Mac Rebennack (AKA Dr. John!) “Storm Warning” (Rex, 1959): Today’s NYNT Party Platter

em>NY Night Train just started uploading an original 45rpm vinyl record every day on YouTube – the NYNT Daily Party Platter Playlist Hit up NYNT YouTube channel every day to see what’s cookin’…

This is Dr. John’s first record – the mysterious tremolo-drenched voodoo instrumental “Storm Warning”.Though he was a teenager when he recorded this in 1959, Mac Rebbenack had already established himself as a session guitarist at perhaps the most important studio in the history of recorded music – Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studios. You can hear Mac Rebennack on the wild Jerry Byrne Specialty rockers “Lights Out” and “Carry On” and lots of Ace sides by the likes of Huey Piano Smith, Joe Tex, Earl King, James Booker, and Frankie Ford leading up to this recording. Rex Records is actually Matassa’s own short-lived label and “Storm Warning” was waxed at J&M and the band is a lot of the usual suspects – Lee Allen and Alvin Tyler, a young Allen Touissant, etc. Mac’s guitar is very cool and Bo Diddley-informed and the arrangement is sparse and stylish at first and then the band starts to shake the hoodoo down as the sax’s start snaking around the beat. Hearing this makes you wonder, if Mac Rebennack’s finger wasn’t shot in a bar fight in 1961, what kind of guitarist he would’ve been as the 1960s kicked into gear. But all’s well that ends well because after the incident the guitarist switched to organ and became the Dr. John we all know and love.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._John
http://www.ponderosastomp.com/music_more/198/Mac+Rebennack

also you can learn more about this period of Mac Rebennack’s life and much more in Dr. John’s fascinating 1995 autobiography “Under a Hoodoo Moon”

graphics by AVI SPIVAK (http://www.avispivak.com)!

You’re listening to my daily addition to the New York Night Train Party Platter playlist. Each track here is recorded directly from the original 45 (no bootlegs, reproductions, etc) to give you an idea of what the real deal authentic vinyl sounds like. COME BACK EVERY DAY FOR A NEW FIX! Because the records pass so quickly at my dance parties, this channel is an attempt to stop and focus on one record at a time in hopes that it’ll turn you on to the artists, tracks, labels, etc. I’m just hipping myself to a lot of these records for the first time as well – so you can view this as a part of our journey to learning more about cool old records together! But mostly I hope this music moves you as much as it moves me.

Get your enjoys,
Jonathan Toubin
Soul Proprietor, New York Night Train

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