Happy Anniversary: Dr. John, Desitively Bonnaroo
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Wednesday, April 8, 2015
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41 years ago today, Mac Rebennack - a musician better known by a moniker which paints him as one of the funkiest physicians in New Orleans - released an album which has gained considerable notoriety beyond the contents of its grooves due to its title inspiring the name of an annual music festival.
Released in 1974, Desitively Bonnaroo was an album which hewed very close in both style and substance to its predecessor, 1973's In the Right Place, which is hardly surprising when one considers that In the Right Place remains to this day Dr. John's most successful album on the Billboard Top 200, hitting #24. Unfortunately, lightning didn't exactly strike twice, or at least not in the exact same location: Desitively Bonnaroo still charted, but despite featuring arrangements and accompaniment from Allen Toussaint and quite a lot of contributions from The Meters, it only made it to #105, and the closest it came to earning a hit single was “(Everybody Wanna Get Rich) Rite Away,” which limped into the Hot 100 but never made it out of the 90s.
In fairness, one might argue that it's impressive enough that the mainstream audience embraced Dr. John the first time, so it was always relatively unlikely that they'd be primed and waiting for a second round with the same level of enthusiasm. That said, however, the fact that Dr. John still has a substantial fanbase four decades later is a testament to the level of devotion his music has inspired over the years.
Oh, right, and like we mentioned a few paragraphs ago, this very album also inspired the name of a pretty awesome musical festival.
As Jonathan Mayer, co-founder of Bonnaroo, revealed in a 2010 interview with Spin, “We were based in New Orleans at the time we came up with the name, which was around 2001, (and) we wanted to find a name that had a connection to where we were and what was inspiring to us. I remember sitting in my apartment looking up old records online and I came across this Dr. John album called Desitively Bonnaroo. The word 'Bonnaroo' looked cool. It turned out that it's Creole slang for 'good stuff.' That just seemed to represent what we're about. I Googled it and it didn't seem like it was too widely used, which meant that it was a term that we could really brand as our own. It's been a perfect fit.”
Released in 1974, Desitively Bonnaroo was an album which hewed very close in both style and substance to its predecessor, 1973's In the Right Place, which is hardly surprising when one considers that In the Right Place remains to this day Dr. John's most successful album on the Billboard Top 200, hitting #24. Unfortunately, lightning didn't exactly strike twice, or at least not in the exact same location: Desitively Bonnaroo still charted, but despite featuring arrangements and accompaniment from Allen Toussaint and quite a lot of contributions from The Meters, it only made it to #105, and the closest it came to earning a hit single was “(Everybody Wanna Get Rich) Rite Away,” which limped into the Hot 100 but never made it out of the 90s.
In fairness, one might argue that it's impressive enough that the mainstream audience embraced Dr. John the first time, so it was always relatively unlikely that they'd be primed and waiting for a second round with the same level of enthusiasm. That said, however, the fact that Dr. John still has a substantial fanbase four decades later is a testament to the level of devotion his music has inspired over the years.
Oh, right, and like we mentioned a few paragraphs ago, this very album also inspired the name of a pretty awesome musical festival.
As Jonathan Mayer, co-founder of Bonnaroo, revealed in a 2010 interview with Spin, “We were based in New Orleans at the time we came up with the name, which was around 2001, (and) we wanted to find a name that had a connection to where we were and what was inspiring to us. I remember sitting in my apartment looking up old records online and I came across this Dr. John album called Desitively Bonnaroo. The word 'Bonnaroo' looked cool. It turned out that it's Creole slang for 'good stuff.' That just seemed to represent what we're about. I Googled it and it didn't seem like it was too widely used, which meant that it was a term that we could really brand as our own. It's been a perfect fit.”
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Destively Bonnaroo
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