Boogie Man (85 page)

Authors: Charles Shaar Murray

BOOK: Boogie Man

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This book was originally intended to run to 100,000 words, and to take approximately eighteen months to write. Instead, the original manuscript came in at over 275,000 words and took over seven
years to produce, and, as ruefully stated earlier, it was a bumpy ride. The Roll of Honour of those who worked on the author, as opposed to the book, during this time, includes Jon & Jackie
Atwood, Sean Blanchard, Felicity Brooks, Deborah Crippen, Johnny Guitar Crippen aka Tha Dook, Bill & Kathy Dulborough, Paul Du Noyer, Neil Gaiman, Igor Goldkind aka The Big Ig, Vivien Goldman,
Caroline Grimshaw aka Grimbo the Great, Peter Hogan, Dik Jude aka Lee Van Spleef, Roz Kaveney, Gary Lammin, Spike Liseiko, Ian MacDonald aka I. Mac (as opposed to ‘iMac’; sue ’em,
Ian), Bernard MacMahon, Peter Mannheim aka Data Sheriff, Dave Marsh, Polly Marshall aka Pirate Pol, Alan Mitchell aka Jah Worf, Lucy O’Brien, Tom Paley aka Honest Tom, Patti Palladin aka Pal
Pat, Tony Parsons, Joel Rosen, Tim Rostron, Stephen Russell aka Barefoot Doctor, Jon Savage, Sylvie Simmons, Su Small, Mat Snow, Neil Spencer, Tony & Kate Tyler, Del LaGrace Volcano, Ed Ward,
Neil & Kathy Waterman, Alison West, Jack Womack and Elizabeth Young, who through the vagaries of alphabetical ordering always comes last in lists like this when she invariably deserves to be
placed much higher.

As ever, Harold Waterman, my guardian angel in accountants’ clothing, successfully prevented the author and the Inland Revenue from killing each other. (So far,
anyway.)

Vital words of support and encouragement also came from Jeff Beck, Robert Christgau, David Fricke, Robert Gordon, Vernon Reid, Ice-T and Ernie C. from Body Count, David Evans, William R. Ferris
and Dick Waterman. And extra texture goes out to David Hilliard, formerly Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party and now of the Dr Huey P. Newton Foundation, for all the conversation during the
week of Marxism 98 in London.

Above and beyond the call of duty, friendship or anything else: the aforementioned Ian MacDonald sold me an Apple Macintosh 8200/120 when my old IIcx died on me in the summer of 1997, and
willingly deferred payment until I could afford it, thereby enabling me to keep on working when all about me was collapsing.

Kathy Acker saved my life. I wish I’d been able to return the compliment.

And then there’s Anna Chen, my cherished comrade, who said
come with me if you want to live
, and made me realise that, despite everything . . . I did. With her.

Peace – I’m outta here.

CSM

Up against a deadline

4 February, 1999

APPENDIX
Nuthin’ But the Best ’n’ Later for the Garbage
(A Necessarily Selective Discography)

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest . . . let us attempt to distinguish the wood from the trees. The collected works of John Lee Hooker represent a discographer’s nightmare as well as
a listener’s dream: hundreds of tracks cut for dozens of labels over five decades’ worth of recording. Moreover, record company catalogues have a habit of changing hands from one owner
to another or getting themselves assigned to different distributors in different territories, with the same ‘families’ of tracks made available in different combinations on different
compilations.

Then we have to factor-in Hooker’s penchant for perpetually returning to and reinterpreting his core repertoire for each phase of his career, generating a number of performances of key
songs (often radically diverse) under a variety of different titles. Simply knowing the title of the particular Hooker song you want doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to walk
home with the specific performance which enchanted you when you heard it on the radio or round someone else’s house.

As a result, the task of answering the ostensibly simple question ‘which John Lee Hooker tracks do I need and where do I go to get them?’ isn’t quite as straightforward as it
might seem or, indeed, as it
ought to be. It therefore makes sense to divide Hooker’s gargantuan output into specific periods and cherry-pick each one for the best
representations of its finest moments.

Before doing so, let’s consider the absolute bottom-line solution to the problem of assembling a basic John Lee Hooker collection. The 1998 PointBlank compilation
The Best Of
Friends
rounds up highspots from the
Healer
-and-after modern era – as opposed to the ‘Modern era’ – along with three toothsome nuggets not included on any
previous releases. And Rhino Records’ beautifully-packaged and conscientiously-annotated two-CD set
John Lee Hooker: The Ultimate Collection 1948–1990
does a better job of
providing a one-stop-shop encapsulation of the Hooker
oeuvre
than any casual consumer could reasonably expect, climaxing with the added bonus of a 1990 live duet version of ‘I’m
In The Mood’ featuring Hooker and Bonnie Raitt backed up by Roy Rogers. If you don’t have any Hooker records and you want an affordable, comprehensible map of the territory which can be
purchased for a moderate outlay and auditioned in a single evening, these two items are just what Doctor Blues ordered.

Of course, they’re likely to prove to be merely tantalising tasters for the greater riches which lie beyond. In which case: read on, y’all.

Phase One: The Detroit Years, 1948–1956

At the dawn of his career, Hooker was recording ‘officially’ under the aegis of Bernard Besman for Modern and Sensation; and unofficially for anyone prepared
to slip him a few bucks to cut a pseudonymous single or two. Your first port of call for the juiciest fruits of the Besman sessions – and the earliest recordings of hardy Hooker perennials
like ‘Boogie Chillen’, ‘I’m In The Mood’ or ‘Crawlin’ King Snake’ – should be
The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948–1954
(Ace),
supplemented by other Ace compilations like
Blues Brother, Graveyard Blues
and
Everybody’s Blues
; the last of which incorporates
material Hooker cut for
Modern after his split from Besman. (Besman subsequently opened his Hooker vaults to release a veritable tidal wave of outtakes, now formally collected on the Capitol Blues Collection three-CD set
Alternative Boogie: Early Studio Recordings 1948–1952
).

This is where it gets interesting: those ‘official’ recordings are shadowed by the subsidiary bodies of work cut for Joe Von Battle and others in those backroom moonlight sessions,
many of which are easily a match for the contemporary Besman sides. An excellent two-CD collection,
The Complete ’50s Chess Recordings
(Chess/Universal), assembles one such; and
Don’t Turn Me From Your Door
(Atlantic) another. Other important and worthwhile material from this period can be found on
Boogie Awhile
(Krazy Kat) and
No Friend Around
(Red Lightnin’).

Phase Two: The Vee Jay Years, 1956 –1964

Signing to Vee Jay in 1956 gave Hooker his first stable recording deal, not to mention a much neater discography. It also gave him the chance to cut albums-as-albums for
the first time, though hurried sessions and contrived settings produced often inconsistent results. Completists will thrill to the six-CD set
John Lee Hooker: The Vee Jay Years
1956–1964
(Charly), but this era is best summarised for civilians by compilations like
The Hook
(Chameleon, US) or
Dimples
(Charly, UK): look out for ‘Dimples’,
‘Boom Boom’ or ‘Maudie’. In the US the Vee Jay catalogue is stable: Chameleon have also reissued all the original Vee Jay Hooker albums with their original tracklistings,
artwork and annotations intact, along with a better-than-solid compilation,
The Hook
. However, in Europe Hooker’s Vee Jay sides have been so frequently licensed and sub-licensed,
compiled and recompiled, that it’s almost pointless to recommend specific selections, since the various permutations of Hooker’s Vee Jay
oeuvre
remain in what appears to be a
constant state of flux.

Interregnum 1: The Acoustic Year 1959–60

Midway through his Vee Jay stint, Hooker took a one-year sabbatical to record three acoustic folk-blues albums for Riverside, though only two were released at the time.
Hooker has very fond memories of playing the folk clubs and ‘coffee houses’, and true enough, those acoustic settings gave him the opportunity to prioritise backporch intimacy as
opposed to barroom hollering, performing solo on
The Country Blues Of John Lee Hooker
and backed by a sensitive jazz rhythm section on
That’s My Story
(both currently on Ace).
His performance at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival,
Concert At Newport
, was issued on Vee Jay but spiritually belongs with the Riverside albums.

Interregnum 2: The Vee Jay/ABC cusp, 1966

Hooker went a-wanderin’ (like a sheep out on the foam?) before settling down to his next major record deal. Stylistically speaking
It Serve Me Right To Suffer
was essentially an update of
That’s My Story
, teaming Hooker up with jazz musicians in a chamber-blues setting. Recorded for ABC’s jazz subsidiary Impulse!, it was most recently
available in the US on MCA and in Europe on BGO. The riproaring
The Real Folk Blues
was also cut as a one-off, this time for Chess, and is available via Universal (formerly MCA) in the US
and Europe, alongside
The Missing Album
, which collects the tracks recorded at the same sessions but reserved for a follow-up album which remained unissued until Hooker’s
post-
Healer
success in the ’90s. A European MCA compilation,
The Complete Chess Folk Blues Sessions
, which compiled all the fruits of that day’s labours onto a single CD,
was available for a while but has subsequently been deleted.

Phase Three: The ABC/Bluesway Years, 1967 –1974

Hooker’s stint with the Big Label commenced with three strong (and strongly recommended) albums –
Live At Cafe Au Go-Go
(on which
he was backed by Muddy Waters and his band),
Urban Blues
and
Simply The Truth
– before the energy began to dissipate.
Endless Boogie
and
Never Get Out Of
These Blues Alive
undeniably have their moments, but
caveat emptor:
they also have their
longeurs
. Available in the US via MCA/Universal and in Europe via BGO Records or See For
Miles, this particular section of the Hooker catalogue was filleted on two MCA compilations,
Tantalisin’ With The Blues
and
The Best of John Lee Hooker
, which latter also
incorporates a few early-’50s Chess sides for good measure. Hooker’s most powerful album from the latter part of this period wasn’t even cut for ABC/BluesWay, but for Liberty:
Hooker ’N Heat
, the epic double-album team-up with Canned Heat, is available as a double-CD in the US via Rhino and, minus two tracks, as the awkwardly titled single European CD
The
Best Of Hooker ’N’ Heat . . . Plus
from See For Miles.

Phase Four: The Wilderness, 1974 –1989

The ABC experience soured Hooker on dealing with record companies, and his recordings during this time were few, far between, and mostly undistinguished. The exceptions
include Tomato’s solo live double-CD
Alone
(1976), which contains some astonishing performances, first and foremost of which is the extraordinary ‘Dark Room’; and
Jealous
(1986), produced by Hooker himself for the tiny Pausa label, and subsequently reissued by PointBlank.

Phase Five:
The Healer
And After, 1989–present

In 1989, the release of
The Healer
– on Chameleon Records in the US and Silvertone in Europe – kicked off Hooker’s golden decade, and in 1991, the
goodie-packed, radio-friendly
Mr Lucky
(apart from anything else, a masterpiece of sequencing) cemented his newly-earned status. The subsequent albums –
Boom Boom, Chill Out
and
the mainly Van Morrison-produced
Don’t Look Back
(all on PointBlank) – were deeper, darker, less immediately approachable but ultimately equally
satisfying.
Hooker also appeared, in a radically different context, performing two songs on Pete Townshend’s musical adaptation of the late Ted Hughes’
The Iron Man
(Virgin), as well as
guesting on albums by B.B. King, John Hammond, Charlie Musselwhite, Zakiya Hooker, Van Morrison, Roy Rogers and Big Head Todd & The Monsters. And, on pain of major cultural deprivation,
don’t you dare leave the store without a copy of
The Hot Spot
(Antilles), the magnificent movie soundtrack on which Hooker collaborated, albeit via overdubbing, with Miles Davis.