The good doctor is 76 today. There he is up top just a young ‘un still in medical school, clean shaven, full fingered and guitar strummin’. We wish him much love and health. Typically everyone be goin’ fer some deep voodoo or blues pianee to mark the occasion. Here’s somethin’ of an oddity from his heavily medicated 80’s. ‘Jet Set’ is the electric boogaloo type thing, the doc workin’ with Sugarhill Gang feller Duke Bootee. It’s an oddity, almost a novelty record but there’s plenty to love about it especially in the amazing time capsule NYC video. He shuffles about panhandling and singing ’bout travelling the world as one of the Jet Set. Yeah, we got b-boys and graffiti and a strong ‘Trading Places’ vibe, and the doc lookin’ sort of forlorn in a burned out Pinto with ‘mo-fo’ sprayed on the side of it. Hip Hop seemed a break with everything back in the day, but a little further down the line you could see how The Furious Five owed so much of their thing to George Clinton, and with that added perspective this little diversion seems entirely in keeping y’know? Doc’s most recent record is a tribute to Satchmo that he’s still touring, it’s got a version of ‘Mack the Knife’ with Mike Ladd on it. Hell yeah, “Fuck the Majesticons!”. Some of y’all gonna need to go google. I wait.
In terms of oddness he recorded ‘Bare Necessities’ for the ‘Jungle Book’ reboot and there’s an odd remix of it by Idris Elba who did voice work on the movie. Best thing about it is the weird mash of things that have come together there. Can’t say as it seems what you’d call a success. It somehow seems more dated than ‘Jet Set’. How’s that be workin’? Hoodoo is how. Have to confess I ain’t payed the Satch record much attention, it being one of them ‘cast of a thousand stars’ type deals. There’s a similar thing celebrating Mac hisself out too from a live show at the Saenger in New Orleans a couple years ago, bunch of folks singin’ his tunes. He’s on it, but I ain’t real sure about that one neither. So it goes. His last studio album of his own stuff ‘Locked Down’ was amazing, so I ain’t having it that he’s all washed up just yet, he just been a working musician since his teens and I don’t think the guy knows how to stop.
Down here is a mix from a good while back, inspired by his incredible ‘Going Back To New Orleans’ album – all kind of good stuff from the man himself and others on there, kicks off with Louis Armstrong funny enough.
