John Lee Hooker: A Late Life Resurgence

John Lee Hooker was a renowned blues artist, a legend in fact when he released The Healer in 1989.  Hooker, known as the “King of the Boogie” was responsible for such timeless blues classics as “Boogie Chillin”, “Boom Boom”, and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.” In 1980 he performed “Boom Boom” in the movie The Blues Brothers.  While had had already been releasing music since the late 1940s and had some charting singles, his first album didn’t chart until 1967 with House of the Blues.  And after Never Get Out of These Blues Alive (1972,) hit #130 on US Billboard 200, he hit a dry spell.  Oh, he found recognition as he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, but musically wasn’t turning out anything that caught much attention.

That all changed in 1989 with the release of the LP The Healer (#62) at age 73 (or 78, it’s unclear whether he was born in 1912 or 1917). A new reissue is about to be released.

The project began a spate of highly successful collaboration albums. That album, I’m In the Mood (with Bonnie Raitt) gave him his first Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Performance, and included a video with Carlos Santana, playing alongside Hooker.

What made The Healer successful was the impressive list of collaborating artists, including Carlos Santana, George Thorogood, Los Lobos, Canned Heat, Charlie Musselwhite, and Robert Cray. Producer Roy Rogers (the blues guitarist, not the movie and TV star) was already a member of John Lee’s Coast to Coast band and worked with him for several subsequent album releases.

For Grammy-winning I’m In the Mood, Hooker teamed up with Bonnie Raitt, who was already established as a well-known blues performer. The duo re-recorded the 1951 release but laid down a very different style.  The original version was a straightforward, guitar-only blues-styled tune, including his accompanying foot stomping to drive the beat.  This early version might be one of the first songs where the vocals were overdubbed, with Hooker recording his vocals twice and overlaying them to create a richer vocal sound.  But because the vocals are not exactly in sync it ends up sounding eerie and echoey.  The updated 1989 release of the song on The Healer is of course much more polished and modern sounding.  It includes a slide guitar played by Raitt, while she adds vocal callbacks.

On the title track, Carlos Santana brings his fusion of rock and Latin jazz style to the album.

The percussive “Baby Lee” (with Robert Cray) is finger-snappin’ catchy.  “Cuttin’ Cut” with Canned Heat adds a rockabilly flavor to Hooker’s leads.  The zydeco-sounding “Think Twice Before You Go” with Los Lobos sounds like something The Black Keys could release today – a very good tune.

George Thoroughgood lends his guitar to the more classic blues sounds of “Sally Mae.”  And Charles Musselwhite adds some impressive harmonica blues to “That’s Alright.” Hooker also wrote a handful of songs that he delivers on his own.  The album is a wonderfully modern take on Hooker’s blue style.  The same collaboration technique was used on later releases and also achieved relative success, but The Healer paved the way.

Rolling Stone called the record “Brilliant, 100-proof blues,” adding “the spirit that animates this album is the ageless voice of John Lee Hooker and his boogie-man blues. He has conjured up a renewed world blues with the canniness of the hoodoo healers and root doctors who first gave birth to the Delta blues.”

Hooker would later be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award in 2000, and was also a recipient of the highly prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts—the highest honor that can be bestowed upon those in the folk and traditional arts by the U.S. government.

The album is being reissued on 180-gram vinyl and CD at Quality Records Pressing (QRP), with lacquers cut by the award-winning engineer, Bernie Grundmanon.  The release is planned for October 28 by Craft Records and can be pre-ordered today.

-Will Wills

Photo: John Lee Hooker, courtesy of Fantasy Records Archive