The best thing you can be ‘like’ in music is yourself. | | | | Dr. John in Lafayette, La., Sept. 6, 2013.
(Philip Gould/Corbis/Getty Images) | | | | | | “The best thing you can be ‘like’ in music is yourself.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// Some things you may or may not know about MAC REBENNACK aka the NIGHT TRIPPER aka DR. JOHN, who died Thursday, possibly at the age of 78 but more likely at the age of 77: DR. TEETH, the keyboard-playing leader of the MUPPETS band the ELECTRIC MAYHEM, was based on him. Your understanding of the song "IKO IKO" is almost certainly based, directly or indirectly, on his classic 1972 version, from the album DR. JOHN'S GUMBO. He sang a POPEYES chicken jingle. His keyboard teachers included fellow New Orleans legends PROFESSOR LONGHAIR and JAMES BOOKER. In a nearly 50-year career as a bandleader and solo artist, he had exactly one top-40 hit. The BONNAROO festival took its name from one of his albums (and/or its title song). He took his name from a 19th century voodoo figure. He played piano and organ because he was shot in the finger while defending a friend in a fight, putting an early end to the guitar career he had planned for himself. Asked once if he spoke Spanish, he said, "No, I don't even speak English." His songs and his speech sometimes bore that last fact out. There are a million different ways to measure the giants of American music. There are those who dominated the airwaves during their lifetime. There are those who changed the course of pop culture. There are those who pioneered this style, or changed that sound, or blew the saxophone better than anyone else who ever lived. Mac Rebennack was a different kind of giant. An inheritor and carrier of one of the greatest of all American traditions—the music of New Orleans—who took it on a journey to there and back, and there and back again, over a long, prolific, sometimes weird, sometimes grounded, sometimes both, career. Sometimes live snakes were involved. Sometimes the METERS were involved. Sometimes just him and his piano. He was an embodiment and ambassador of a musical spirit that's hard to pin down but easy to hear. Even if you didn't exactly know him, you sort of did. He was a messenger and you were almost certainly on his route... I love this Dr. John detail: He neither planned to be, nor wanted to be, a frontman. He hated the very idea of any musician taking that role. But after the friend he wanted to sing on his first album backed out, a bandmate approached him and said, "Look, if BOB DYLAN and SONNY AND CHER can sing, you can sing." And so he did... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from AVICII—whose posthumous TIM actually came out Thursday—the JONAS BROTHERS, FUTURE, TYGA, BRANDEE YOUNGER, PELICAN, CAVE IN, LUKE COMBS, CARLIE HANSON, STEF CHURA, SANTANA, TIM HEIDECKER, TEE GRIZZLEY, DYLAN LEBLANC, KEEL HER, LUST FOR YOUTH, PLAID, PIXX, EABS, SILVERSUN PICKUPS, PLAGUE VENDOR, AURORA, FROTH, IDA MAE, RON CARTER & DANNY SIMMONS, DAVID SANCHEZ, CASEY VEGGIES, BIG TONE & HOUSE SHOES, YEASAYER, JAKE XERXES FUSSELL, PERRY FARRELL, LIFTED, PALEHOUND, YOUNGHUSBAND, PETER FRAMPTON, GLORIA GAYNOR, RICKIE LEE JONES, PETER PERRETT and HOLLIS BROWN... And from the vaults: BOB DYLAN in 1975, NEIL YOUNG in 1973, MASAYUKI TAKAYANAGI NEW DIRECTION UNIT in 1975 and PRINCE's demos for 15 songs he gave away... RIP "HUMBLE HARVE" MILLER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
|
|
| It was early 2018, and at home in the Hollywood Hills, Bergling was busy doing what he had told his millions of fans he would. Up here he was making music with his friends. Up here he was tan and sober. Up here he was hosting barbecues. Up here he was excited about what he was creating: Avicii 2.0. Up here, just briefly, everything was exactly right. | | |
|
| Indie rock spent the past 20 years learning to love the Grateful Dead. Now what? | | |
|
| Two years in the making, we check back in with the president and COO after divestments, acquisition and investments back into the iconic brand. | | |
|
| The enigmatic musician on snakes, his deep discography and learning from Papoose. | | |
|
| A great singer, composer, and piano player, the good doctor had a long career as one of the Crescent City’s most gifted musical ambassadors. Here’s a guide to his best work. | | |
|
| Gender fluidity in fashion is all the rage at the moment, yet the trend has surprisingly deep roots in the aesthetics of hip-hop. | | |
|
| Twenty-five years after the group’s pop supernova “Cracked Rear View,” it’s time for a reassessment. | | |
|
| Some more good news for Lil Nas X and his contemporaries. | | |
|
| 'Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too' simplifies thorny questions about fandom and taste with a paint-by-numbers story of rebellion. | | |
|
| Sub Pop co-founder Bruce Pavitt and Seattle grunge heavyweights celebrate the pho bac, dollar pizza, and cheap beer that fueled a musical revolution. | | |
|
| Just weeks after Lil Nas X went viral for critiquing alleged racism in country music, Adam Calhoun drew protests for appearing to stoke it. | | |
|
| Is affirmative consent possible when it's too loud to talk? With these nonverbal methods, it can be. | | |
|
| At a time when local newspapers are disappearing, the loss of a radio station leaves a community with another cultural and informational gap. | | |
|
| Yet another single, “Rainbow,” tanks on the country charts, even as her career soars higher than ever. | | |
|
| A far cry from 'factory girls,' they command more agency than ever. | | |
|
| Major labels are moving quickly to sign artists with songs that perform well on the app TikTok, betting that their popularity will transfer to other platforms. | | |
|
| Didier “Gol” Dambin got on Skype with Genius for his first ever on-camera interview. | | |
|
| The acclaimed tenor saxophonist discusses the key to maintaining his long-running quartet, his hometown, his father, and why he doesn’t consider Kamasi Washington a jazz player. | | |
|
| Hipgnosis has spent nearly $300 million already on catalogs, from Dave Stewart to The-Dream and Poo Bear. "I can't play the guitar, I can't write a song, but I can advocate very well for artists." | | |
|
| Chris Brown’s video "Wobble Up" features artwork that was allegedly copied without consent. | | |
|
| | | | | | | Live at the 2013 Americana Music Association Awards in Nashville. |
| | |
|
|
| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
|
|
