On the Scoot Show Wednesday, Scoot welcomed Shane Theriot to discuss the controversy that has developed following the release of Dr. John’s final album, “Things Happen That Way.”
Dr. John died in 2019. The album was released posthumously September 23. The timing of its release is one part of the controversy.
“The album was not supposed to come out. It was not supposed to be a posthumous release at all, but things happen, and the project dragged on and on. The record was actually completed and mixed while he was still alive, and he signed off on all what you call masters which are all the final versions of songs which he had input in with myself.
"Then, after he died, things got altered,” Theriot told Scoot.
Theriot estimates 70% of the finished record reflects the work he and Dr. John and had put into the production of what was a very personal and painful piece of art.
He detailed how the pair started the formation of the album in 2017. Throughout the process he witnessed Dr. John’s health deteriorate before his eventual death from a heart attack in 2019. Theriot said for reasons he’s not aware of, some of the tracks in the final album were changed.
“What’s really unfortunate is I was really the only one there, and I wasn’t asked about the story. I’m reading the liner notes and I’m reading about some of the songs I actually wrote with him and what they’re supposed to mean, which is not even true,” Theriot told Scoot.
Theriot said he can’t make sense of the changes that came from what he referred to as “the other party.” Karla Pratt, Dr. John’s daughter and executor of his state, told Rolling Stone the following.
“He had long wanted to record a country & western album since listening to what was then called hillbilly music as a kid in his father’s record store,” Pratt said in an email.
Click the link above to hear Theriot explain the changes in the album that surprised him and the long relationship he had with one of New Orleans’ most beloved musicians.
