– Fan Fun “Song of the Week” Series –
by Damianista | Fan Fun With Damian Lewis | August 27, 2025
“A third cover from the record, Dr. John’s “Such a Night”, has the right amount of groove nailed to it and is well worth a listen.” – Music Republic Magazine
“Such a Night” is a New Orleans funk and R&B song by Dr. John, released on his 1973 album In the Right Place. Known for its distinctive swampy groove, infectious piano playing, and Dr. John’s signature raspy vocals, the song tells a mischievous tale of unexpected romance. It was a commercial breakthrough for Dr. John, produced by Allen Toussaint, and featuring the funk band The Meters. The song is also famous for its iconic performance in Martin Scorsese’s documentary The Last Waltz, where Dr. John joins The Band for the live rendition. And Damian has it as a bonus track on his debut album Mission Creep.
So… yes! We’re talking about “Such a Night” this week!
It was towards the end of 2020 that Damian introduced us to his new favorite jazz band, Kansas Smitty’s who played at a bar named after the band…
…and a month and a half later that he played some music with the band.
Gingersnap and I tried to get into the bottom of this right away: Piano, Vocals, or Guitar? My money was totally on guitar!!!
And we were finally able to find out about the music Damian played with Kansas Smitty’s when we listened to him talk on Out to Lunch podcast with Jay Rayner about how picking up the guitar again during the quarantine and coming together with the band.
Damian shared on the podcast that it was glorious luck that he has been thrown together with Giacomo Smith (Kansas Smitty’s band leader) and the band. And that he met them in the “most improbable way.”
Cut to six or seven years ago: Damian was talking to some people about doing a musical (there were in fact rumors about him doing ‘Me and My Girl’ on West End) and they asked him if he would like to guest on Joe Stilgoe’s Jazz and Blues Show on BBC2. Damian sang ‘Me and My Girl’ on the show.
Another guest on the program was Cerys Matthews and her husband Steve Abbott, a well-known music manager-agent, was in the audience. Abbott was impressed with Damian singing a jazz standard and the two of them talked about whether there could be an opportunity to work together. But then Damian was doing Homeland and he was not able to commit to a music project at the time.
But when he picked up the guitar again during the lockdown, to keep himself entertained, Abbott popped up in Damian’s mind and he wondered if Abbott would still be interested in doing something together. And when he gave him a call, Abbott told him that he just emailed someone at Decca about Damian the other day (serendipity or what?!?!) and that he knew what he wanted to do with Damian: So it is Abbott who introduced Damian to Giacomo Smith who. And Damian has been noodling around with Giacomo and the band since and having a great time.
Jay Rayner let the world know about Damian performing Dr. John’s “Such a Night” with the band and asks if the experience was as fun as it looked…
“I was very nervous. As I explained to you, I am a really ordinary busker. What we tried to do is to create a little bit of that New Orleans, I suppose, bar sound… where it just feels like people are having a good time together…”
And when Jay says that the band is full of very talented and equally welcoming musicians, Damian adds:
“They’ve been incredibly kind to me. We’ve introduced different songs to each other, you know, Dr. John… I mean, he is the epigeny of that sort of just laid back, slightly smacked out of my head…”
Damian admitted that he was typically very cautious about his artistic choices, and was not very comfortable getting out of his comfort zone. That said, he and the band put a bunch of songs together, and they were talking about maybe putting some tracks down in a recording studio and that he was ready for the critiques to take shots at him 🙂
“Of course, they will be lining up to take shots as I stick my head above the parapet. Because no one is an easier target than an actor who thinks he can be a bit of a musician. But I don’t want to go off and be a great jazz star, or a pop star, or a rock star. I am an actor, I want to remain in my discipline. This, for me, is something that is just of unbelievable value. It’s so much fun.”
What we don’t do very well in this country is we don’t cross-fertilize across the different arts, traditions. And that’s a big shame. And I’ve had some of my favorite times when, for example, I’ve read out, let’s say, a bit of Midsummer Night’s Dream accompanied by the LSO playing Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream which was devised as a concert and words piece. Things like that. You sit around all those musicians. When I did a bit of musical theatre and get to hang out with musicians. So on and so forth. Little installation pieces you might do with art galleries and things like that .They will not take you anywhere. They are not career building things there. But they are lovely curiosities in their own right and you get to see how all the other artists are working in their own disciplines. We’re slow to do it.”
The best surprise at the end of the podcast? Jay Rayner dropped a YouTube link of Damian performing Dr. John’s Such a Night with Kansas Smitty’s!
The recording took place on February 23, 2021, at Kansas Smitty’s HQ in East London. Damian joined the Kansas Smitty’s Supersize Band for the performance, namely Giacomo Smith, Alec Harper, Camilla George, Dylan Jones, Dave Archer, Kit Downes, Joe Webb, Ferg Ireland, Jas Kayser, and Will Cleasby. Some of these names might ring a bell—Giacomo Smith produced Damian’s debut album Mission Creep. And Dave Archer, Joe Webb, and Will Cleasby have long been staples at Damian’s live shows.
On the Out to Lunch podcast, Damian shared their original idea: gathering a bunch of old songs and maybe laying down some tracks in a recording studio. But as often happens with creative projects, the plan evolved in unexpected and exciting ways.
A few days after Mission Creep was released, at a stripped-down gig at Rough Trade East in London, Damian and Giacomo had a pre-gig chat in which they shared with the audience how their partnership started and evolved into Mission Creep. Giacomo said their first meeting was a one hour phone call. They got on well, and decided to try stuff together. They started with some old songs such as “Such A Night” and a song that Giacomo remembered had “face” in the title to which Damian said it would eventually come to him.
Read the rest of the original article at Fan Fun With Damian Lewis