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| Track list: 1. Dimples 2. Sometime 3. No Mortgage On My Soul 4. Boogie Chillen 5. I'm in the Mood 6. Road Trouble 7. Black Man Blues 8. Mambo Chillum 9. Low Down Midnite Boogie 10. John L's House Rent Boogie 11. Walkin' the Boogie 12. Crawling King Snake 13. I'm a Stranger 14. Highway Blues 15. Catfish 16. I'll Know Tonight 17. Whistle Done Blown 18. Burning Hell 19. Tupelo 20. Playin' the Races 21. Devil's Jump 22. One More Time 23. Boogie Now Running time: 68 minutes Released: 2013 |
So now we come to a real test, a 6 disc box set. Six discs of one man. John Lee Hooker. I said before, on The Best of Friends, that I wasn't sure why I had so much of Hooker's stuff - well it's just this box and that one album but... 6 discs, not one with fewer than 22 tracks. That's a lot all right and I seriously doubt that I will do them all back to back in order without going insane or dropping my post frequency through the floor, and I only just got back above ground as it is.
The real answer for why I have this? The price. It was dirt cheap considering the amount of content, and there are bound to be some good ones in here to make it worthwhile. I just have to put the work in to find them!
It starts with a satisfyingly grainy rendition of Dimples - clearly much closer to the original recording. The plodding nature of the play is unfortunate - it could do with a bit more pzazz or snap about it - but the tone of the audio evokes the era in which the song was first cut, which is rather pleasing. It's also happily short.
Oh lord. Sometime has Hooker crooning. That is... unfortunate. On the one hand it is good to see that earlier in his career there was perhaps more variation than in the latter years (i.e. any time after I was born). On the other, I just don't find that either the singing style here, or the sparse melodic accompaniment - slightly off key at that - sits well. The verses are ditch-dull and the song just falls flat. I am relieved to hear a more recognisable Blues tilt to the follow up, including some keys that sound like they have been pounded far too hard for far too long prior to recording. This also has a plodding hook that fails to engage, but the low-fi piano has a real charm that makes the deficiencies of the guitar part more acceptable.
This really does feel like stepping back in time. Often older recordings are cleaned up when released in the modern era and it is really noticeable that these have not been treated that way. I think it really adds something. I don't want to say "an authenticity" because that's just up-one's-own-behind smug tosh. No, I think what it adds is a sense of the time that has passed since these tunes were laid down, and a warmth to the sound, a fuzzy edge that creates a different approach and appreciation. The recording of I'm in the Mood (this first disc seems to have all the tracks whose titles I recognise) is particularly strong, the flattening of the sounds that I guess is a recording artefact makes the song sound earthy, a grounding that the re-recorded version lacked.
The crackle on Road Trouble though goes too far. This song is almost hidden there is so much disturbance in the opening bars. Here it is a big shame and not a plus point; I think I would like this track, with its heavy leaning on a keyboard, were it recorded without the fuzz, but alas it fails to inspire with that aura disturbing the composition. Despite that, thus far this listen has flown, a benefit of short tracks; each is built and gone in a blink. There is one really bum note in Black Man Blues - a sung note that the crackles and pops transform into an ear-busting awfulness. It comes up often as Hooker gives us prolonged "Yeah"s. Its a shame because elsewhere on this track the guitar line is a bit more interesting than many of his pieces, breaking up the standard structure with embellishments that would maintain interest but for the allergy of my cochlea to reverb-afflicted affirmation.
The introduction of the mouth organ and a little more pace to the hooks that typify Hooker's basis enliven what would otherwise be a dull track before we return to what, by modern standards, feels like a horribly formulaic and (for the first half at least) largely instrumental piece. The main problem is that much of the structure is so soft it isn't there, and the strumming you can hear is so repetitive it could hypnotise. Hooker mutters bits and pieces over the second half, I can't make out much of it. This feels like a low point, so I digress. Off to Cornwall for a long weekend of friends and gaming tomorrow morning, and I am squeezing this in tonight in lieu of paying more attention to packing. I will likely not manage any over the weekend and it would be good to try to maintain a bit more pace about these posts. The project has been going a year now and, I won't lie, I am less well advanced that I might have expected. Through until about January I kept up a reasonable pace but 2015 has not seen the same level of application as I managed last year. I need to do better if I am going to keep it running for the duration!
Ah, something that pricks up my ears. There is a different tone to Walkin' the Boogie. An echo or something on the vocal recording is really effective. It may be a recording artefact but it works and there is a thinness to the guitar sound, a tinniness, snatched sound that sets the tune apart. There definitely are gold nuggets to be found amidst the mass, but as soon as it appears it recedes, replaced by a very conservative number. Crawling King Snake just has no life to it and - I admit this seems a very odd thing to say given the age of the recording - no originality. Structurally formulaic, it bores me; easily the worst number on the disc to date. I like the tone of the guitar on the follow-up, but the warmth and depth of the tone are undersold by the slow, methodical nature of the piece and it feels like it lasts a lifetime even though it is under 3 minutes.
These tunes could, I suggest, have done with a bit more in terms of arrangement. Many of them are just Hooker and his trusty guitar which perhaps limited his playing - requiring repetitive hooks to generate the blues structure, and restricting the freedom to introduce more interesting sounds. For me the tunes are more interesting when there is a little more going on. Whilst there is undeniably magic in the rawness of the Blues in pure form I find myself wanting a little more than that. Occasionally he delivers, generally by embracing tempo; simply cramming more notes in and around those required for the basic form lifts the output a notch. Other times there is more of a band in play and this helps.
Overall I find this very hit and miss. The hits are loosely compelling, the misses predictable and déjà entendu. Despite that I find the time slipping by pleasantly and - admittedly to my own surprise - I am not resenting the depth or length of the disc at all. Perhaps that is the benefit of engaging with it at the end of a long and busy day on the eve of a short break.
There is a bit more of a funky lick to Burning Hell, the harmonica bringing a lot of the love. It feels a touch more vital than recent tracks, more energy and urgency. As a change of pace it was much needed, breaking up a run of tunes that were all blending together from similarity. This one, in a rare statement from me, seems to end too early. It could have had a lot more life with another minute to play with. Really like it, though. Tupelo follows and having kept the recording from The Best of Friends, I don't need this one too.
Into the last stretch now, and we go round the formulaic Blues merry-go-round again. I suppose my biggest problem here is not that the song is bad, but that there are so many versions of what is basically the same song. That is going to sound horribly uninformed of me, isn't it? The point, though, is that one strict formulaic Blues track has real feeling and purpose. Several of them in quick succession just has similarity. Variation is important - and present here aplenty. However it occurs around a core of tracks that fall into the same repetitive category, which is why I find myself marking comfortably more than half of the tracks on this album for the recycle bin. There are enough numbers here that I have set aside to keep though. These tracks have somehow stood out from the others, avoided the pitfalls that an art form so reliant on standards can fall into so easily.
Blues is a wonderful and evocative medium at its best, but I am of the opinion that it is so easy to stray from that and that in this field the misstep from masterpiece to make-weight is a small one. When concentrated together like this, the criteria for judging that fall are harsh and fully two thirds of this disc are to be jettisoned. That said, if the attrition rate is similar over the other 5 discs in the Big Box, then I will still have a fair stash of Hooker tunes in the bag at the end of it - albeit just a drop in the ocean of his prolific output.
It starts with a satisfyingly grainy rendition of Dimples - clearly much closer to the original recording. The plodding nature of the play is unfortunate - it could do with a bit more pzazz or snap about it - but the tone of the audio evokes the era in which the song was first cut, which is rather pleasing. It's also happily short.
Oh lord. Sometime has Hooker crooning. That is... unfortunate. On the one hand it is good to see that earlier in his career there was perhaps more variation than in the latter years (i.e. any time after I was born). On the other, I just don't find that either the singing style here, or the sparse melodic accompaniment - slightly off key at that - sits well. The verses are ditch-dull and the song just falls flat. I am relieved to hear a more recognisable Blues tilt to the follow up, including some keys that sound like they have been pounded far too hard for far too long prior to recording. This also has a plodding hook that fails to engage, but the low-fi piano has a real charm that makes the deficiencies of the guitar part more acceptable.
This really does feel like stepping back in time. Often older recordings are cleaned up when released in the modern era and it is really noticeable that these have not been treated that way. I think it really adds something. I don't want to say "an authenticity" because that's just up-one's-own-behind smug tosh. No, I think what it adds is a sense of the time that has passed since these tunes were laid down, and a warmth to the sound, a fuzzy edge that creates a different approach and appreciation. The recording of I'm in the Mood (this first disc seems to have all the tracks whose titles I recognise) is particularly strong, the flattening of the sounds that I guess is a recording artefact makes the song sound earthy, a grounding that the re-recorded version lacked.
The crackle on Road Trouble though goes too far. This song is almost hidden there is so much disturbance in the opening bars. Here it is a big shame and not a plus point; I think I would like this track, with its heavy leaning on a keyboard, were it recorded without the fuzz, but alas it fails to inspire with that aura disturbing the composition. Despite that, thus far this listen has flown, a benefit of short tracks; each is built and gone in a blink. There is one really bum note in Black Man Blues - a sung note that the crackles and pops transform into an ear-busting awfulness. It comes up often as Hooker gives us prolonged "Yeah"s. Its a shame because elsewhere on this track the guitar line is a bit more interesting than many of his pieces, breaking up the standard structure with embellishments that would maintain interest but for the allergy of my cochlea to reverb-afflicted affirmation.
The introduction of the mouth organ and a little more pace to the hooks that typify Hooker's basis enliven what would otherwise be a dull track before we return to what, by modern standards, feels like a horribly formulaic and (for the first half at least) largely instrumental piece. The main problem is that much of the structure is so soft it isn't there, and the strumming you can hear is so repetitive it could hypnotise. Hooker mutters bits and pieces over the second half, I can't make out much of it. This feels like a low point, so I digress. Off to Cornwall for a long weekend of friends and gaming tomorrow morning, and I am squeezing this in tonight in lieu of paying more attention to packing. I will likely not manage any over the weekend and it would be good to try to maintain a bit more pace about these posts. The project has been going a year now and, I won't lie, I am less well advanced that I might have expected. Through until about January I kept up a reasonable pace but 2015 has not seen the same level of application as I managed last year. I need to do better if I am going to keep it running for the duration!
Ah, something that pricks up my ears. There is a different tone to Walkin' the Boogie. An echo or something on the vocal recording is really effective. It may be a recording artefact but it works and there is a thinness to the guitar sound, a tinniness, snatched sound that sets the tune apart. There definitely are gold nuggets to be found amidst the mass, but as soon as it appears it recedes, replaced by a very conservative number. Crawling King Snake just has no life to it and - I admit this seems a very odd thing to say given the age of the recording - no originality. Structurally formulaic, it bores me; easily the worst number on the disc to date. I like the tone of the guitar on the follow-up, but the warmth and depth of the tone are undersold by the slow, methodical nature of the piece and it feels like it lasts a lifetime even though it is under 3 minutes.
These tunes could, I suggest, have done with a bit more in terms of arrangement. Many of them are just Hooker and his trusty guitar which perhaps limited his playing - requiring repetitive hooks to generate the blues structure, and restricting the freedom to introduce more interesting sounds. For me the tunes are more interesting when there is a little more going on. Whilst there is undeniably magic in the rawness of the Blues in pure form I find myself wanting a little more than that. Occasionally he delivers, generally by embracing tempo; simply cramming more notes in and around those required for the basic form lifts the output a notch. Other times there is more of a band in play and this helps.
Overall I find this very hit and miss. The hits are loosely compelling, the misses predictable and déjà entendu. Despite that I find the time slipping by pleasantly and - admittedly to my own surprise - I am not resenting the depth or length of the disc at all. Perhaps that is the benefit of engaging with it at the end of a long and busy day on the eve of a short break.
There is a bit more of a funky lick to Burning Hell, the harmonica bringing a lot of the love. It feels a touch more vital than recent tracks, more energy and urgency. As a change of pace it was much needed, breaking up a run of tunes that were all blending together from similarity. This one, in a rare statement from me, seems to end too early. It could have had a lot more life with another minute to play with. Really like it, though. Tupelo follows and having kept the recording from The Best of Friends, I don't need this one too.
Into the last stretch now, and we go round the formulaic Blues merry-go-round again. I suppose my biggest problem here is not that the song is bad, but that there are so many versions of what is basically the same song. That is going to sound horribly uninformed of me, isn't it? The point, though, is that one strict formulaic Blues track has real feeling and purpose. Several of them in quick succession just has similarity. Variation is important - and present here aplenty. However it occurs around a core of tracks that fall into the same repetitive category, which is why I find myself marking comfortably more than half of the tracks on this album for the recycle bin. There are enough numbers here that I have set aside to keep though. These tracks have somehow stood out from the others, avoided the pitfalls that an art form so reliant on standards can fall into so easily.
Blues is a wonderful and evocative medium at its best, but I am of the opinion that it is so easy to stray from that and that in this field the misstep from masterpiece to make-weight is a small one. When concentrated together like this, the criteria for judging that fall are harsh and fully two thirds of this disc are to be jettisoned. That said, if the attrition rate is similar over the other 5 discs in the Big Box, then I will still have a fair stash of Hooker tunes in the bag at the end of it - albeit just a drop in the ocean of his prolific output.
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