Tributes have been pouring in to the legendary New Orleans musician, Dr. John, following his death from a heart attack.
"Dr. John's work captured my imagination as a teen when I was still finding my voice," Hozier reflects. "I used to cover his music with a group of like minded players, and it continues to bring me ridiculous amounts of joy. Very sad to hear this, very grateful also. RIP."
"Mac 'Dr John' Rebennack, a true friend and fellow musical traveler died today," say some old allies. "The Allman Brothers Band family express their sincere sadness in his passing. Mac played many times with the Brothers. Walk on Gilded Splinters our Old Friend, we will all meet up at The Right Place."
The message from Ellen DeGeneres is: "There was no other performer like Dr. John, and there never will be. Tonight my heart is in New Orleans."
"Rest in funky peace Dr John, you were one of a kind," Melissa Etheridge adds.
"Dr. John's music and legacy will forever be imprinted on my soul," states John Fogerty.
David Simon, who worked with him on the HBO series, Treme, has treated us to a brilliant Dr. John story, which we bring you below.

1) Others longer to New Orleans will have more essential memories, but I can muster one worthy tale of the legendary Dr. John from having had the opportunity to write some dialogue for him on an HBO drama some years back. And to be clear....

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

2) ....trying to write dialogue for Mac is an errand for a fool’s fool. No one talked like him. Even by standards the mangled patois of run-amok Crescent City verbiage, he has his own language. Mac invented Macspeak and somehow, even though the words were being conjured...

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

3)...in your ears for the first and possibly onliest time in your life, he’d have you nodding as if you were somehow fluent and as if only those words would suffice. He was funny as hell. So, pretending I had a good enough war for the task, I tried to stand next to him for...

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

4) ...a while to pick up a phrase or two that I could regurgitate on the page, the better to approximate his voice. He figured out what I was trying to do: “Aw, man, you tryin’a write your way like the doctor talk.
You gon’ trifle your way right into some righteous confusement.”

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

Thanks, Mac. I ran right back to my laptop and moved a page in which the good doctor, playing himself, accused another session musician of causing some “righteous confusement.” Then I handed the fresh lines to Mac. He scanned them and looked at me and gave a tiny head shake...

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

6) And then, when the camera was on him, he said the line and metastasized the noun even further. “Man, I don’t know what you tryin’ to say to me but that’s just some confusementalism right chear” Then he looked at me over by he video monitor and smiled. And even before...

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019

7) ...the director called cut he said: “No one gonna write like the doctor talk. You can just give up that tragical mess right now.” I quit moving pages then and there. “Say whatever you want, Mac.” And for the rest of the show, he did.

— David Simon (@AoDespair) June 7, 2019