Wes Phillips

When we were enthusing about Dr. John and the Lower 911's concert at HE2006, John Atkinson exclaimed, "I can't believe he played a tango!"

Knowing my Mac Rebennack trivia, I riposted, "Oh yeah, that was "Litanie Des Saintes" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk." To which John said to me, as have oh so many others over the years, "Huh?"

Gottschalk was, at one time, "the most famous musician in the Western Hemisphere"—"the Chopin of the Creoles." This book review from The New York Sun has catapulted Notes of a Pianist onto my must-read list. And, if you've never heard it, order my favorite—and possibly the best-sounding—Dr. John record, Going Back to New Orleans, which has the Mac-meets-Gottschalk "Litanie . . ." on it.