something. I thought that was pretty cool. Then, getting Willie Nelson, and B.B. (King) on it. B.B. wasn't that much of a surprise, I guess. I did some records with him before that. Willie is a square guts guy. I like that.
This CD has more drums than ever before.
We featured Earl Palmer, and that was real special. I hired Smokey Joe Johnson even though he had a stroke and was in a wheelchair and all. He helped Herman and Earl keep the funk. Smokey only has one hand that works, and he's playing the bass drum with it. He's so good, he really laid that shit down. He always made the band lock into him. That's the shit, man, that's the shit.
Where did that New Orleans funk start from?
There was a time when Earl Palmer left New Orleans and went to California. Smokey, John Boudreaux and a couple others was who did most of the sessions, and that started the funk thing. Earl Palmer's uncle started playing all this second line funk, which is a more traditional thing, but he played it a little more funky. Then Earl Palmer started playing a groove that nobody had did before, but he was matching up behind Little Richard who was playing on the piano with an eight note groove. They really played rhythm to match up with the piano. That led to all this other stuff, like playing straightforward on the cymbals, and a little time on the snazzy. They put in stuff that they did in Detroit and Memphis, and other areas. Then that made some other kind of funk.
That Detroit and Memphis funk had a heavy bass sound, though.
Yes, but when you listen to the drum part, you hear the other funk. When Smokey Joe Johnson went up to Detroit, with Wardell [Quezergue] and a bunch of people like the Dixie Cups and Earl King. People were very sophisticated at Motown. While they were up there, they put down all they had and they used all this. There was this straight four on the snare on a record, "She Put the Hurt on Me," and then a year later, you heard the same on a Supremes' record, "Baby Love." It was the same groove. Even today, on some records, you still hear that same thing forty, fifty years later.
What's going to happen with all these musicians?
I hope they don't have to go in all different directions. One of the great things about New Orleans is stuff was always passed down from the old-timers to the youngsters. I first started working recording sessions, Red Tyler, Lee Allen, and all the guys that was studio musicians schooled me. And Red in particular schooled me how to be a record producer. I was only playing sessions for a year or two and all of a sudden, I was a record producer. That was strictly from him helping me do that. By the time when I got a job, I had guys like Earl King and Huey Smith that was already working for that label as producers and songwriters who schooled me about how to do all those kind of things. That's just how it always was. Everything got passed around and everybody was real free and easy about that then, because it's like we all loved music. I was talking with Aaron Neville about that the other day. Nobody wanted to do nothing but play the music. We never gave a shit about nothing but the music
.You just learned by listening, then?
You had to listen closely. Like when somebody like Frog Joseph wrote that song "Slide, Frog, Slide," and nobody could play that song. They could try it, but they couldn't play it. The old timers were always schooling the young guys. On one of my favorite records, Big Joe Turner, "Honey Hush," his daddy played on it. So, like Kirk Joseph, he plays tuba that sounds like a bass, and on his latest CD, he wanted me to sing on it, and his daddy was playing on it, helping and all. I didn't even get to see his daddy again. The last time I saw him was the day of Earl King's funeral. We were having a crawfish boil. I was so bummed out that day. Earl King didn't want to have a jazz funeral. He was a Rosicrucian, so he didn't want a jazz funeral. He didn't believe in that and somebody dying, you got to respect their wishes. I used to call Earl all the time. He's somebody I miss having extended play/remix conversations with. Earl wrote all these great songs. He was just a kind of deep-thinking guy. I'm watching my old partners like that disappear. It's like more chunks and connections to New Orleans were disappearing even before this shit. Maybe, though, this will force something back together. It's got to be different, of course, but just maybe it will lead to some other thing that none of us would think of. Maybe it'll be something that will just keep the music growing. Music goes in circles, you know. It always spirals in and spirals out.