DR JOHN

To think that Doctor John is the most important persona Mac Rebennack possesses is to miss the point entirely. If Rebennack were only the voodo rock necromancer he seems to be at first glance, his place on the program of a blues and jazz festival might be suspect. Even if his music, as Doctor John’s has, has extended the forms and definition of both blues and jazz (not to mention rock and R&B) to a more-than-minor degree.

Mac Rebennack is here because in a very real way, he is responsible for the existence of this festival. He didn’t found any particular mainstream of blues, jazz or R&B. But in a larger sense, Mac Rebennack has devoted his life to the music of New Orleans and Louisiana, to bringing it forth to the public and making it come alive again.

He tells his own story the best. “I went to work for Ace Records at the age of about 14 years old. I was what they call the A&R man, now they call it the producer. At the time it was my job to get the artist and the material for the date, hire the musicians, put the date together — if I needed to hire an arranger, which was very rare, that was also my end. To make sure they got good production.

“I did some of Chris Kenner’s records. I did some of the Huey Smith and the Clowns things, Jimmy Clanton and Frankie Ford, I did a bunch of unknown artists outta there that were never heard of: Guitar Ray, A1 Reed, Luther Reeves, Chuck Carbo, that was the Spiders group.

“From working for Ace, who had a bunch of them people I just mentioned, I got the knowledge to work with the studio band on a real tight basis.

“Then, I got burnt for royalties. All the extra monies got burnt out and. I never would see that money. I got the number 19 song in the nation, “Ship on the Stormy Sea,” when Jimmy Clanton was in a movie. I had money cornin’. I went to get my royalty statement and the man told me I owed THEM $475.”

If this sounds like a familiar story, it should. It is the tragedy of black music and musicians in this country. As Lester Bangs points out in his introductory statement on the state of “jazz,” the most phenomenal instance of the ’70s is that black musicians are beginning to! make money. Mac Rebennack Isn’t black, of course, but his experience is so nearly akin that it doesn’t matter.

More importantly than the economic bond Rebennack feels for New Orleans music is the spiritual bond that knits the good Doctor to the musicians. Huey “Piano” Smith and Professor Longhair, Fats Domino and Frankie Ford (who you might remember from “Sea Cruise”) all built a genre of R&B that took America by storm. Fats had more hits than anybody save Elvis i

Doctor John’s most recent work, and most likely, the music he will play this weekend, has been a new version of the New Orleans rhythm and blues of the Fifties. He plays it with a band composed of the expatriated New Orleans musicians who were driven by lack of work from Louisiana to Los Angeles in the middle-sixties, just as Rebennack was.

It is music made with fire and drive and conviction, and most of all a sense of familiarity which could only come from being part of it. The evidence is clear on Dr. John’s recording of the event, Gumbo. Released this spring, it is probably his best record.

Each cut told us something we didn’t know about New Orleans. We hadn’t suspected that Huey Smith or Fats Domino got their education at the hands of Roy Bird, the notorious Professor Longhair (whose career Rebennack has almost singlehandedly resurrected).

Most of us didn’t even know who Huey “Piano” Smith was and we might have recalled “Lady Madonna” better than Fats’ incredible “Blueberry Hill,” “I’m Walkin’” or “I’m in Love Again.”

Some say that this music was rock’n’roll. Others call it rhythm and blues. It served its purpose. Those barriers of nomenclature are breaking down. The Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival this year. Define blues. Define jazz. Define rock. Define R&B.

It all gets bigger, and what’s more amazing, it all gets better. So much to latch onto. I keep wanting to ask the really honest question: Why is Doctor John here?

I think that the answer lies on the stage when Mac Rebennack performs. I don’t think any purist definitions will do any longer. Jr. Walker and the All-Stars belong here, as does Dr. John, as do Bonnie Raitt and Sippie Wallace. As do Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Miles Davis.

I could forcefeed trivia all day. I could let you know that Dr. John is really Mac Rebennack, that he was born in Louisiana, moved to Los Angeles because he couldn’t get work in New Orleans anymore, that he is so respected that Mick Jagger and Professor Longhair both admire him. I could tell you that he has five albums on Atco Records: Gris-Gris, Babylon, Remedies, The Sun Moon & Herbs and Gumbo. I could tell you that ones of those singers with him on stage is named Shirley, and that she used to be in a duo called Shirley and Lee. That’s right - they did “Let the Good Times Roll.” I could talk about Ace and Specialty and Ric and Minit and the other New Orleans record labels, and categorize for you which cuts Rebennack produced, which he watched, which he played on.

I refuse. I rebel. I think it misses the point to delineate the trivia of the man’s life and say that this is why he is here. Mac Rebennack is here because he belongs here. He is here because, perhaps more than any other white man who could have been here, he invented us, as an audience. You think you’d know about Delta blu§s if it wasn’t for Fats Domino’s R&B? Don’t kid yourself.

Mac Rebennack’s here because he has participated in the birth rite of every one of us.