Five or so years ago, Allman Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks texted Dave Yoke to tell him Dr. John, the iconic New Orleans musician, was looking for a guitar player.
Trucks asked Yoke if he’d be interested.
"Of course, I was interested," Yoke recalls now, with a chuckle.
A gifted, fluid and soulful player from Anniston now based in Atlanta, Yoke had been in the solo band of Susan Tedeschi, Trucks’ wife.
Through Trucks, he connected with Dr. John’s band leader, who asked him to send over a couple of recent tracks he’d played on.
A couple weeks later, Yoke was invited to play a week-long run of shows with Dr. John and his band. That would be his tryout and they’d see how things went from there.
"And after the first night he offered me the gig full-time," Yoke recalls.
He'd spend the next few years touring the world with Dr. John.
As part of Dr. John's band, he'd perform such Crescent City funk and R&B classics as "Right Place Wrong Time" and "Such a Night" and many other songs from a frequently morphing setlist.
Yoke also got to see firsthand Dr. John’s eccentric, voodoo-dusted persona was no act.
"He was exactly the same off the stage as you'd hear and see him on the stage," Yoke says. "Even when you're just chatting about dinner it sounds like a quote from one of his songs. He'd call dinner 'groceries' - 'those are some good groceries right here.' It wasn't like he was trying to be clever with the way he wrote lyrics, that's just how he talked. It was pretty insane because you were constantly with Dr. John, even when you're not playing music.
Last week, Yoke received another text regarding Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack.
Their crew’s monitor engineer messaged, asking if he’d “heard the news about Mac.”
Rebennack, the six-time Grammy winning singer, pianist and songwriter had died June 6 at age 77 from a heart attack.
"It's a bummer," Yoke says. "Even though we all knew it was coming pretty soon."
In addition to his work with Dr. John and Tedeschi, Yoke has toured with the likes of Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and well-regarded roots-combo Scrapomatic. Up next for him: Missing Pieces, a promising rock & roll band that recently premiered a Stones-y track “First Class” and set to make their live debut Aug. 3 at Atlanta venue Terminal West. Many people from mid ’90s Tuscaloosa still recall and recognize Yoke as the lead guitarist from “almost famous” Alabama bar-band Secondhand Jive.
On a recent afternoon, Yoke checked in via phone to remember Dr. John. Edited excerpts from our conversation are below.
Dave, what were some of the songs you enjoyed playing with Dr. John the most?
One of my favorite all-time Dr. John tunes was a tune called "Qualified" (from the hit 1973 album "In The Right Place"). After the first few months I never saw it on the list, and it took me a couple months to get comfortable enough with him to start asking if we could do certain tunes. And one time I just started saying, "Man, you ever do 'Qualified' anymore?" and he said, "Well, let's learn that sucker." [Laughs] I think it had been a while since he played it, it was a real blast playing that with him.
What was Dr. John like offstage? What did he like to talk about and stuff like that?
He loved talking about music. We'd sit around all the time and he loved to talk about growing up in New Orleans and some of his heroes like this guy, Cousin Joe (singer-pianist Pleasant “Cousin Joe” Joseph), who was an older musician when he was growing up and playing around in the bars down there, and was a guy he took a lot of stuff from. He loved talking about what New Orleans used to be like, and what the scene was down there when he was coming up in it. He was constantly talking about the history of music and he was all about stuff like that.
Did pretty much everyone who worked with or for Dr. John him call him "Mac"?
Yeah. Every now and then people would throw a "Doc" out to him, but it was mostly "Mac."
What's your all-time top Dr. John album?
"Gris Gris" (Dr. John's 1968 debut album), I'd have to say is my favorite. I love that one. And then the other one, "Bonnaroo" something …
"Destively Bonnaroo."
Yeah, I love that one as well.
What guitar or guitars did you play with Dr. John?
I just played a Gibson SG, it's kind of my go-to. You can get a lot of different tones out of that and do a lot of different genres and I'm just comfortable with it, honestly. I got a little flak from some of the purists saying, "An SG with Dr. John?" [Laugh] I guess most people used Strats and stuff, but Mac loved stuff like that when you weren't following the script that people are used to seeing. He used to tell us, "Don't even pay attention to anything that's been done on these tunes in the past." He was very adamant that you be you. "That's why I brought you here, I like the way you sound. Don't try to sound like any of this other stuff that's been put down." He loved it when you were doing your own thing, that's when he'd get a big smile on his face.
Guitarist and Alabama native Dave Yoke, right, performs with Dr. John. (Courtesy Josh Brick/Josh Brick Graphics)
Anything interesting about how he ran rehearsals or gave cues onstage?
There was zero rehearsal. [Laughs] That's what sticks out. I got the gig and didn't even get a song list, I got sent like the setlist from the show they just did. I got flown in at midnight, went to a hotel, I can't even remember where, and the bus was there, had to get on the bus, didn't meet Mac until the morning in front of the venue. We went in and ran soundcheck and ran like two or three tunes and he was like, "Everybody good?" And I was like, "I guess!" [Laughs] And you just had to fly by the seat of your pants. He would send you a setlist for that night at about two or three o'clock in the afternoon and you just did your homework in that short little few hours before the show. He kind of liked to keep people on their toes that way, so there was a freshness to it, an urgency or something, you know?
How many pieces were there typically in Dr. John’s band?
Mostly we traveled with a drummer, bass player, an organ player and a trumpet, me and then Mac. Every now and then there'd be some shows where you had just a massive horn section - I've been on the stage with him with 15 people before. But mostly it was that lineup I told you before.
When I interviewed you for the Secondhand Jive story a few years ago you said before shows Dr. John would gather his band around and remind them to play like this was the last night of their lives. Is that something you still take with you?
Oh yeah, absolutely. And he's not the first one to teach me that, most of the people I try to surround myself with musically all kind of have that in the back of their mind - nobody phones it in, ever. But hearing him tell you that when you're onstage with him, it really set the tone for the night.
Was there a period of his career Dr. John seemed particularly fond of?
I think the earlier stuff. He liked "Gris Gris" and the second one, I'm terrible with album names, but it's one people don't listen to a lot and it's got a lot of odd time signatures. There's a tune called "Black Widow Spider" on. Is it "Babylon"? Yeah, "Babylon." He was really into that album too, but that's one that's lesser known. "Gris Gris" and "Babylon," he talked about those more than any other ones.
What records by other musicians did he listen to?
I mentioned that Cousin Joe guy, he loved his stuff. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, he kind of jumped around a bunch, but it was mainly old blues stuff is what he would tend to listen to when we were all just sitting around. Never really heard him checking out anything current or anything like that, he didn't seem very interested at all.
Is there something that sticks out from the last show you played with Dr. John?
No, because I didn't really it was going to be the last show. I mean it was a good show, I remember that, but no none of us knew that it was going to be the last one.
What do you think Dr. John's greatest musical legacy is?
Man, that's a tough question. I mean, just his uniqueness, there's nobody going to be like him again. His spirit and his personal attitude through everything came through his music and it was genuine, there was no ego about him at all.
The crazy thing about my time I spent with him I noticed, is how much he’s loved all over the word. Sometimes you can go to Europe and do a tour with a band that’s mainly known in the States and the number of people that come out to see you are a lot less than in States. But in Mac’s case the Europe crowds, Australia, Japan, they came out in droves and absolutely adored that man. Even the younger people came out in Europe, more so than in the States, so he has a base of fans, a young base of fans in Europe still, that are going to keep turning people on to his music, even after he’s gone, so he’s going to be with us for the duration. His music isn’t going anywhere. It’s timeless.
