Shannon's Eulogy for Mac Rebennack aka Dr. John - June 2019

I first met Mac Rebennack aka Dr. John, in New York City many years ago, through Hal Wilner at a tribute for Mac’s mentor Doc Pomus. Several years later we would be reintroduced through our mutual friend Bobby Charles. We were tight after that.

Mac had a strong respect for death. That’s why he lived like he did. He kept one foot in the afterlife and one foot here in this one, his whole life. That may have been my favorite thing about him, next to, above and aside from his extra ordinary musical prowess.

He really was a high holy man, a prism which refracted, redacted, resorted and reshuffled the light by which to see the world. As it turns out he was a guiding presence in my life, my whole life. I grew up on Long Island in New York. It wasn’t a musical place like New Orleans. I grew up watching the Muppet Show - it was my formal musical edumacation if you will. I know that sounds silly but in high-sight it had everything to do with how I experienced and envisioned how music was supposed to feel; colorful, deep, easy, smart, enshrouded in a strong sense of humor, some danger, righteousness, full of long haired shaggy char-Actors and slinky monsters. Meh nom ina!

When Mac explained to me his friendship with Jim Henson and how Henson and he and some of the original Saturday Night Live cast had, way back in the late sixties dreamt up and inspired what Henson would later dominate children’s television with throughout the 1970’s with, my whole life shot into clear focus and I understood the path I was on. I realized that I had been following the yellow brick road towards New Orleans all along and of course Mac was the Wizard of Oz, simultaneously at the end and the beginning of my path.

Every time I was around him it was the right time and the right place and our paths criss crossed for a reason. I don’t know how else to explain the deep pull I felt to him and New Orleans. When you know what you’re following you never doubt your instincts. Mac had FEE-nominal musical instincts which were informed by his cast iron sense of self, a dedication to disobedience, never doing nothing rega-lation and most importantly by the spirits that he was in constant communication with. The spirits of New Orleans as we all know are ancient, universal, deeply human and speak in rhythm. They also can be summoned. His music because it was perfectly pure of principal was the copper wire which let the medicine in and out. But truth is not for the easily frightened. It is scary, dark and gory.

Mac held down the deep end of cool at the dark end of the pool like Earl King, Professor Longhair, Etta James, Wardell Quezergue, James Booker and the rest of the panoply of New Orleans’ musically medicinal men and women, the Mardi Gras Indians. He had the answer to the itch that all young musicians go looking for but can’t herbalize. That’s why ultimately we called him “The Doctor”. And he ain’t dead he’s just gone from the meat and the bones. He out grew them. But in reality, he’s everywhere, reabsorbed into the sun, the moon, the stars, the herbs, everyone who ever encountered him and of course every piano he ever touched.

He once told me that I sang like Patsy Cline and Otis Redding at the same time. I didn’t know that was possible or how I did it but I was glad I did it and I was glad I did it for him. I never needed any other validation or hung anything on another review again. Mac had told me where it was at and that put my soul at ease.

I’ll miss his textilemessAges da most. His voicemails that I’d pull over to listen to, to give myself the best chance of understanding them, our many conver-satins in dat universal language of one Macineez. He was living poetry.

One of the best things that he ever said told me was that life has an uphill and a down hill. The down hill is more fun. But you always got to do the uphill. He did the downhill first. He thought maybe he should’ve broke it up a bit but he lived full in, one foot in dis life and one foot where he is now. So yea

“This is Mac. Leave me a message short and sweet, I don’t want to hear nothing beat and keep it like that and I might call you back and I might not”.

Mac you the slamminist pianist and confiDante friend a gal singer could have. See you later alligator and in a little bit.

Orpheum Theatre New Orleans June 22, 2019

Shannon McNally