Gumbo is Dr. John’s fifth album, but it seems like his first. For once, the record and the recording both feel right, as though they were being done by people truly in touch with each other and with what was being attempted; there are no shreds of the “voodoo boogie” left, not even a stray comment.

The cover says this powerfully: Dr. John’s Gumbo, reads the sign projected above an empty, slightly slummy urban street. It doesn’t reek of New Orleans, even though .that is what the music on Gumbo is about, but it does capture completely what Dr. John calls “fonk.”

Everything on the inside is a thorough departure, both from anything Dr. John has attempted before, and from anything anyone else has tried in nearly a dozen years. Gumbo consists entirely of New Orleans r‘n’b, which is the home, I guess, of what Dr. John calls “fonk” and which others less colorfully accented simply denote as rock'n’roll.