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Bido Lito! April 2015 Reviews
Splinters/Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya medley, that
his band The Nightrippers come into their
own. As Sarah Morrow’s trombone soars over
an entrancing ritual beat, Rhoda Scott’s subtle
organ murmurs under the medicine man’s
mesmeric ceremony. However, instead of
merely trying to recreate the hazy energy of
the recordings, the incredibly tight band take
the voodoo sounds into faster-paced territory,
punctuated by the most frenetic of drum solos
courtesy of Herlin Riley.
Dr. John switches to his Nord synth and the
Bayou funk soon starts oozing out as he takes
on the album he worked on with The Meters,
In The Right Place – allowing Donald Ramsey
to come to the fore with the headiest of slap
bass sensibilities. The Nightrippers then play
through Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit Of Satch; Dr.
Satch
John’s tribute to another legendary musician
from the Third Ward, Louis Armstrong. It was
a given that the audience would be treated
to the uplifting What A Wonderful World
but the positivity is counterbalanced by the
markedly melancholic Sometimes I Feel Like A
Motherless Child.
After a brief stint on the guitar, which seems
to be as stabilising as his walking sticks, the
doctor moves back to the grand piano to
finish a brilliant performance doing what he
does best – pushing the keys to their limits.
Drawing deep into his reserves, The Night
Tripper’s incredible performance climaxes with
the explosive Mess Around. A sense of awe
and disbelief permeates the standing ovation;
perhaps he is a voodoo doctor after all…
Josh Ray / @josh5446ray
RICHARD DAWSON
Peter Smyth – Dave Owen
Mellowtone, Ceremony Concerts and
Harvest Sun @ The Shipping Forecast
Dr John (Glyn Akroyd)
DR. JOHN
Philharmonic Hall
When music has been a central part of your
life for more than half a century, it’s probably
fair to say you’ll continue playing until the day
you physically can’t. This is clearly the case for
Malcolm John Rebennack, better known to his
friends as “Mac”, better known to the world as
DR. JOHN, The Night Tripper. Born in 1940, Dr.
John’s mortality is becoming more apparent by
the year but it is also apparent that there’s a
driving force deep within that transcends any
physical limitations, allowing him to perform
for a set which lasts well over an hour and a
half.
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Perhaps the voodoo skull atop his grand
piano serves more than an aesthetic purpose,
but most probably this seemingly impossible
feat is down to the fact that, when your life has
revolved so intrinsically around music, music
becomes the thing that keeps you alive. Born
in New Orleans’ incredibly culturally significant
Third Ward, Mac was exposed to a whole range
of sounds from a very young age in his father’s
record store. By the beginning of his teenage
years he was working with Professor Longhair
and remained active as a session musician
throughout the late fifties and into the sixties.
However it wasn’t until his 1968 Gris-Gris
album that the legendary Dr. John persona
was born. Merging blues, funk, jazz and soul
influences with native Creole, boogie woogie
and zydeco sounds, alongside an aesthetic
derived from Louisiana voodoo, Mardi Gras and
travelling medicine shows, Mac created the
perfect emblem for New Orleans’ rich cultural
heritage and captured the world’s imagination
in the process.
From the very first pia