Overseen by noted jazz producer Bob Thiele, this session had Hooker backed by some of his fullest arrangements to date, with noted session drummer Pretty Purdie and...
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From the beginning of his career, John Lee Hooker recorded prolifically, sometimes for several labels at once, sometimes under a number of pseudonyms. That makes his...
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Hooker's voluminous output for Vee-Jay Records is scattered across numerous compilations. This double CD contains 31 songs spanning the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s, and is...
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This 16-track collection sweats down Rhino's two-disc anthology to a lean, mean and essential single disc. Here are the earliest recordings that established Hooker as a...
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Nine songs recorded double-quick in one session, with Lowell Fulson on lead guitar on most of it -- the rare embellishment on a Hooker release makes for unusually complex...
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A whopping three CDs, and 56 songs, from Hooker's early sessions that were unreleased at the time, although they were available for a while in the early 1970s on some United...
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McPhee and the Groundhogs' most important musical legacy, this 1996 reissue has an unusual history. Tony McPhee and the Groundhogs first played with John Lee Hooker in June...
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Interesting collection of old 78s that Hooker recorded under various pseudonyms (Johnny Williams, John Lee) in 1950. Along with the original version of "House Rent Boogie"...
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Hooker, as anyone with a decent-sized blues collection knows, recorded for a virtual parade of labels early in his career, including Chess, although his stays with the...
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Not just the boogie, but some serious blues too. This 1976 concert recording caught Hooker up close, giving both voice and guitar a lot of force. A candidate for best John...
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Hooker bounced around between label affiliations like crazy in the 1950s, recording under almost as many fake names as he did labels during that decade. His two lasting...
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John Lee Hooker's recordings for Virgin/Point Blank may have varied in quality, but never in formula. Once The Healer earned reams of praise and, more importantly, solid...
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Hooker & the Hogs captures John Lee Hooker with his 1964-65 backing band the Groundhogs -- guitarist Tony McPhee, organist Tom Parker, drummer Dave Boorman and bassist Peter...
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Like any record company worth their salt, MCA knows a good gimmick when they see it, and when the millennium came around...well, the 20th Century Masters -- The Millennium...
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Well into his fifth decade as a perfect master of what he calls "the big sound of the blues," the amazing
John Lee Hooker almost dares you to take him for granted. Here's...
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John Lee Hooker is a master of the primal, hypnotic Delta blues. Accompanied by nothing other than a bare beat of the drums (if not only the stomp of his own feet), "The...
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A 12-song budget set of Hooker's recordings, primarily for the Vee-Jay label with a few strays from his original Modern recordings thrown in. The hits and re-cuts bring us...
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With new John Lee Hooker songs, new versions of old Hooker songs, four duets with and a new song by Van Morrison, Don't Look Back continues the venerable bluesman's string...
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An intimate California date is documented on John Lee Hooker Live, which includes performances of "Sally Mae," "Hobo Blues" and "Hooker's Shuffle, " as well as an interview....
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This reissue contains the entirety of Hooker's 1966 Cafe Au Go-Go set, and adds five bonus tracks from his 1972 album, Live at Soledad Prison. Luther Tucker is one of the...
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Because he's so loose and improvisatory -- and because he loves to twist the 12-bar format into so many different shapes and sizes -- John Lee Hooker can present a major...
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The title may be Blues Legend, and John Lee Hooker certainly fits that bill. The problem is, this isn't the material that made him a legend -- it's latter-day recordings...
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An interesting budget collection of John Lee's little recycled Vee-Jay recordings. The usual suspects like "Boom Boom," "Maudie," and "I'm Mad Again" are here, but the real...
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This was originally issued as a 31-track, double LP full of Hooker's earliest and rarest sides, almost all of it taken from goodly hacked up acetates and 78 pressings. The...
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From the vaults of Vee Jay Records comes an abundance of classic John Lee Hooker reissues, featuring original art work, running orders, and budget prices courtesy of the...
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From the vaults of Vee Jay records come an avalanche of classic John Lee Hooker reissues, featuring original art work, running order, and a budget price from the...
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Vee Jay's 1964 album John Lee Hooker on Campus is titled to sound like a live recording but it isn't. As part of the Collectables Vee Jay reissue campaign, these 12 tracks...
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No, it's not the definitive collection, covering just Hooker's time with Vee-Jay from the mid-'50s to the mid-'60s. In fact, it's not even the definitive collection of the...
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From the vaults of Vee Jay Records comes an abundance of classic John Lee Hooker reissues, featuring original art work, running orders, and budget prices from the...
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These ten songs were originally released as part of a 1971 album (on Liberty 35002); this reissue, despite the lack of historical liner notes, isn't exactly short value,...
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Here's 20 of John Lee Hooker's Vee-Jay recordings. It's a mixed batch of full-band sides -- some that work, some that don't -- a couple of live solo tracks (dubbed from...
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Recorded live in November 1962 in San Francisco, this dates from the period in which Hooker often presented himself as a sort of blues/folk singer for the coffeehouse crowd,...
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John Lee Hooker reissues abound, as might be expected of a singer and guitarist who's recorded hundreds of songs for countless labels since the late '40s. What makes the 20...
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At the beginning of his career, Hooker's sides were leased to several different labels. This 20-song anthology of material from the late '40s and early '50s was originally...
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Eighteen tracks represent the best of the early phase of John Lee Hooker's long, creative career, compiled from the original recordings, circa 1948-54. Included is "Bad...
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When this two-LP set was initially released in January 1971, Canned Heat was back to its R&B roots, sporting slightly revised personnel. In the spring of the previous year,...
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Verbatim CD reissue of a 1959 Chess album that collected 1951-1954 efforts by the Hook. Some important titles here: an ominous "Leave My Wife Alone," and the stark "Sugar...
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The Boogie Man's 1967 ABC-BluesWay album in its entirety, with three bonus numbers from a couple of years later added on the end. Hooker's Chicago sidemen (including Eddie...
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Budget-priced 14-song expedition through the Vee-Jay motherlode, with mediocre sound quality on some tunes. "Boom Boom" and "Big Legs, Tight Skirt" rock hard, while these...
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In the 1980s, John Lee Hooker's career revitalized with The Healer, which won a Grammy, and concurrent with this release was a resurgence of interest in Hooker as a...
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Produced by Ralph Bass in 1966 but not issued by Chess at the time, More Real Folk Blues was unearthed by MCA only a few years back. It's no masterpiece, but certainly...
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Second-guessing team-up records like this one is always a fun exercise. Having worked so well together on a 1971 album of the same name, both parties hoped to make lightning...
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Following the legendary bluesman's popular collaboration with Canned Heat, this album continues his work with mostly younger musicians and predates similar projects The...
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Some of Hooker's finest recordings with a band were also some of his first recordings with a band. The unpredictable guitarist seemed to mesh well with guitarist Eddie...
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A fine assortment of his early-'50s Chess sides, including "Baby Please Don't Go," the song that would become a hit for Van Morrison and Them many years...
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A 1961 Chess album restored to digital print by MCA that's filled with 1951-1952 gems from the Hook's heyday. Chess originally bought "Mad Man Blues" and "Hey Boogie" from...
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His latest for Virgin's blues division, contains some entertaining material. It's not a classic, but it's not half-bad either. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music...
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A characteristic solo outing with moody compositions and that doomy one-electric-guitar-and-stomping-foot ambience. One of his sparer and more menacing post-'50s outings,...
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Although Orrin Keepnews' Riverside Records was primarily a jazz label, the company dabbled in blues in the 1960s -- and one of the bluesmen who recorded for Riverside was...
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MCA's The Best of John Lee Hooker has a misleading title. All of the 16 selections are taken from his recordings for ABC, which were made at the end of the '60s and...
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Listeners wanting to find a comprehensive collection of Hooker's work may not find it here, but they certainly won't be disappointed once the needle hits the grooves on this...
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John Lee Hooker's excellent Vee-Jay material of the 1950s and '60s has been reissued time and time again, both in the U.S. and in Europe. The Hook is a 16-song CD that...
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The Healer 8/9/1989, Yahoo! Music, John Quaintance
The first and best of Hooker's "living tribute" albums still isn't as good as any decent solo album of his. Contains the popular duet with Bonnie Raitt on "I'm In The...
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The Healer was a major comeback for John Lee Hooker. Featuring a wide array of guest stars, including Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Johnnie Johnson, and Los Lobos, The...
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Joined by a full band that includes two other guitarists (John Garcia, Jr. on lead and Ron Thompson on rhythm), John Lee Hooker is passionately rockin' on this live date...
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Rhino's double-disc 1991 set The Ultimate Collection (1948-1990) falls just short of the promise of its title, losing its focus toward the end of the set. That said, it...
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Reissued by Concord's Blues Alliance label in 1996, this single CD boasts everything on Disc One of Tomato's two-CD set Alone, including heartfelt performances of "Boogie...
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Acoustic or electric, alone or with a few friends, John Lee Hooker is always interesting. He has the gift to take the typical three-chord blues song and boil it down to its...
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Considering how these dates were done -- first, Hooker was backed by a British band, Tony McPhee and the Groundhogs; later horns were overdubbed for American consumption --...
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Winding through the literally hundreds of titles in John Lee Hooker's catalog is a daunting task for even the most seasoned and learned blues connoisseur. This is especially...
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Given Hooker's unpredictable timing and piss-poor track record recording with bands, this 1965 one-off session for the jazz label Impulse! would be a recipe for disaster....
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In 1949, Hooker played for a private gathering in the Detroit dining room of cartoonist, animator, and music fan Gene Deitch. Deitch had the foresight to record the...
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Live at Newport is an addition to the already huge pile of archival John Lee Hooker releases (one that will surely continue to grow as licenses to Hooker's myriad recordings...
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Why they kept these 19 recordings locked up in some vault for 40 years is beyond comprehension. A chunk of the Live at Sugar Hill material -- recorded at a club in the Bay...
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Of all the Chess albums in the Real Folk Blues series, the ones by John Lee Hooker might be most valued by hardened blues collectors. That's not so much because of the music...
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The material on Jack o' Diamonds was recorded in 1949 but never released at the time due to John Lee Hooker's vast contractual problems. Even at this earliest point in his...
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His name is John Lee Hooker, and he is a blues singer with a Motor City connection. But he isn't the John Lee Hooker; the bluesman heard on Blues With a Vengeance is John...
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British budget label Prism Leisure's The Best of John Lee Hooker, its tracks licensed from British reissue label Charly with no other source indicated, consists of studio...
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