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Title
John Lee Hooker
Subtitle
The Very Best Of The King Of Blues Guitar
Artist
John Lee Hooker |
Format:Three CD Box Set
Cat. No.:INTROTCD01
Barcode:698458540126
Playing Time:2hrs, 11mins
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Hooker is best-known for duetting with a star-studded cast of friends on his comeback albums, The Healer and Mr Lucky. But on these three CDs – jam-packed with blistering boogies and heart-rending slow numbers from the 1940s to the 1960s – you’ll discover why those friends – the likes of Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Carlos Santana – worshipped him as one of the greatest ever bluesman in the first place. This collection presents classic Hooker recordings from the 1940s to the 1960s.
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Reviews
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Track
List
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CD1: HOOKER IN THE BEGINNING |
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| 11 |
Lowdown Midnite Boogie |
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| 12 |
Mama You Got A Daughter |
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| 14 |
She’s Mine (Keep Your Hands To Yourself) |
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CD3: HOOKER PLAYS THE BLUES |
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| 1 |
Serves Me Right To Suffer |
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| 7 |
I See You When You’re Weak |
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CD1: HOOKER IN THE BEGINNING
John Lee Hooker was born deep in the Delta, just south of Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22nd, 1917. He picked up the guitar in his early teens and was determined to become a bluesman from then on. As a young man, he worked his way from Memphis via Cincinnati to Detroit where he settled after the Second World War; and began to make his mark playing house parties and clubs. At one such venue he was presented with his first electric guitar by the legendary T-Bone Walker. Hooker eventually made the acquaintance of local record dealer Elmer Barbee, and through him, label owner and distributor Bernard Besman, for whom he began recording. Not that this stopped him moonlighting for other companies under myriad monickers as he honed his unique boogie style. This first CD of the set traces his early development.
1. Boogie Chillun’
Released in November 1948, this was the track that made John Lee, and served as a manifesto for the rest of his career. He had learned the boogie from his stepfather Will Moore, a good local blues-player in the Delta. Moore is obviously the ‘papa’ in the lyrics who wants to ‘let the boy boogie-woogie.’ (His real father, a preacher, had thought the blues was the Devil’s music). The song is autobiographical in other ways too. Hastings Street and Henry’s Swing Club, also mentioned in the verses, were at the centre of Detroit’s night-life district, where Hooker made his first impact as a musician. This version is a re-recording from 1959 on the Vee Jay label.
2. I’m In The Mood
If Boogie Chillen established the template for a lot of the Hook’s up-tempo work, another of his early hits showed he was equally at ease with the lowdown, tail-draggin’ blues. In 1951, the original of this track made unusual use of vocal overdubs, though this take is from 1959. Many people will know the song from his Grammy-winning duet with Bonnie Raitt from the album, The Healer, which relaunched Hooker’s career in 1989.
3. Like A Woman
As with many of John Lee’s offerings, this is an example of what his biographer calls a ‘Hookerisation’ of any already existing number. Louis Jordan had a hit in 1947 with his Ain’t That Just Like A Woman. John Lee drops the original’s comic references to supposedly archetypal female ne’er-do-wells such as Eve and Delilah, to make it much more direct.
4. Crawlin’ King Snake
The other major mentor in Hooker’s early years was Tony Hollins, who was sweet on one of John Lee’s sisters. He gave John his first guitar and taught him a few chords. He moved to Chicago and recorded Crawlin’ Kingsnake in 1941, but, with his hit rendition from 1949, Hooker made it his own (though Mr Mojo Risin’, Jim Morrison later essayed a fine version with The Doors).
5. Helpless Blues
The breakneck guitar-playing here is almost unique in Hooker’s catalogue, and owes something to the famous Delta bluesman, Bukka White, whose quavering vocal style John Lee also borrows. However his many aliases seem to be getting confused, as this 78 came out under the name Delta John in 1949, and yet he clearly calls himself Slim!
6. Sally Mae
This was the companion piece to Boogie Chillen when it was first released on Modern in November 1948 and provides a nice complement to the freneticism of its partner. John Lee reshaped the song in 1960 at an illicit New York session for Prestige. Vee Jay quickly grabbed it back.
7. Goin’ Mad Blues
The flip side to Helpless Blues, and, as on that track, John Lee plays his guitar at a higher tempo than usual, and once again refers to himself as Slim. He also makes a reference to not being able to write his name. He was only taught to sign autographs – extremely painstakingly – on his first UK tour of 1964.
8. Moanin’ Blues
A real trip back to the birth of the blues this one. It first saw the light of day in 1950 on Bernard Besman’s Sensation imprint, though this wonderful rendering was laid down a decade later. However the evocative cries here could have come from a slave in the cotton fields of the Deep South, or even the heart of west Africa long before that.
9. Hobo Blues
As often with the blues, a myth built up around John Lee suggesting that he had been a freight-train-hopping hobo, something he denies with a laugh. But the rumour must have started somewhere. Look no further than his follow-up to Boogie Chillen from 1949.
10. Landing Blues
This slower number was one side of a 78 issued on the Savoy label in 1949 under the name Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar: one of his more successful disguises. Better than John Lee Cooker and John Lee Booker anyway. The boat imagery used here makes a nice change to the train references of many blues songs.
11. Lowdown Midnite Boogie
This sparse, brooding, erratic boogie was another which came out under the name Birmingham Sam in 1949 on Regent – obviously trying to capitalise on John Lee’s success with Boogie Chillen, without actually, erm, using his name.
12. Mercy Blues
A fine slow blues recorded as part of a batch by Hooker’s manager, Elmer Barbee, in November 1948, and then sold on illegally to a variety of labels by local hustler Joe Von Battle. Again John Lee refers to himself as Slim: a string of his singles came out in 1950 on the King label under the name Texas Slim.
13. Good Business
Another from that late 1948 session. This one is based on the riff from one of Hooker’s favourites, Bottle Up And Go by Tommy McClennan. John Lee had no qualms about regularly breaking his contract with Besman, because Modern Records – to whom Besman often leased his product – were notoriously unforthcoming when it came to paying royalties.
14. Tuesday Evening
As we’ve established, Hooker wasn’t afraid to rework material. He also recorded a Wednesday Evening Blues more than once. Thematically, Tuesday Evening Blues also bears a resemblance to My First Wife Left Me. And all three variants seem to refer to his shortlived marriage to Alma Hopes with whom she had his first child.
15. Do The Boogie
Hooker’s nom de bleus in the case of this piano-dominated rocker was a pretty straightfoward one: The Boogie Man. Which is also the title of Charles Shaar Murray’s excellent biography. The man pounding the ivories on this Feb 1949 session is early regular accompanist James Watkins
CD2: HOOKER BOOGIES
After his early successes with Bernard Besman and Modern records, times grew a little harder for John Lee. He found stability after the hurrying and scurrying between a forest of labels, trying to turn a buck, when he signed to the Chicago label Vee Jay in autumn 1955. They weren’t quite the force that Chess were in that city, but they had their own share of successful artists including doo-woppers The Spaniels and El-Dorados and, more significantly, bluesman, Jimmy Reed. In his nigh on decade long stay with Vee Jay Hooker’s voice developed the velvety sonority that most people hail as his defining trait, and his metallic, hypnotic guitar grew in power. This CD looks at they way his boogie gained momentum and played a significant part in the rock revolution of the 1960s.
1. Boom Boom
With a swift right and a left, John Lee landed himself a role as one of the champions of the British Invasion. Both The Animals and The Yardbirds covered this July 1963 effort. The powerful punch packed by the track stems partly from the fact that the backing band consisted of Motown’s finest sessionmen including the legendary James Jamerson on bass and Benny Benjamin on drums.
2. Dimples
Extraordinary though it seems in retrospect, John Lee Hooker’s biggest British hit was an eight year old track first issued in the US in 1956. In 1964 the UK went wild for it, sending the 47 year old bluesman to number 23 in the charts. Hooker toured Britain four times that year, backed by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and then Tony McPhee’s Groundhogs, who he much preferred.
3. Mambo Chillun
The most successful recording artist on Vee Jay’s books when Hooker first signed was the languid but subtly powerful bluesman, Jimmy Reed. On Hooker’s debut single for the label Reed added his splendid harmonica playing to this reworking of Hooker’s signature song.
4. This Is Hip
An archetypal grooving boogie from the master, recorded in 1963, which strangely didn’t see the light of day at the time. Ry Cooder and his band Little Village combined with The Hook in 1991 for a sparkling refit of the tune for John Lee’s Top 5 album, Mr Lucky.
5. Little Wheel
This mesmeric little gem was released in late summer of 1957, and features backing from the jazzy Frankie Bradford on piano and one of Chicago’s best blues guitarists, Eddie ‘Playboy’ Taylor, who also backed Jimmy Reed on many of his hits.
6. I Love You Honey
By 1958 Vee Jay were getting a little worried about John Lee’s lack of sales. This track is about as conventional as Hooker would get in a bid to break his chart duck, and, unusually, is actually credited to another writer, Freddy Williams. Joe Hunter’s romping piano helped this slice of relatively straight Chicago blues into the R ‘n’ B top 30.
7. I’m Going Upstairs
A rather unheralded number from 1961, and undeservedly so. It is marked by one of Hooker’s strongest vocal performances, which tips a nod to Howling Wolf. Lyrically it touches on his troubled relationship with his father and his disintegrating marriage to second wife, Maudie, before indulging in some blues poetry.
8. Send Me Your Pillow
This poppy, 1963 Hookerisation of a Hank Locklin hit, Send Me The Pillow You Dream On, features prominent sax work from Hank Cosby. Cosby went on to co-write several Motown classics such as Uptight (Everything’s All Right) with Stevie Wonder and It Takes Two Baby for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.
9. Big Legs, Tight Skirt
From the same stable as Dimples, but even more lascivious and upfront, this bouncy, driving B side from Hooker’s penultimate single for Vee Jay in 1964 proves that even John Lee’s’s filler was more powerful than most artists’ frontline output.
10. Want Ad Blues
Interesting lyrical references to lonely hearts ads and to John Lee’s short spell in the US Army (which he joined, by his own confession, simply to get women!) help lift this cheerfully loping single from 1961.
11. Bottle Up & Go
This song has a venerable heritage, with versions by the likes of Lead Belly, and the first Sonny Boy Williamson (a big figure in pre World War II Chicago Blues, not to be confused with the later, better-known Sonny Boy). Hooker got his version from Tommy McClennan, who also influenced his guitar style.
12. Mama You Got A Daughter
In a lot of ways Hooker was a throwback to the lone Delta guitarist of the early 20th century. He was never bound by the 12 bar structure which became the norm as the blues became codified in the 1910s and ‘20s. And didn’t his accompanists know it. Here, pianist Joe Hunter tries to make sense of John Lee’s irregular chord progressions, or lack of them.
13. Dusty Road
For the opening couplet of this 1960 rocker Hooker lifts the refrain from Tommy Johnson’s Big Road Blues, a seminal blues number from the late ‘20s. Another Johnson track gave west coast blues revivalists Canned Heat their name. In 1970, John Lee would link up with the band for the live album Hooker ‘n’ Heat.
14. She’s Mine (Keep Your Hands To Yourself)
This Latino-flavoured vamp came from the same session which produced Boom, Boom, and again benefited from the backing of Motown’s magic men. Unfortunately it failed to make the same chart splash as the aforementioned number when issued as its follow-up in the US.
15. I Want To Shout
Even The Hook couldn’t escape the commercial approach. Not that this accessible confection is half bad, with its backing vocals from the in-house Motown team, The Andantes. It became the title track of John Lee’s 1964 album.
CD3: HOOKER PLAYS THE BLUES
John Lee Hooker straddled the divide between the urban R ‘n’ B sound and the downhome Delta blues. His dark vocal tones – part seduction, part threat, part plea – seem to speak both of smoky clubs of the city and the deep South back porch. Vee Jay gave Hooker his head in both modes. Best known for his boogies, John Lee built up a body of slower tempo tracks at the label which stands comparison with any bluesman living or dead. While his stepfather Will Moore taught the young John Lee to boogie, his sister’s former beau, Tony Hollins was the man who laid the foundations for Hooker’s way with a gutbucket slow blues.
1. Serves Me Right To Suffer
Again Hooker takes someone else’s blueprint – in this instance Memory Pain by the great soul-blues singer, Percy Mayfield – and makes it anew. The ‘milk, cream and alcohol’ line is John Lee’s own, and would inspire Dr Feelgood’s hit, Milk and Alcohol fifteen years later. The lyrics of that song actually bemoan attending a lacklustre live performance by Hooker! This was his final single for Vee Jay in 1964.
2. I’m Mad Again
Talk about menacing. This slow-walking hoodlum of a track, based on the perennial I’m A Man riff, was a single in February 1961. It would re-emerge in the Hooker catalogue as (Bad Like) Jesse James (though he’s like Al Capone in this version). Get the chilling laugh halfway through.
3. Don’t Look Back
According to Bernard Besman, John Lee reckoned himself as a ballad singer, and he does a pretty good job on this 45 from 1963. It also caught the imagination of the young Van Morrison who recorded a cover with Them for their first album. Van would return to the track with John Lee in 1997 when they included it as the title number on Hooker’s Morrison-produced final album.
4. Baby Lee
This sinuous, slow shimmy of a groove was the flip of the original issue of Dimples in 1956, making for probably the strongest double-sider in Hooker’s career. Note the spot-on drumming from one of his regular early collaborators and Motor City homeboys, Tom Whitehead.
5. Tupelo (Live)
An extraordinarily journey back to the Delta in both execution and subject matter, this version of Tupelo was recorded at the Newport Folk Festival in late June 1960. With the acoustic blues revival of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, John Lee was repackaged for the white campus audiences as a back-country acoustic player, and he could do that too. His bassist on this outing is none other than film director Spike Lee’s dad, Bill.
6. Onions
Hooker once again borrowed heavily for this moody, groovy helping of soul-blues. In this case, he hitches a ride on Green Onions by Memphis home-boys, Booker T & The MGs, which had been a hit earlier in 1962.
7. I See You When You’re Weak
This engaging slow blues from 1957 features some good guitar interplay between Hooker and Eddie Taylor.
8. Solid Sender
Malian master-musician Ali Farka Toure knew John Lee Hooker’s music well, and often opined that it clearly had its roots in Africa. John Lee was less willing to admit the connection; but a comparison between the sounds of the Timbuktu region and this resonant piece of guitarwork from 1960 makes the link plain.
9. Frisco Blues
Perhaps the most audacious piece of Hookerisation in the canon. John Lee hijacks I Left My Heart In San Francisco and just about gets away with it. Maybe he thought he could attempt it as he had the cream of Motown, Hitsville USA’s session players and singers in the studio with him.
10. My First Wife Left Me
This haunting, deep blues was one of the very first songs that Hooker demoed for Elmer Barbee back in 1948. It remained in Hooker’s set to the very end. This version comes from his sessions for the excellent album The Folk Lore Of… from 1962.
11. I’m So Excited
This laidback boogie became John Lee’s fifth single for Vee Jay in April 1957. Hooker is up to his magpie tricks once more, snaffling a line or two from Nappy Brown’s Night Time Is The Right Time (made famous by Ray Charles).
12. Five Long Years
Another atmospheric performance from The Folk Lore Of John Lee Hooker album. Here he puts his own stamp on Eddie Boyd’s original, cutting out the comic elements from Boyd’s lyric, to make a much more personal, poignant piece.
13. No Shoes
This dramatic evocation of poverty recalls Skip James’s Hard Time Killing Floor Blues. It coupled Solid Sender in 1960 as perhaps the slowest pair of songs ever to grace a single. But it sold – reaching the R ‘n’ B Top 30.
14. Birmingham Blues
Hooker didn’t shy away from making the occasional political statement through his songs, but this has to be his most forthright critique of southern racism and statement of support for the Civil Rights movement. Birmingham, Alabama was a key battleground in Martin Luther King’s campaign for black equality.
15. Time Is Marching
This pitch-perfect slowie was the B-side to Hooker’s Vee Jay debut in late 1955 and showcases the harmonica skills of labelmate Jimmy Reed.
John Lee’s time ended on June 21st, 2001, but he is one of music’s immortals. The boogie is endless and the blues go marching on.
Compilation & Sleevenotes by Joe Cushley
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