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John Lee Hooker

Title: At his very best (2CD)

Label: Metro

Cat No:METRDCD644
Format:CD

Our price £ 6.79
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Discovery Records
specialist music - mail order

The music of John Lee Hooker is that of a unique innovator and blues icon. His legacy chronicles, and mirrors, the journey that the blues travelled in his own lifetime: migrating from the rural Delta to the tough urban environs of Memphis, Detroit, Cincinnati and Chicago before becoming an international musical language. This 2CD set collects together 50 of John Lee’s key recordings, including those recorded for the Vee-Jay label between 1955-1964 as well as gritty, folk-blues ‘live’ recordings made at two Newport Folk Festivals in the early 1960s and raw, visceral band performances captured to tape in Palo Alto and Chicago in 1977.

Among those playing support on these recordings are Jimmy Reed and Charlie Musselwhite (harmonicas); Eddie Taylor, Lefty Bates (guitars); Otis Finch and Hank Cosby (saxophones); Joe Hunter (piano); and film-maker Spike Lee’s father Bill Lee (bass).

Herein are the original Vee-Jay hit records ‘Dimples’, ‘Boom Boom’, ‘I Love You Honey’, ‘No Shoes’ and ‘It Serves Me Right To Suffer’; seminal works such as ‘Boogie Chillun’, ‘Hobo Blues’, ‘Crawling King Snake’, ‘My First Wife Left Me’ and Dirty Ground Hog’; his 1970s ‘live theme’ ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer’; and lesser-known, but diamond-bright R&B songs and blues such as the upbeat ‘This Is Hip’ and John Lee’s sly, funky version of Tommy McClennan’s ‘Bottle Up And Go’.

Track Listing for At his very best (2CD)
CD1
01. Boogie Chillun
02. Dimples
03. I'm Mad Again
04. Hobo Blues
05. Crawlin' Kingsnake
06. My First Wife Left Me
07. Little Wheel
08. Baby Lee
09. Solid Sender
10. No Shoes
11. I'm Leaving Baby
12. Boom Boom
13. Whiskey And Wimmen
14. Bottle Up And Go
15. Tupelo (Live at Newport 1960)
16. Drug Store Woman
17. Mama, You Got A Daughter
18. Stop Talking
19. Birmingham Blues
20. Everybody Rockin'
21. Let's Make It
22. Mambo Chillun
23. Nightmare
24. Sugar Mama (Live at The Keystone, Palo Alto, California September 1977)
25. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer (Live in Chicago, Illinois October 1977)

CD2
01. It Serves Me Right To Suffer
02. Crawlin' Black Spider
03. I'm In The Mood
04. This Is Hip
05. I Can't Quit You Now Blues (Live at Newport 1963)
06. Stop Baby, Don't Hold Me That Way (Live at Newport 1963)
07. Maudie
08. I Love You Honey
09. Five Long Years
10. Half A Stranger
11. New Sally Mae
12. House Rent Boogie
13. Canal Street Blues
14. Will The Circle Be Unbroken
15. Big Legs, Tight Skirt
16. Process
17. Dirty Ground Hog
18. One Way Ticket
19. Unfriendly Woman
20. Wheel And Deal
21. Louise (Live at The Keystone, Palo Alto, California September 1977)
22. Goin' To California
23. Moanin' Blues
24. I Wanna Walk
25. Crawlin' Kingsnake (Live in Chicago, Illinois October 1977)

Discovery catalogue available for
John Lee Hooker

Intro Collection (3CD)

The Definitive Collection

At his very best (2CD)

The Essential Collection (3CD) Tin

Rock With Me

Boogie Chillun (2CD)