Nick Spitzer: Take it easy, Mac.
Dr. John: That's something I never learned how to do.
NS: [laughs] I wasn't worried about the Nite Tripper tripping one bit. I knew you'd make it right to the seat. Well, y'all look good out there. Don't they look good, Mac?
DJ: I think everybody's looking oks as best as I can see 'em.
NS: [laughs] I was gonna ask you, growing up in New Orleans, I mean what was your life for spirit as a kid? I mean, you go to church, I mean, did you find other ways to get to spirit?
DJ: Well, I started off, I was a Catholic, and then I got around the Guiding Light Spiritual Church in New Orleans of which all religions was welcome. That started changes in me, and then as I started studying things, I became part of a Yoruba religion called Voodoo. And I think all of this just keeps you open, and now I realize I'm very syncoratical. I mean, besides having Black Hawk and all of that, they had, and he was dressed up like a Mardi Gras Indian in that church, and it was a beautiful, for a storefront church in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, it was, really, a different kind of thing. It's like, the men were workers, the women were the saints, and the children were angels. That's not like most religions at all, and I thought it was something kind of hip.
NS: Yeah. No, definitely. Well, let’s talk a little about your family. Could you, I know you have some people that were very important to you and your parents and I guess an aunt. Maybe you could say a little bit who was around you growing up.
DJ: My Aunt Andre, when I was a little kid she taught me how to play boogie-woogies, but I remember my Aunt Dottie Mae used to have jam sessions at her pad and she was–there were pretty hip people in the way I looked at, 'cause I remember like Pete Fountain and George Girard and most of the guys from the Basin Street Six would be over at their place. And it was kind of cool.
NS: You know, we got a piano here. Would you mind maybe giving us a little taste of what boogie-woogie was like from the aunties for a moment?
[music]
To hear the full program, tune in Saturdays at 5 and Sundays at 6 on WWNO, or listen at americanroutes.org.