From Warren Zevon and David Bowie to Gregg Allman and Pop Smoke and Mac Miller, posthumous albums recorded during an artist’s final months have become a sadly inevitable part of the pop landscape. That’s also the case with Things Happen That Way, the album Dr. John was working on when he died of a heart attack in June 2019. Now, three years after his passing, the album, which includes covers as well as some of his last newly written songs, will finally be heard when Rounder Records releases it on Sept.
- 5/5/2022
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
In December of last year, guitarist Shane Theriot got into his car and drove to Mac Rebennack’s New Orleans house with a completed version of the record he had just produced for the Hall of Fame pianist, singer-songwriter and producer ubiquitously known as Dr. John. Rebennack’s health was declining by that point; his walking had slowed to the point where it had become an effort for him to leave his house. Six months later, his family would announce his death as a result of a heart attack.
But...
But...
- 6/11/2019
- by Jonathan Bernstein
- Rollingstone.com
He was a one-eyed, drug-addicted piano genius who wore a wig stuffed with marijuana and once held a gun to his head on stage – now a new film tells James Booker's extraordinary story
It was the legendary Louisiana musician Dr John who memorably described James Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced". Though Booker – who died from hard living in 1983 at the age of 43 – would have undoubtedly approved of the description, it does diminish his musical stature somewhat, while only hinting at his flamboyance and talent for self-destruction.
In a new documentary, Bayou Maharajah, which screens at the Barbican this week as part of the London jazz festival, Booker emerges as a complex figure, dogged by demons and an on-off addiction to heroin. "When I moved to New Orleans in 2006, I heard his name a lot," says its director, Lily Keber, who hails from Georgia.
It was the legendary Louisiana musician Dr John who memorably described James Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced". Though Booker – who died from hard living in 1983 at the age of 43 – would have undoubtedly approved of the description, it does diminish his musical stature somewhat, while only hinting at his flamboyance and talent for self-destruction.
In a new documentary, Bayou Maharajah, which screens at the Barbican this week as part of the London jazz festival, Booker emerges as a complex figure, dogged by demons and an on-off addiction to heroin. "When I moved to New Orleans in 2006, I heard his name a lot," says its director, Lily Keber, who hails from Georgia.
- 11/20/2013
- by Sean O'Hagan
- The Guardian - Film News
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