These discs are best left to completest and fans of dull bar band blues. He’d go on to record with many rock stars including Canned Heat, all the various superstars that appeared on his last (Grammy winning!) albums like The Healer, even Miles Davis (on the soundtrack to the film Hot Spot). Since, like Lightnin’ Hopkins he kept no regular meter, most musicians found it nearly impossible to follow him, although he did cut some good sides with a small group for Vee Jay in the early 60’s (using many of the same players that appeared on Jimmy Reed’s sides), some of which were even hits (Boom Boom, Dimples), and are probably his last great records.

He made some good records with bands, especially the early ones on Fortune which are so chaotic they’re almost funny. If you are perplexed as to how to go about sorting out the good records from the bad ones, my advice stick with his earliest, Detroit recorded sides, where he mostly plays solo with just his distorted guitar and stomping foot (which was amplified and is an essential part of his sound). They were the rare case of the cream rising to the top, they were the best, but since all three singers made piles of records, I think it confuses people, some of whom bought one or two mediocre or crappy records then gave up. I’m always suprised at how the group of record collectors and fans that grew up in the eighties and ninties know all about obscure acts like Esquerita and Kid Thomas but don’t own one John Lee Hooker (or Lightnin’ Hopkins or Jimmy Reed) record. His best sides are usually one chord boogies or stomps, crude, distorted and utterly compelling discs, but often obscured by the amount of crap he later recorded and that fills up the record bins. But he was not only one of the most famous blues singers of all time, he really was probably the most primitive artists to sell a lot of records. I don’t know how many John Lee Hooker albums, CD’s, 78’s and 45’s I own, and I’m not about to try and count them, but let’s just say there’s a mess of ’em here, some of ’em are great, some are good and some aren’t so good.

22, 1917 outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi) was probably the most recorded blues artist of all time.

John lee hooker bootleg