![]() ![]() It wasn’t busy and my friends and I sat just a few feet away from the piano. The support band were a local group led by a 22 year old Jon Cleary called King Kleary and the Savage Mooses who played New Orleans style music. We used to go and see them play whenever we could, as they were terrific. This time they also acted as Dr John’s backing band. I remember Cleary getting up from the piano stool and strapping on an electric guitar as a frail and intoxicated Dr John was led in to take his place. It was a superlative night of New Orleans music, which I feel lucky to have witnessed. Jon Cleary left for New Orleans soon after this, and worked with Dr John many times over the years, including on this new album. The second time was years later at the Barbican. I was happy to see a bright-eyed Dr John, fully recovered from his addictions, stride boldly over to the piano, cane in hand, and play another tremendous gig, this time with his own large band. I settled down with some trepidation to listen to the new record – much as I love Dr John, country is not my favourite genre and I was initially a little underwhelmed. Second time through, and I began to hear the New Orleans undertow. Dr John’s singing, in particular, makes the listener hear the lyrics of those trite songs in a different way, as any master’s take on an old standard should. ![]() Ramblin’ Man has been performed with a sort of “Look at me, I break hearts and then I’m on my way” swagger. ![]() Dr John’s take is simpler somehow, unheroic and with a touchingly plaintive train whistle at the end. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry is sung absolutely straight but so wistfully, with Shane Heriot accompanying on various guitars including lap steel. The opening track is his old friend Willie Nelson’s Funny How Time Slips Away. It is beautifully played in a pared back New Orleans style with an understated 2 nd Line backing made up of fine New Orleans session musicians including two lovely backing vocalists. Willie Nelson appears again to sing and play guitar on Gimme That Old Time Religion in which Dr John touches on another musical tradition by briefly taking us to church. Willie Nelson’s son Lukas and his band play on a reworking of Dr John’s 1968 hit I Walk on Guilded Splinters, which seems even darker than the original. ![]()
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