Singer/songwriter embodied music of New Orleans
Mac Rebennack, the pianist, singer, songwriter and producer better known as Dr. John, who embodied the New Orleans sound for generations of music fans, died on Thursday.
Mr. Rebennack, who remained an active creative force and a voice for his hometown up until he abruptly disappeared from public view 18 months ago, was 77.
A statement released by his publicist said the cause was a heart attack. He had been living in recent years on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, La.
Mr. Rebennack belonged to the pantheon of New Orleans keyboard wizards that includes Professor Longhair, James Booker, Huey (Piano) Smith and Fats Domino. What distinguished him from his peers was the showmanship of his public persona.
Onstage as Dr. John, he adorned himself with snakeskin, beads and brightly colored feathers, and his shows blended Mardi Gras bonhomie with voodoo mystery.
He recorded more than 30 albums, including jazz projects (“Bluesiana Triangle,” 1990, with the drummer Art Blakey and the saxophonist David Newman), solo piano records (“Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack,” 1981) and his version of Afropop (“Locked Down,” 2012). His 1989 album of standards, “In a Sentimental Mood,” earned him the first of six Grammy Awards, for his duet with Rickie Lee Jones on “Makin’ Whoopee!”
His only Top 40 single, “Right Place Wrong Time,” reached No. 9 on the Billboard chart in 1973. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
He had not been seen in public much since late 2017, when he canceled several gigs. He had been resting at his New Orleans area home, publicist Karen Beninato said last year.
Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. was born in New Orleans on Nov. 21, 1940. His father owned an appliance store; his mother, Dorothy (Cronin) Rebennack, worked as a model and in a music store. He was a photogenic baby whose picture appeared on boxes of Ivory Soap.
At a young age, he immersed himself in the sounds of New Orleans, first through the city’s radio stations and then by following his father to nightclubs, where he would repair P.A. systems while young Malcolm peered through the window, watching musicians like Professor Longhair rehearse.
Mr. Rebennack, a virtuoso on piano and guitar, was tutored by Walter (Papoose) Nelson, who played guitar with Fats Domino. “In the days when it was very difficult for a black guy and a white guy to socialize, for a black guy to give a white guy guitar lessons” was “beyond beautiful,” Mr. Rebbenack said years later.
He started playing in clubs and on recording sessions as a teenager, and dropped out of high school to pursue music full time.
He played guitar up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week — sitting in at Bourbon Street clubs, leading his own bands, mixing players from the city’s segregated white and black musicians union, and recording more sessions than he could count. “We used to do sessions every day, sometimes two or three a day, and you just scuffled to get through,” he said in 1973.
In late 1961, Mr. Rebennack interceded in a fight when a friend was being pistol-whipped; for his troubles, he took a bullet in his finger. The injury forced him to switch to piano and organ as his primary instruments. Not long after, the New Orleans district attorney, Jim Garrison, closed down many of the city’s nightclubs in an anti-vice crusade, and the local music scene collapsed.
After a heroin arrest, Mr. Rebennack did some time in prison. When he got out, in 1965, he headed straight for Los Angeles.
In California, Mr. Rebennack added barrelhouse piano flavor to pop and rock records, doing sessions with Sonny and Cher, the O’Jays, Frank Zappa and others.
After a few years, Mr. Rebennack recorded a session of his own, blending New Orleans R&B, Creole chants, psychedelic rock and mystical lyrics. He had intended the frontman persona, “Dr. John Creaux the Night Tripper,” to be played by a New Orleans buddy, Ronnie Barron; when Mr. Barron declined, Mr. Rebennack and his charismatic growl took center stage.
The Dr. John character made its debut on that album, “Gris-Gris,” released in 1968 on Atlantic Records’ Atco subsidiary, which became a hit on underground FM radio on the strength of hypnotic tracks like “I Walk on Guilded Splinters.”
Mr. Rebennack further developed the Dr. John persona (the name was borrowed from a 19th-century voodoo priest) on the albums “Babylon” and “Remedies.” As he wrote in his autobiography: “In New Orleans, in religion, as in food or race or music, you can’t separate nothing from nothing. Everything mingles each into the other — Catholic saint worship with gris-gris spirits, evangelical tent meetings with spiritual-church ceremonies — until nothing is purely itself but becomes part of one fonky gumbo.”
Fans of those albums included Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, who both appeared on his ill-fated 1971 concept album, “The Sun Moon & Herbs,” which was cut down from three discs to one when Mr. Rebennack became embroiled in a management dispute and lost control of the master tapes.
After that misfire, he took the suggestion of Jerry Wexler, the Atlantic Records executive who produced R&B heavyweights like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and began recording songs, like “Iko Iko” and “Tipitina,” that were as fundamental to New Orleans as red beans and rice. The album, “Dr. John’s Gumbo,” produced by Mr. Wexler and released in 1972, paved the way for two records on which Mr. Rebennack was produced by Allen Toussaint and backed by the Meters.
As many albums as he made, however, Mr. Rebennack said that he had earned more money cutting jingles. His clients included Popeyes chicken, Scott tissue and Oreo cookies. He also reached younger generations with his theme songs for the sitcom “Blossom” and the cartoon show “Curious George,” and through his Muppet musician doppelganger, Dr. Teeth, leader of the Electric Mayhem.
In 1989, after 34 years of on-and-off addiction, Mr. Rebennack quit heroin. For several years he split his time between New Orleans and an apartment in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan, where he could be spotted with his trademark walking stick, adorned with voodoo beads, a yak bone, an alligator tooth and key rings from Narcotics Anonymous.