DR. JOHN: Witch Doctor Makes A House Call
The New Orleans landscape has been radically transformed in the half century since dixieland bands blared from passing riverboats and led the raucous funeral parades that wound their way back from the cemeteries.
The New Orleans landscape has been radically transformed in the half century since dixieland bands blared from passing riverboats and led the raucous funeral parades that wound their way back from the cemeteries. Congo Square has long since yielded to a maze of office buildings and apartment complexes, Toulouse Street has become a haven for strip joints and barhopping stockbrokers, and Louis Armstrong is dead and gone.
Yet New Orleans' last musical renaissance, its late 1950's and early 1960's burst of rhythm and blues, lives on in the hands of such adept practicioners as Dr. John, Allen Touissant, The Meters and The Wild Magnolias. Although Touissant may be the most influential musical force and Th.e Meters the most progressive, it is Dr. John who best embodies the true spirit of New Orleans rhythm and blues. .
