Dr. John - Gris-Gris (1969)

I'm been reading a dictionary-sized collection of music reviews from Mojo magazine (it was a free book I found at LU) and came across Dr.John. The second I heard this music it sounded familiar like Wolfman Jack or Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem but with more gumbo.

https://allmanbrothersband.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=XForum&file=viewthread&tid=96949 wrote:In the late '60's, veteran New Orleans session musician and A&R man Mac Rebennack wanted more self-expression and some narcisstic fulfillment. To this end he created his character "Dr. John Creaux, the night tripper." He took the idea of a wholesale fictional artistic identity from Bob Zimmerman, and the drugs and mysticism from the Beatles, and it all got translated into New Orleans variants. Dr. John was basically a powerful Creole voodoo man with a vengeful nature.

Funky as funk and great for hot nights, the whole album has moved into my daily listening list but these are the two best tracks.

https://www.vulture.com/2014/03/muppets-dr-teeth-electric-mayhem-greatest-hits.html

I've never known much more than the name Dr John over the years, and more recently came across this video.

Somewhere somehow during the 80's or 90's, I would have seen the Muppet Movie or parts of it - but I had no recollection of any of the players in Electric Mayhem or to what extent they covered popular songs. They covered some great songs and did a great job of them as well! Thanks for putting up the link to the favourite picks article with its bonus Little Help From my Friends.

I love boogie woogie piano. There are some great preformances of just straight up piano boogie woogie and that performance was really fantastic!

I came across this video catchy song just a few moments ago.

Nice bit of music - and I need to try some harmonica playing like that guy was doing!

Watching the 4 or 5 seasons of the 'Muppet Show' (1976-81) as an adult was an eye-opener.
The show is love-note to American music and crafts.

I learnt a bunch of old standards from the 30s and 40s mixed with plenty of pop music parodies, and a bunch of American folk songs, add in the weekly 70s guest star doing their songs - and right in the middle is Dr. Teeth's psychedelic house-band and the big orchestra that starts the whole show.

For Steph's birthday (in the pre-youtube days) I went through all the episodes recording our favorite songs onto an audio cassette. I'll think about it and try to post some of our favorite muppet songs tonight.


I like the introduction to the 'boogie-woogie duet' as a nearly extinct, dangerous playing style. I wonder if Dr. John helped fashion that intro ... but the music lived up to the hype. That was some hard-driving, break-neck, hip-shaking boogie-woogie piano.