Simply the Truth

Biography

Personnel: John Lee Hooker (Guitar and Vocal) Wally Richardson (Guitar) Ernie Hayes (Piano and Organ) William Folwell (Fender Bass) Hele Rosenthal (Harmonica) Pretty Purdie (Drums) John Lee Hooker's Music has been called "primitive" by some, meaning, I Suppose, "close to the roots, basic." It is all that, but Hooker - unlike many bluesman of his generation - has never settled for basic blues alone. As times and audiences have changed, he has found a way to keep pace, while always infusing ever...

Personnel: John Lee Hooker (Guitar and Vocal) Wally Richardson (Guitar) Ernie Hayes (Piano and Organ) William Folwell (Fender Bass) Hele Rosenthal (Harmonica) Pretty Purdie (Drums) John Lee Hooker's Music has been called "primitive" by some, meaning, I Suppose, "close to the roots, basic." It is all that, but Hooker - unlike many bluesman of his generation - has never settled for basic blues alone. As times and audiences have changed, he has found a way to keep pace, while always infusing everything he does with the music and bone zhat typifies all of the bluesman of the Mississippi Delta. Recently he told Pete Welding that he divides his musical time into folk, blues, and "jump" music. Hooker often finds himself playing unamplified guitar in the coffee house circuit where he is expected to be "authentic", or in the "tough" bars of Detroit, playing the hard electric music of dance and drink. With this record, Hooker takes one more step forward. Here he is in perhaps the most modern surroundings he has yet found himself, and he is extraordinarly at home. For John Lee is not only a blues singer, he is also a guitarist with fine jazz qualities. This session was born of an idea of Hooker (who brought only a mouth harpist with him) and producer Bob Thiele, who gathered together a group of sympathetic New York musicians. On the night of the first recording session, Hooker and a small group of friends gathered at the studio, where the other musicians - some of whom did not know each other - began to assemble. John Lee - dressed in red shirt and smart green suit and hat - sat down, and impatiently began to strum his guitar and introduce the mood he wanted to set. While the others unpacked instruments and exchanged pleasantries, he started a quiet bluesman's moan, softly accompanying himself with that simultaneous combination of rhythm and lead guitar that only a few musicians can manage. Soon he found himself reciting the outlines of 1000 Miles From Nowhere (retitled by the whole group as One-Room Country Shack), a blues he reshaped from vintage stock. Around this seated figure, the musical landscape took shape: mouth harpist Rosenthal, a big block of a man (who had never been in a recording studio before), began blowing tentative respenses to Hooker's narrative; Ernie Hayes, a scholarly-looking pianist, settled himself at the keyboard and began silently fingering arrangements; bassist Fowell and rhythm guitarist Richardson fell in behind John Lee as though they had both been classmates in the Detroit scholl of blues. Off to the side, a small ritual got under way: Pretty Purdie, drummer on countless R 'n' B and pop recordings, began setting his shop in order. Cymbals and pedals arranged, he erected two small candy-stripped signs... from the original liner notes by John F. Szwed Overseen by noted jazz producer Bob Thiele, this session had Hooker backed by some of his fullest arrangements to date, with noted session drummer Pretty Purdie and keyboards in addition to supplementary guitar and bass. The slightly modernized sound was ultimately neither here nor there, the center remaining Hooker's voice and lyrics. His words nodded toward contemporary concerns with "I Don't Wanna Go to Vietnam" and "Mini Skirts," but the songs were mostly consistent with his usual approaches. Another of his many characteristically solid efforts, although it's not one of his more interesting albums. - by Richie Unterberger, AMG Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.