one of the prime time big daddy cool cats of ’em all just slipped on out the do’……..Dr. John recently expired, as of June 6th, when his big ole heart just sorta conked out.  he was 77.  a real rascal of New Orleans, Mac Rebennack was pretty well known to the NOLA PD, and did some time in the early 60s in some Looziana hellhole. when he got out, he took himself and his musical talents (a guitar player first, who then got damn good on piano) to L.A., where he became a part of the mighty Wrecking Crew of ace studio musicians.  it was while in L.A. that he cooked up the persona of Dr. John the Night Tripper, and in ’68, his first album Gris Gris came out, and it was some psycho delic zombie woof woof that one would still to this day call A Piece Of Work.  for real.

over the years, came more great albums, like Gumbo, In The Right Place, Television, Anutha Zone, and In A Sentimental Mood, among others.  in fact, if you feel like having a little Dr. John party of your own, any of those albums will get you goin, for sure.

we’ll get a tribute show going here in a few days…..research has already commenced!  stay tuned for air times, which we’ll post soon.

 

we want to note the passing of one of the great psychedelic madmen of the 60’s, roky erickson, lead singer and songwriter for the incredible 13th Floor Elevators. the Elevators were one of the first, if not THE first, bands to describe their music as PSYCHEDELIC.  and roky and the boys took this whole Brave New Acid World seriously. very seriously.  check out this snippet from the liner notes on their first album. “Recently, it has become possible for man to chemically alter his mental state and thus alter his point of view. He then can restructure his thinking and change his language so that this thoughts bear more relation to his life and his problems, therefore approaching them more sanely. It is this quest for pure sanity that forms the basis of songs on this album.”  like i said, these lads weren’t effing around.  (and the one song that was an almost hit for the Elevators was on that first album, the song called You’re Gonna Miss Me.)

for those inclined to look back and look deeper…..the first two Elevator albums are the biggies.  The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, followed by Easter Everywhere.  and there’s also quite the bio of their outrageous story. Eye Mind–The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, written by Paul Drummond.

Roky is now often remembered as one of the 4 all-time acid casualties of 60s rock n roll, along with syd barrett of pink floyd, arthur lee of love, and skip spence of moby grape. will there be a tribute show to Roky and the Elevators on Jiveradio soon?  don’t be surprised!