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Dr. John: 'We're Gonna Be Back' in New Orleans

NPR | By John Burnett
Published March 2, 2006 at 11:04 PM EST
Dr. John points out Fats Domino's ruined house in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. Domino is staying across the river in Algiers these days.
Evie Stone, NPR
Dr. John points out Fats Domino's ruined house in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward. Domino is staying across the river in Algiers these days.

One of New Orleans' best-known native sons, the piano professor Mac Rebennack, aka Dr. John, was back in town for Mardi Gras this week.

In a tour of devastated neighborhoods, he expresses fear that the city's unique grassroots culture has been uprooted. Dr. John, 65, now lives on Long Island. He was on tour when Katrina struck six months ago. But he felt the storm's wrath intimately. Nearly every member of his band and much of his road crew had homes in New Orleans that were either damaged or destroyed.

To help, Dr. John released a CD last year called Sippiana Hericane, in honor of his drowned hometown. The profits go mainly to musicians' charities.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

John Burnett
As NPR's Southwest correspondent based in Austin, Texas, John Burnett covers immigration, border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.
See stories by John Burnett