Send "Dr. John " Ringtones to your Cell 
| allmusic |
 Dr. John revived his "Night Tripper" persona at the 2006 Bonnaroo Festival. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, his sense of urgency about Louisiana and the Gulf region allowed his spiritual persona free rein in concerts and interviews for the first time since the '70s. He wore the garb on-stage and brought his entire history as a musician to bear in his performances. He's become a full-fledged activist who does his part educating the world about his geography's unique significance as a musical, spiritual, and environmental territory. As an album, Tribal, employs some of the spookier elements of Dr. John's earlier recordings like Gris Gris, but it's all rooted in blues, funk, folk traditions, and R&B that have been at the heart of his musical career since the '50s. His crack unit, the Lower 911, are augmented by a number of guests, including a horn section led and arranged by saxophonist Alonzo Bowens, alto saxophonist Donald Harrison (himself a Mardis Gras Indian Chief), a string section arranged by Wardell Quezergue, Derek Trucks on select cuts, and the fine backing vocal trio of Elaine Foster, Lisa Foster, and Erica Falls throughout. Dr. John wrote or co-wrote 13 of the set's 14 cuts (there are 16 on the vinyl version). Musically "Jinky Jinx," the title track with its Oglala Lakota Indian chant intro, and the guitar- and percussion-driven voodoo blues on "Manoovas" (with Trucks) hearken back to the '70s with better production. But current modes, such as slippery R&B and jazz, are fused on the album-opener "Feel Good Music," and a shimmering old-school New Orleans intro gives way to a laid-back yet fingerpopping political R&B in Allen Toussaint's "Big Gap." There's Southern-fried groove in "Change of Heart," (one of three songs co-written with the late Bobby Charles, whose memory the album is dedicated to; "Podnah" is another, but it's a nasty blues). A gritty, late-night funk saturates "When I'm Right, I'm Wrong" and "What's wit Dat" (a scathing admonition to eat healthy). He also lays down the socio-political second line in "Them," and the angry, jazz-fueled swagger in "Only in Amerika." Dr. John's piano and organ, which are everywhere present, highlight the beautiful closer "A Place in the Sun." When taken as a whole, Tribal is a revelation: it traces Dr. John's entire past, and integrates everything into a whole that is familiar yet points forward. Thematically, Tribal meditates on the state of the country and the world; it exhorts listeners to quit bullshitting one another because our mutual survival depends upon it. This isn't just a logical follow-up to 2008's excellent The City That Care Forgot, it's close to a career-defining summation from one of America's most important musicians....full text |
| Ew |
| On Tribal, Dr. John and the Lower 911 still make mystique-dripping grooves sound easy, plonking on the piano and singing in his distinctive rumble. At times, the doctor and his new band sound oddly akin to Steely Dan in a mellow mood, with lyrics only a tad less literary than that group's...full text |
| Nytimes |
| Los Lobos continue their double life on “Tin Can Trust.” Onstage (as at Bowery Ballroom, where they are to perform Tuesday) Los Lobos are a good-natured, multicultural jam band with roots in the blues, early rock ’n’ roll, Mexican norteño music and California folk-rock. Yet in the studio those same roots serve the band’s increasing introspection: a sense of weariness without resignation, tenacity toward no sure goal, and perennially unfulfilled longing. It’s steeped in the blues but distinct from it: less angry or humorous, more pensive and unresolved. On their haunting 2006 album, “The Town and the City,” Los Lobos connected that mood to the journeys of immigrants and restless travelers. Despite the four-year gap between albums of new Los Lobos songs, “Tin Can Trust” comes across as a strong sequel. The wanderings continue on “Tin Can Trust,” though now they are more allegorical than geographic. The album opens with “Burn It Down” by Los Lobos’s main songwriting team: its singer and player of anything with strings, David Hidalgo, and its drummer, Louie Pérez. In a Celtic-tinged modal tune with fiddle and Conrad Lozano’s upright bass, Mr. Hidalgo sings, “The time had come for me to run away,” and adds, “Once I go there is no coming back.” Later a distorted electric-guitar tremolo sweeps through like a conflagration. Cesar Rosas, the band’s other guitarist and songwriter, and its raspier lead singer, also sees flames and farewells in the mournful “All My Bridges Burning,” written with the Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. Another voyage is summed up in the Hidaldo-Pérez song “21 Spanishes,” a bluesy reimagining of the Spanish arrival in the Americas and its aftermath: “Their blood was often mixed/Now they all hang out together, and play guitar for kicks.” For most of the album, tempos are slow and deliberate, with only a few upbeat diversions; minor chords predominate. “Jupiter or the Moon” is aching and bereft, as Mr. Hidalgo sings, “Where did you go, go so soon?” In “Tin Can Trust,” he’s in love but utterly destitute....full text |
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