Five things you may not know about Dr John

Grammy-winning jazz musician Dr John has died of a heart attack at the age of 77, according to a statement from his family.

The singer-songwriter, born Malcolm John Rebennack Jr in 1941, found fame with an eclectic sound that drew on the diverse musical heritage of his native New Orleans.

As well as releasing 20 albums spanning jazz, blues, funk, boogie-woogie and psychedelia, his musical prowess made him “in-demand sideman” says Variety, and he recorded with artists including the Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, Van Morrison, Ringo Starr and B.B. King over his seven-decade career.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Here are five things you may not know about the jazz world’s “eminence gris-gris”.

Appeared on soap boxes as a baby

Rebennack grew up in a middle-class home in New Orleans, where his father ran an appliance and record store. His mother, Dorothy, had previously worked as a fashion model, and used her industry connections to get her son his first gig: aged nine months, his face appeared on Ivory Soap boxes.

Become a record producer aged 16

By his early teens, Rebennack’s musical talent had already attracted attention, and he was regularly working as a session musician for touring acts in New Orleans nightclubs. At the age of 16, he was hired as a producer for Ace Records, becoming their youngest employee.

Unsurprisingly, the lifestyle did not sit well with his Jesuit high school, and the following year, his teachers issued an ultimatum: quit the nightclub circuit or leave school.

For Rebennack, an unmotivated student who was already developing a heroin addiction that he would battle for the next 30 years, the choice was easy.

“I left school very early to travel with road bands,” he later told Melody Maker. “I guess I’d already made up my mind to make my living from music.”

Switched instruments because of a gunshot injury

As a child, Rebennack became adept at several instruments but chose to pursue a career as a guitarist. However, that dream was destroyed in 1961, when a gunfight broke out at a gig he was playing in Florida. In the ensuing confrontation, he was shot in the hand and lost most of his left ring finger.

Unable to play the guitar with the same ease, he pivoted to the piano as his main instrument, with which he would eventually find fame.

Stage persona inspired by voodoo

During his childhood in New Orleans, Rebennack was fascinated by the culture of voodoo in the surrounding Louisiana swampland, the origins of which can be traced to the spiritual folkways of slaves brought from West Africa.

His mystical and flamboyant stage persona - full name Dr John Creaux the Night Tripper - was inspired by local legends of voodoo priests, who sold amulets and potions to believers, performed extravagant rituals, and claimed to cast powerful spells.

At shows, Dr John appeared as “a shaman-like figure draped in furs and feathers, beads and Mardi Gras Indian-style headdresses who would make his entrance in a cloud of smoke”, says CNBC.

His music also often incorporated elements of voodoo rituals, and he called his first album Gris-gris, the name for a good-luck amulet that voodoo practitioners believe acts as a protection from evil.

Only one hit single

Despite winning six Grammy awards and selling out concerts worldwide, Dr John’s decades in the music business produced only one top ten hit - 1973’s Right Place, Wrong Time, which peaked at No.9 in the US Billboard charts.