INSPIRED

John Lee Hooker Detroit 1948-1949, 2000
To their credit, Hooker’s first producers recognized his singular talent, and went against the conventional postwar wisdom that declared R&B was moving towards slicker urban trappings. These essential recordings remain unsurpassed in their uncompromising allegiance to the groove. “Boogie Woogie”—along with “Helpless Blues” and “Boogie Awhile,” among others—feature Hooker banging away on the I chord in open-A tuning while both feet dance beneath him. Whomping the bass with his thumb, and snapping the treble strings with his index finger, he subdivides the boogie beat six ways to Sunday—a day on which this devil music would not be appropriate.

Live at Newport, 2002
Along with Muddy Waters, Hooker was encouraged to unplug for the folk crowd during the madras shirt/khaki slacks “hootenanny” craze in the early 1960s. While the change naturally dulled his sonic attack, it could never blunt his hormonal intensity. These live solo recordings from 1960 and 1963 are as stripped of artifice as a barren cotton field. The butt-slapping boogie of “Stop Now Baby,” and the strutting “Boom Boom,” prove that the power of the blues is generated from the heart and hands rather than an electrical outlet.

REQUIRED

Hooker ‘n’ Heat, 1971
Canned Heat helped take the boogie from Henry’s Swing Club in Detroit—where it had gestated—to the green fields of Woodstock. In 1971, the band realized every white bluesman’s dream when it recorded with the originator of its sound. A two-fer cut live in the studio, disc one is mostly nasty Hooker solo numbers, and he is positively reborn—in no small thanks to Heat avatar Alan Wilson. Typical is “The Feelin’ is Gone,” where he pummels the strings with such ferocity that the signal barely gets to the amp before another fusillade is unleashed. Disc two does not let down, as the band digs a deep canyon all the way back to the 1950s for the Boogie Man.

Urban Blues, 1967
With deluxe backing from blues guitar legends Buddy Guy, Eddie Taylor, and Phil Upchurch, Hooker took his act uptown, and his message is no less ominous. Every track is loaded with menace—capped by the nightmarish “The Motor City Is Burning,” where the guitars mesh like an old Caddy transmission with Hooker snaking in and out with scorpion-like jabs. His succinct, one-chorus solo is a study in economy, each note a musical stab to the soul.

The Best of John Lee Hooker, 1986
Monuments of modern blues from 1948-1963—including rocker faves such as the epochal “Boogie Chillen,” “Boom Boom,” and the brooding “It Serve You Right to Suffer” (covered by J. Geils). The psychosexual “Crawlin’ King Snake,” the historical narrative of “Tupelo,” and the Delta blues of “I’m in the Mood” all contain classic Hooker riffs where every note turns “blue” in his hands.

TIRED

Endless Boogie, 1970
Cynics see the title as unintentionally ironic. In fairness, however, there are some outstanding performances by guest stars Steve Miller and Jesse Ed Davis. The problem, of course, is that the eccentricities of timing and phrasing that contribute to making Hooker an original get smoothed over in the steady jams with the acolytes, who also tend to lay back and show too much deference to the master.

The Healer, 1989
A Grammy winner for the duet with Bonnie Raitt on the single “I’m in the Mood,” this all-star collection deflects attention from the real star—despite the best intentions of Carlos Santana, Robert Cray, Charlie Musselwhite, and George Thorogood. However, Hooker’s solo turn with the National steel on “Rockin’ Chair” begs the question of why he never gravitated to that abrasive heavy-metal resonator.