Dr.John

Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. was born in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans in 1940 and grew up surrounded by the city's extraordinary musical ecosystem. He began playing piano and guitar as a child, and by his teens was already a fixture of the New Orleans session scene, playing on countless recordings for the city's burgeoning R&B industry.

After a hand injury curtailed his guitar playing, Rebennack focused fully on piano, where he developed the rollicking, groove-heavy style rooted in Professor Longhair and Huey 'Piano' Smith that would become his signature. He moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and created the Dr. John persona — a flamboyant amalgam of New Orleans voodoo, Mardi Gras Indian culture, and psychedelic rock.

His debut album Gris-Gris (1968) is one of the most original records in American music — a swampy, incantatory blend of New Orleans funk, psychedelia, and voodoo ritual. It announced a singular voice. Over the following decades he made a string of landmark records, including In the Right Place (1973) and Desitively Bonnaroo (1974), produced with The Meters.

Dr. John won six Grammy Awards over his career and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011. He remained a tireless advocate for New Orleans music and culture until his death in 2019, and his influence on generations of pianists and musicians is impossible to overstate.