Dr. John - Babylon

7.5 - USA - 1969

Sad to hear of the passing of Dr. John yesterday. A New Orleans pianist and bandleader who decamped to Los Angeles along with much of the New Orleans music scene during the 60s due to a combination of legal troubles and the economics of the music scene which saw much work migrate to the west coast, Dr. John’s somewhat hard to place in the history of rock ‘n roll. His most famous work is generally associated with the psychedelic period, and indeed his early voodoo-funk well lent itself to such heady times, and yet at the same time, his work can be read as a Zappariffic satire of hippydom.

This bifurcation is well demonstrated on this, his second album. Fully committed to the Night Tripper persona  – according to his fascinating, but possibly self-mythologizing autobiography, Mac Rebbenack was an actual voodoo priest – the Doctor had taken traditional New Orleans sound and aesthetic and filtered it through late sixties psychedelia. The apocalyptic paranoia that pervades Babylon presents a dark counterpoint to the stereotypical flower power ethos of its day (not unlike contemporaries Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Love, and even the Velvet Underground).

Having said, Babylon is a tremendously uneven record. The introductory title track features some interesting layering of keys, horns, percussion, and various effects to create a thick, soupy groove that cleverly alternates between 3/4 and 10/4 times. This sort of rhythmic complexity is very much not the Grateful Dead. The recording suffers, however, from some frustrating – and very much of its time – hard panning. The second track, “Glowin’” – without a doubt my favourite Dr. John track and a sorely underrated number, begins with a very straight, on-the-beat horn riff overtop of which is laid a wonderful circular rhythm to produce a spiralling polyrhythmic effect. Various chimes and bongs float up and down in the syrupy gumbo the Dr’s got cooking up. Wonderful.

Elsewhere, “Black Widow Spider” uses a crunchy, unrelenting, and very menacing 5/4 rhythm to warn against the predations of nefarious ladies, which is then followed by “Barefoot Lady”, its gentle, lilting counterpart. Much of the rest of the record descends somewhat into parody. It’s unclear just how much of Dr. John’s schtick was a send-up of psychedelia, but “Twilight Zone” and “The Lonesome Guitar Strangler” come across as musical jokes that didn’t quite land. “The Patriotic Flag-Waiver” – a pointed satire of the right wing – fares slightly better, but for all the intricate arrangements, the dated-production gives the record – particularly the second side – somewhat of a slap-dash, half-assed feel and makes the album a bit of a step back from his auspicious debut Gris-Gris.