FEELING A BIT ROUGH HERE
I MIGHT NEED A DOCTOR!!
Dr. John:
“Comin’ up I listened to everything my pa had. He had a record shop. My pa had four kinds of records he sold, which was race records like Rhythm & Blues and blues, jazz… it was bebop, traditional jazz, and afro-cuban music, and spirituals like hymns and stuff like that, and it was hillbilly music.”
“Most of that hillybilly music was Hank Williams or somethin’ like that. So that’s kind of what I grew up hearin'”
Looking back at those that had influenced him, Dr John had no shortage of incredible stories. “I seen Muddy Waters playing The Last Waltz . He played Nine Below Zero the night before they filmed it. I saw every so-called badass guitar player with his jaw droopin’ and saggin’… I wish they’d filmed that.” he boasts. “And that’s the kind of things I been blessed to see.”
“I remember Gatemouth. I never forget. I said to Gate, ‘I play your song Okie Dokey Stomp for my Theme Song!’ and he says… ‘Don’t fuck it up, kid’. I quit playin’ it as a theme song after hearing you say that! So that’s how much I admire Gate.”
If it could be boiled down to its most basic elements, though, Dr. John says with pinpoint accuracy what making music is about. “Dancin’. Dancing is a very big part of all of what we do. If you don’t make people dance… what the f**k you doin’ playin’ music?”
- By Matt Marshall, American Blues Scene
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