Hard not to notice Dr. John was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame the other day. Easy to see why he was. To my ears, this New Orleans dude has been one of the most original rock musicians on the scene over the last thirty or forty years. For his whole musical career he’s held a steady course with his own brand of non-mainstream music, something I–and I alone, I’m pretty sure– call “Bayou Funk.” Is that a great name for a genre, or what?
Anyway, I have a personal Dr. John story. It’s entitled High and Inside with Doctor John and I posted it sometime last year, what month I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure about the title.
In other news… Stanley Owsley died over the wknd. For most of you this is a name you’ve never heard of, or if you have, it’s probably from your parents, and, anyway, you don’t give a shit in the first place. But, boy, was he big in the ’60’s. Owsley was the refiner and distributor of the purest, smoothest, safest LSD that ever came down the mellow brick road.
It was called Sunshine or Orange Sunshine or, most often, just Owsley, as in “I did two Owsleys over the weekend and I’m still ripped.” He deserves a whole post, and I’m going to give him one, but in the meantime go to “Truckin’ with Jerry/Driving Lessons” in these pages, for a whiff of the man in another life he lived.
And, once again, I apologize for abandoning any and all traces of currency with my posts. I can only continue to plead semi-professional pre-occupation. With performing. For little or no money, but lots of EBU’s (Ego Building Units). I’m beginning to think maybe I have only enough creative energy to fuel one side of my brain at a time, and right now it’s the right side. Or is it the left? I can’t remember. Anyway, more TK.