And Now We’ve Lost Dr. John

It’s been a hard week for the music industry. RIP Mac.

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/06/73048...ans-dead-at-77

That's sad news. His health has been poor for quite a while. He was a survivor and a really great musician. I never got to see him although I did see The Meters in New Orleans at Tipitina's back in 1990- close but not close enough, I am afraid.

Sad indeed. To bend a line from a New Orleans song, "Let him go, let him go, God bless him . . ."

I hope his funeral is New Orleans joyful - he sure brought joy to folks through his music and persona!

My kids got to know Dr. John because he sang the Curious George TV theme song on PBS.

RIP.

Cool dude! One of a kind! RIP Dr. John.....

Heard some NPR bio on him; quite a rough early life, drugs, jail time etc. Switched from guitar to piano after being shot in one of his fingers. Righted the ship, studied the New Orleans greats, became one of those performers who takes a regional style to the national stage -- I never would have heard Prof. Longhair if it weren't for Dr. John.

As I said in another context, we've lost so many of the "originals," and now we're losing the first generation of "revivalists" who studied and disseminated the music of the "originals." Time marches on, and tramples much beauty as it does...

Big influence on me. That stuff got me into NOLA sooner than I likely would have. Prof Longhair got me into playing accordian..

If memory serves, I believe you can hear some mandolin in the background on his first record.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jaycat

If memory serves, I believe you can hear some mandolin in the background on his first record.

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Yup. Here's the lineup for "Gris-Gris," a/k/a the Night Tripper album, his first. I heard it on the radio at age 16, said WTF is that?, bought the record and wore it out.

Musicians

Dr. John – vocals, keyboards, percussion
Dr. Battiste – bass, clarinet, percussion, arranger
Richard "Dr. Ditmus" Washington – percussion
"Senator" Bob West – bass
"Dr." John Boudreaux – drums
"Governor" Plas Johnson – saxophone
"Dr." Lonnie Boulden – flute
"Dr." Steve Mann – bottleneck guitar, banjo
"Dr." McLean – guitar, mandolin
Mo "Dido" Pedido – congas
Dave Dixon, Jessie Hill, Ronnie Barron – backing vocals, percussion
Joni Jonz, Prince Ella Johnson, Shirley Goodman, Sonny Ray Durden, Tami Lynn – backing vocals

"Dr." McLean was Ernest McLean, quite a musician himself.

Born in New Orleans, McLean was the son of musician Richard McLean, who played banjo in a government music project band, and his wife Beatrice.[2] He began learning guitar at the age of 11 and after the end of World War II, he joined Dave Bartholomew's band. The band featured drummer Earl Palmer and saxophonists Lee Allen, Herb Hardesty and Red Tyler, and became the best-known in New Orleans. They performed on many recordings, notably those made at Cosimo Matassa's studio. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, McLean was featured on many of the most successful and influential recordings of the era, including Fats Domino's "The Fat Man", Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy",[2] and recordings by Shirley and Lee, Little Richard and Smiley Lewis.

Described by Cosimo Matassa as "almost a total introvert", McLean was considered by many the best guitarist ever produced in New Orleans.[2] Red Tyler said "None of the other guitarists came even close to Ernest McLean...[He] was by far the best musician in Dave Bartholomew's band...one of the few musicians I knew that spent ten or eleven hours a day practicing. He helped found the Fats Domino sound."[3]

In the late 1950s, encouraged by his friend Scatman Crothers,[4] McLean followed bandmate Earl Palmer to Los Angeles, where he began working in Earl Bostic's band.[2] In the early 1960s he was hired by Walt Disney to perform at Disneyland. There he played jazz standards and regularly performed in the New Orleans Square for the next 35 years.[2] He also played on occasional recording sessions for Lou Rawls, Sonny and Cher, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, most notably featuring on Dr. John's debut album Gris-Gris recorded in 1967 on which he played guitar and mandolin, an instrument he had never previously played.[2][5]

In 2010, he took part in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Dave Bartholomew at Case Western University. He died in Los Angeles in 2012, aged 86.[