Two-headed doctor : listening for ghosts in Dr. John's Gris-gris /

Two-headed doctor : listening for ghosts in Dr. John's Gris-gris /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Toop, David, author.
Imprint:London, UK : Strange Attractor Press, 2024.
Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : The MIT Press
Description:397 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Dr. John, -- 1941-2019. -- Gris-gris.
Rock musicians -- United States -- Biography.
New Orleans (La.) -- Biography.
Biographies.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/14082987
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9781913689605
1913689603
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 374-382) and index.
Discography: pages 370-373.
Summary:"A forensic investigation into a single LP: Dr. John, the night tripper's Gris-gris. Two-Headed Doctor is a forensic investigation into a single LP: Dr. John, the night tripper's Gris-gris. Gris-gris has accumulated legendary status over the decades for its strangeness, hybridity, and innovative production. It formed the launch pad for Dr. John's image and lengthy career and the ghostly presence of its so-called voodoo atmosphere hovers over numerous cover versions, samples, and re-invocations. Despite the respect given to the record, its making is shrouded in mystery, misunderstandings, and false conclusions. In this wide-reaching book, David Toop excavates the phantom persona of Dr. John, loosely based on dubious literary accounts of a notorious voodooist and freed slave, a nineteenth-century New Orleans resident known as Doctor John, which provided Malcolm "Mac" Rebennack with a lifelong mask through which to transform himself from session musician in order to construct a solo career. The story details the historical context of Gris-gris's music, how it came together, its literary sources, production and arrangements, and the nature of the recording studio as dream state. But it also examines as a disturbing undercurrent the volatile issue of race in twentieth-century music, how it doomed relationships and ambitious projects, exploited great talents, and distorted the cultural landscape." -- Back cover
Table of Contents:
  • At the Crossroads
  • Dream Texts
  • Audition and Initiation
  • Tomorrow Is the Question
  • Laugh At Me
  • Behold, a Two-Headed Doctor
  • Everybody Talks At Once
  • Inventing New Orleans
  • One Need Not Be a Chamber to be Haunted
  • Maybe My House Was Not My House, and Maybe My World Was Not My World
  • Ventriloquising History /or/ the Deads' Town
  • Haunter of Ruins
  • Spirit World
  • Lords of Misrule
  • That Underground Stuff
  • She Danced With a Fish
  • Out of the Swamp Like a Crazy Fool
  • Poisons, Philters, Charms, Incantations
  • Babylon Be Thy Name
  • Notes
  • Discography
  • Bibliography
  • List of Illustrations
  • Thanks & Praises
  • Index

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