Topic: John Lee Hooker box sets starts with 1948 Detroit recordings

[conqueroo]

SHOUT! FACTORY HONORS MASTER BLUESMAN JOHN LEE HOOKER WITH FIRST-EVER CAREER BOX SET
 
HOOKER
 
Deluxe 4-CD Set Represents A Half Century Of Blues And Boogie
 
Includes Performances with Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, Van Morrison, Ry Cooder, Jimmie Vaughan, Charles Brown and Los Lobos
 
In Stores October 31

 
LOS ANGELES ? John Lee Hooker, master bluesman and undisputed father of boogie, recorded for more than 30 labels over a span of nearly 50 years.  Amazingly, he has never had a definitive career box set ? until now. On October 31, 2006, Shout! Factory will release Hooker, a 4-CD set that culls material from all eras ? from a primitive 1948 recording of ?Boogie Chillen?? to a version of the same song recorded exactly 50 years later in 1998 with Eric Clapton.
 
The set was compiled by Shawn Amos and Patrick Milligan with  invaluable assistance from Zakiya Hooker, Executor-Trustee and Eugene Skuratowicz, Estate Manager of the John Lee Hooker Estate. Music journalist Ted Drozdowski wrote comprehensive liner notes, which delve into Hooker?s Mississippi and African influences, and follow his career through its many achievements and accolades up to his death in 2001.  In addition, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana and Fito de la Parra, the surviving member of Canned Heat, provided additional notes recalling their respective collaborations with Hooker, highlights of which appear on the 4-CD set.
 
Born in 1917 to Mississippi sharecroppers, John Lee Hooker first heard blues on a wind-up Victrola and on KFFA-FM in nearby Helena, Ark.  His parents were convinced that blues was the music of the devil and insisted that he practice in the barn.  His stepfather, Louisiana guitarist Will Moore, brought John Lee in contact with what annotator Drozdowski calls the ?rolling, mesmeric beat? of Shreveport blues, ?which had more in common with the ancestral African origins of the music than the Delta sound.?  He was also inspired by Delta blues forebears Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton.

Hooker migrated to Memphis, and then to Detroit, where he supported himself and his family playing rent parties, the inspiration for his John L.?s House Rent Boogie album in 1951.  A rough acetate recording fell into the hands of local producer Bernie Besman, launching his recording career and leading to a series of 78s and 45s on labels like Fortune, Modern, King, Staff, Regal, Deluxe, Chess, Crown, Vee-Jay and Sensation.  He recorded under several noms du disque:  John Lee Cooker, John Lee Booker, Texas Slim, Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, Delta John and Sir John Lee Hooker.
 
In the late ?60s, Hooker?s audience began to include white fans.  Boogie disciples Canned Heat brought him to the attention of their fan base with the 1970 double album Hooker ?N Heat.  Hooker achieved legendary status, and went on to make a series of albums for ABC BluesWay, Impulse, Tomato, Pausa, Chameleon and Virgin/Pointblank. 1989?s The Healer, which included collaborations with Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt, earned him a Grammy? and brought him to the attention of a new generation of fans.
 
?I hope this set will introduce John Lee Hooker to a new generation of fans, and reintroduce him to those who might have forgotten,? says Shout! Factory A&R head Shawn Amos. ?It shows how much gravitas he held in his presence, and even in a single note of his playing.?
 
Zakyia Hooker, John Lee Hooker?s daughter, adds, ?I think this is phenomenal, to have all of my father?s music pulled together. It cuts through a really wide swath of music, from music recorded at a 1949 house party and an old acoustic spiritual, to his later music. The music was all over the place until Shout! Factory pulled it together for the edification of everyone ? and they did so in a beautiful package. My father would have been smiling.?
 
About Shout! Factory:
Shout! Factory is a diversified entertainment company devoted to producing, uncovering and revitalizing the very best of pop culture.  Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their careers sharing their music, television and film faves with discerning consumers the world over.  Shout! Factory?s DVD offerings serve up classic, contemporary and cult TV series, riveting sports programs, live music, animation and documentaries in lavish packages crammed with extras.  The company?s audio catalogue boasts GRAMMY?-nominated boxed sets, new releases from storied artists, lovingly assembled album reissues and indispensable ?best of? compilations. These riches are the result of a creative acquisitions mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention.  Shout! Factory is based in Santa Monica, Calif.  Its fine products are distributed by Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc.  For more on Shout! Factory, visit www.shoutfactory.com.
 
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TRACK LISTING:
Disc One:
1. Boogie Chillen?
2. Sally Mae
3. Black Man Blues ? Texas Slim
4. Hobo Blues
5. Hoogie Boogie
6. Weeping Willow Boogie
7. Crawlin? King Snake
8. Driftin? From Door To Door
9. Catfish Blues
10. Moses Smote The Water
11. Huckle Up Baby
12. Wandering Blues ? Texas Slim
13. Don?t You Remember Me ? Texas Slim
14. Notoriety Woman
15. Let Your Daddy Ride
16. John L?s House Rent Boogie
17. Bumble Bee Blues ? Johnny Williams
18. Leave My Wife Alone ? John Lee Booker
19. Just Me And My Telephone
20. I?m In The Mood
21. Blues For Big Town
22. Stuttering Blues ? John Lee Booker
23. Down Child
24. Boogie Rambler
25. Baby You Ain?t No Good
26. I?m Ready
 
Disc Two:
1. Dimples
2. Every Night
3. I?m So Excited
4. I Love You Honey]
5. Tupelo Blues
6. I Need Some Money
7. Democrat Man
8. No More Doggin?
9. Gonna Use My Rod
10. Whiskey And Wimmen
11. No Shoes
12. We?re All God?s Chillun
13. I?m Goin? Upstairs
14. Teachin? The Blues
15. You Lost A Good Man
16. Don?t Turn Me From Your Door
17. When My First Wife Quit Me
18. Boom Boom
19. She?s Mine
20. Frisco Blues
21. Let?s Make It (Live)
22. Birmingham Blues
23. Big Legs Tight Skirt
24. It Serves Me Right To Suffer
25. I?m Losin? You
26. I Cover The Waterfront


Disc Three:
1. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
2. Let?s Go Out Tonight
3. Bottle Up And Go
4. King Of The World (Live)
5. I?m Bad Like Jesse James (Live)
6. Think Twice Before You Go
7. Mean Mean Woman
8. Burning Hell - John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat
9. Peavine - John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat
10. I Got My Eyes On You - John Lee Hooker & Canned Heat
11. Doin? The Shout
12. Bluebird
13. Early One Morning
14. We?ll Meet Again
15. Loving People
 
Disc Four:
1. Baby Lee - John Lee Hooker & Robert Cray
2. I?m In The Mood - John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt
3. The Healer - John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana
4. Mr. Lucky - John Lee Hooker & Robert Cray
5. I Cover The Waterfront - John Lee Hooker & Van Morrison
6. This Is Hip - John Lee Hooker & Ry Cooder
7. Bottle Up And Go - John Lee Hooker & John Hammond
8. Same Old Blues Again - John Lee Hooker & Robert Cray
9. Boom Boom - John Lee Hooker & Jimmie Vaughan
10. Chill Out (Things Gonna Change) - John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana
11. Tupelo
12. Kiddio - John Lee Hooker & Charles Brown
13. Dimples - John Lee Hooker & Los Lobos
14. Don?t Look Back - John Lee Hooker & Van Morrison
15. Up And Down
16. Mean Mean World
17. Boogie Chillen? - John Lee Hooker & Eric Clapton

[Rivers]

I have the very first recordings made by Gene Dietz in '49 that came out briefly on a flyright CD a couple of years ago then somebody (JLH's mgmt probably?) sued and it disappeared. The recordings are stellar and changed my ideas on who John Lee Hooker really was and arguably could have been. As a young man he was just a really good Mississippi hill country trance-groove player. His take on Lemon's Jack O'Diamonds is my fave from that era. Looks like those session recordings predictably didn't make it past the culture sensors to this collection though.

[Bunker Hill]

I have the very first recordings made by Gene Dietz in '49 that came out briefly on a flyright CD a couple of years ago then somebody (JLH's mgmt probably?) sued and it disappeared.

That "couple of years" has now become six!
It's a great CD and the story behind how the "unknown" (i.e unrecorded) Hooker came to sing at Dietz's Pleasant Ridge, Detroit home for him and his blues chums is fascinating.

[dj]

the story behind how the "unknown" (i.e unrecorded) Hooker came to sing at Dietz's Pleasant Ridge, Detroit home for him and his blues chums is fascinating.

Don't leave us hanging like that!  What's the story?   

[Rivers]

More here dj: http://www.genedeitch.com/ listen to the short sample on page 14, check out Jack O'Diamonds...

Was it really six years? Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana. I heard J O'D on the late lamented John Peel's BBC World Service show and ran out and bought it. These all-acoustic first recordings are pretty important and it's probably in my top 10 c/b records for pure musical entertainment. As opposed to just copping licks.

When you can hear that seminal boogie style stripped of the band and OTT production you realise it's just hill country blues.

[Bunker Hill]

the story behind how the "unknown" (i.e unrecorded) Hooker came to sing at Dietz's Pleasant Ridge, Detroit home for him and his blues chums is fascinating.

Don't leave us hanging like that!  What's the story?   

I was hoping that Rivers would do that, thereby saving me having to hunt out the CD. I'm told that the Flyright was "bootlegged" last year but informant couldn't recall the label.

[Bunker Hill]

I'm told that the Flyright was "bootlegged" last year but informant couldn't recall the label.

What I should have done was consult the new Penguin Guide. On page 268 there's the following entry:

*** Jack O'Diamonds
Eagle EACCD 279 Hooker. summer 49.

An extraordinary story lies behind the release of this material. One evening in 1949, Hooker played for a small gathering of Detroit jazz fans. Film animator Gene Deitch recorded it, only to emigrate with the tapes to Prague. Fifty years later, a blues fan who remembered Deitch's cartoons in a long-dead collectors' magazine looked him up. Deitch mentioned the tapes and, at the visitor's urging, went looking for them. One turned up in his basement; the other was retrieved from a New York acquaintance to whom he'd lent it 40-odd years before. The result: an hour of the young Hooker, less than a year into his recording career, not only live (and quite well recorded) but performing material he never touched again -'Water Boy', 'Rabbit On The Log', gospel songs like 'Old Blind Barnabus' and 'Ezekiel Saw The Wheel', and an archaic blues,'Six Little Puppies And Twelve Shaggy Hounds' - as well as blues standards like 'Trouble In Mind' and 'Catfish Blues'.  Both the singing and relentlessly rhythmic guitar playing evoke the Hooker of the 'Boogie Chillun' days, yet there are intriguing differences.