He was in the right place, and finally, must’a bin the right time. Dr. John has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s better known in New Orleans, and more familiar to baby boomers with his piano banging and gravelly voice singing.
Dr. John at the New Orleans Jazz Festival 2007
“I was in the right place,” he wailed, “but it musta bin the wrong time,” – except the word time sounded more like tam. The song was his biggest hit, topping out at Number 9 on the Billboard chart back in 1973, but my personal favorite was Such a Night, sounding like “sech a night,” which the Doctor recalled as a time to “steal away, under the moonlight. And here I am, with my best friend Jim, tryin’ to steal her away from him.”
It was catchy. If I don’t do-it, you know somebody else will…
I was playing the song as a deejay then, and I knew that songwriters received royalty payments based on the number of times the songs blared out of a radio. Once a year, ASCAP (who wrote the checks) required deejays to write down every song played over several days, so songwriters could get paid.
Dr. John had his record on my turntable every other hour. I figured I had to make up for other deejays who didn’t appreciate him quite as much.
It turns out, Malcom John Rebennack – his real name, although friends call him “Mac” – didn’t need my help. He’d had several albums produced before he landed a spot on my program, and played with Eric Clapton and plenty of others. I believed him to be a struggling New Orleans artist who could benefit from a boost to the ol’ check-a-roo.
Never fudged for any other musician on the ASCAP list, and can’t really explain why I did for Mac Rebennack. I don’t always agree with the Hall of Fame inductees, but I’m glad there was a spot for Dr. John.
He probably had a New Orleans-style party, and I bet it was “sech a night…”