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I've been reading "Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of the Night Tripper" by Mac Rebennack. Not a great book, but not a waste either. A lot of the NO slang talk and a loose style makes it sort of a slow read (for me anyway). It is a little vague on some of the personal details such as his dealings with the law which you can safely assume was due in large to his dope habit. It is however almost as much about the music scene in NO, and later LA, as it is about himself. A scene inhabited by a cast of colorful characters. It sort of reminded me of McCarthy's "Sutree". After his move to California, he mentions several names in the music industry that many, if not all are familiar with. He wasn't not totally negative about them all. He didn't like the drugs of choice in SF, Hendrix played waaay too loud and would have done better in a larger band than trying to carry a trio by himself, and Zappa was just plain weird. He did a lot of studio work with the likes of Sonny and Cher and others passing through town. He dissed Mercury Records pretty good though. He got tired of what was going down and he and his buds decided to do the Dr. John thing. They recorded Gris-Gris on the sly without the Atlantic Records management knowing about it. Ahmet Ertegun finally got hold of the record and started screaming. "Why did you give me this sh*t? How can we market this boogaloo crap?" But for some reason, he decided to release it.
Of course I had to pull out my copy of the record. One of my Thrift store finds. Back in the day we were familiar with "In the Right Place" and such. And I've listened to "Gumbo" and a few of his more recent works. Even saw him at the local college a few years ago opening for John Prine. He had them dancin' in the aisles of the auditorium. Anyway, I had Gris-Gris, but never *really* listened to it. Until now. I was familiar with Humble Pie's version of "Walk on Gilded Splinters" but not his. No one I knew in high school had any Dr. John. I would guess there were a few copies of this record on campus at the time I was in college, but I never heard it. Again, it was "Right Time, Right Place" that was the hit back then. If I had this record and played it at home, or in the dorm, there would have been some serious suspicions about my mental health. My parents might have even called in a priest (and we're not even Catholic). Surly there would have been campus security sniffing around outside my door at college. "With that music, if that's what it is, there has to be drugs in there!" I didn't get to deep into what was going around at the time, but this record, at night, with the right medicine, could have done serious damage to some folks I knew.
I just might burn some incense and turn up the volume and make the neighbors in the apartment building a little nervous. Hell, maybe a little blood and chicken feathers around the hallway...
Interesting note about his costume. When he'd get a tear or a rip, he had to go to a taxidermy shop to get it fixed.
"Got medicine cure all y'all's ills
Got remedies of every description
Got gris-gris gumbo ya-ya
Hey, now, gumbo yeah-yeah"
Neil
"My God, that's moose turd pie!......It's good though."
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