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| Track list: 1. See See Baby 2. I'm So Excited 3. Real Gone Gal 4. Good Business 5. Morning Blues 6. You've Got Another Man 7. Cotton Pickin' Blues 8. I'm Going Away 9. I'm So Worried Baby 10. Graveyard Blues 11. I'm in the Mood 12. No Shoes 13. Nightmare Blues 14. Let Your Daddy Ride 15. Moaning Blues 16. Decoration Day Blues 17. Solid Sender 18. Heart Trouble Blues 19. Welfare Blues 20. Unfriendly Woman 21. Notoriety Woman 22. Thinking Blues 23. Don't You Remember Me Running time: 69 minutes Released: 2013 |
All of these discs start the same! Yeah, that's a bit flippant, but in doing the setup for this series of posts all in one go the opening chords are remarkably similar.
So I predicted it would be the weekend before I got in another listen and I was right. Not only that it is the end of the weekend. Sunday night. Back to work tomorrow and all that. It has been a crazy week. Today, though, has been good; got just enough done to be satisfied with, had some fun and a good meal and now have managed (more accurately decided) to find time for this listen.
See See Baby does start with a riff remarkably similar to that which begins disc 2. That riff forms 90% of the tune and it is rather boring, hence the extended intro. I'm So Excited has a little more depth of sound and strikes a better chord with me. Hooker's voice is clearer, fuller, here and that also adds something to the mix that elevates it a little. I think, again, this has a more traditional wider Blues structure and somehow adherence to this kind of format is more pleasing to me than the specific substructures he often uses. Who knows, I'm just typing out of my backside.
It's too hot for this time of night - funny how heat is always more oppressive after dark - and I am hoping that concentrating on these tunes will take my mind of both that and the ridiculous level of noise coming from my neighbour's place. Real Gone Gal is back to sparse and crackly but there is an immediacy to it, a faster whip, that keeps it appealing, right up to the point it ends as abruptly as.
Yes, bad joke!
Huh, I just found a monkey nut husk containing 3 nuts. I've seen the single pods before but not a trio before now. That little anecdote is probably about as interesting as Good Business which is like Real Gone Girl with all the good bits sucked out and replaced with plod. I find the range of our performer's vocal interesting in the sense that range is not something that I associate with the archetypal John Lee Hooker that I held in my mind before tackling these listens. I wonder if, as he got older, he only played the most successful tunes (quite a natural reaction if so, in some ways) and so some of these tracks where he is more articulate or displaying more vocal muscle went by the wayside. We're in a run, three in a row now, of tunes that I find ponderous, slow and repetitive. Each has had some element of greater interest embedded within it, be it a nice vocal, an interesting bit of noodling or whatever, but overall fall into that stereotypical limited pattern that has turned me off before and, frankly, with 6 discs of this there are songs in this collection that have those elements without the downsides.
Cotton Pickin' Blues breaks the chain a little - the tune is very different - but not by being something I want to keep. Here the recording is awful, the keyboard (or keyboards, I suspect) are recording at very different volumes to everything else around them and the distant effect is not engaging me on this occasion. Thankfully I'm Going Away brings interest back and, more than anything else, reinforces my impression that I prefer Hooker when he raises the tempo and injects a little more into his hooks and riffs. Maybe, as someone once said about me, I don't appreciate the Blues really - just some facsimile of them. It is a view I took umbrage with at the time but it has grown on me in the years since. I like my downbeat, depressing music - I turn to sad stuff when I am down, not lively things to get me out of a hole - but Blues does not feature in my choice of wallowing companions. I wonder what determines whether a tune will work for me in those circumstances; pretty much everything I turn to has more depth of sound than this. Incidentally I am not surprised when I find myself marking Graveyard Blues for removal to the song burial zone that is my recycle bin.
I'm In the Mood is the first song that I recognise as appearing for a second time (it featured on disc 1). There is nothing about this particular recording that makes me feel that I need to hang on to it, unlike the last time I heard it. No Shoes is nice, though; whilst slow it again exhibits a more vocally ambitious Hooker, warbling up and down, a nice vulnerability in the voice to go with the slow, but relatively rich sound. Pity about a skip in the recording near the end, but you can't have everything, eh?
Yeeaaaah! No. Sorry, that does not work for me. The wailed affirmative in Nightmare Blues is coupled with a return to a very low effort riff and, despite the fact there is a bit of a lick to this in pace compared to some of the songs in the Big Box I find myself switching off to this one. I am facing the prospect of traveling into London for the first time in a couple of years next week, on the day a tube strike starts, to boot - just my luck; finally get to travel for work and it's not anywhere interesting and on a day which might mean a horrible squash getting home too. Ah well, shouldn't grumble - should be interesting to be elsewhere for the day, and if I do get delayed, at least the next day is a work from home job. Alas the travel probably means no roleplaying this week. Whilst that is no bad thing in some ways - I have not had enough time to contemplate what happens next in Out Amongst the Ruins - it is also a blow to lose my regular social outlet. Still, seeing old uni friends next weekend so its not like everything is barren. I digress because we have hit another dry section where not much happening in the music is worth a mention at all. I was about to comment that at least next door have quietened down but then the laughter that pierces my walls worse than any lawnmower kicked up again. Oh well.
My monkey nuts are almost gone... sigh. Still peckish - those things are moreish. There is something primal, satisfying about cracking the husks open, shelling them, removing the coating and getting at the nut inside. Even if they do make a terrible mess!
What I cannot tell is whether Hooker is literally reusing the exact hook or riff between songs here or whether it is just the supporting structure of it that is repeated. I suspect a mix of the two depending on the tracks you compare but there is a pattern that I am very sick of by now and it keeps rearing its head - as in Heart Trouble Blues. It has been six tracks already since the last one I plan to keep, and the seventh is soon heading for the can too as the another variation - and here it is clearly a variation, showing me up! - on the same annoying riff appears. I am trying to evaluate whether it would be so unwelcome if I was hearing it in just one tune instead of many and in all honesty I think my answer is yes. It just does nothing for me, repetitive for repetition's sake and it is there in place of any other instrumentation (just some tapping for rhythm) which highlights the over-reliance.
Ah! Finally something more interesting, complete with mouth organ, recording fuzz and more life in general. Pity it is on a song called Unfriendly Woman; the name makes me roll my eyes but the sounds make me tap my foot. Notoriety Woman does not make with the foot tapping but alas does keep the eye rolling going, not least from that same structure again. I admire anyone who can go on stage unsupported and perform to a crowd, but at the same time... sometimes getting support in is just better for everyone. From where I sit that sums up JLH to a T.
The summation may be past, but I still have two tracks to hear before I am free of him for tonight. I don't think I have much more left to add though, and unless the final track on the disc is a change up, neither does Hooker. It isn't, and he doesn't, so we close there, with me having butchered my holdings of all but 5 of the 23 tracks.
So I predicted it would be the weekend before I got in another listen and I was right. Not only that it is the end of the weekend. Sunday night. Back to work tomorrow and all that. It has been a crazy week. Today, though, has been good; got just enough done to be satisfied with, had some fun and a good meal and now have managed (more accurately decided) to find time for this listen.
See See Baby does start with a riff remarkably similar to that which begins disc 2. That riff forms 90% of the tune and it is rather boring, hence the extended intro. I'm So Excited has a little more depth of sound and strikes a better chord with me. Hooker's voice is clearer, fuller, here and that also adds something to the mix that elevates it a little. I think, again, this has a more traditional wider Blues structure and somehow adherence to this kind of format is more pleasing to me than the specific substructures he often uses. Who knows, I'm just typing out of my backside.
It's too hot for this time of night - funny how heat is always more oppressive after dark - and I am hoping that concentrating on these tunes will take my mind of both that and the ridiculous level of noise coming from my neighbour's place. Real Gone Gal is back to sparse and crackly but there is an immediacy to it, a faster whip, that keeps it appealing, right up to the point it ends as abruptly as.
Yes, bad joke!
Huh, I just found a monkey nut husk containing 3 nuts. I've seen the single pods before but not a trio before now. That little anecdote is probably about as interesting as Good Business which is like Real Gone Girl with all the good bits sucked out and replaced with plod. I find the range of our performer's vocal interesting in the sense that range is not something that I associate with the archetypal John Lee Hooker that I held in my mind before tackling these listens. I wonder if, as he got older, he only played the most successful tunes (quite a natural reaction if so, in some ways) and so some of these tracks where he is more articulate or displaying more vocal muscle went by the wayside. We're in a run, three in a row now, of tunes that I find ponderous, slow and repetitive. Each has had some element of greater interest embedded within it, be it a nice vocal, an interesting bit of noodling or whatever, but overall fall into that stereotypical limited pattern that has turned me off before and, frankly, with 6 discs of this there are songs in this collection that have those elements without the downsides.
Cotton Pickin' Blues breaks the chain a little - the tune is very different - but not by being something I want to keep. Here the recording is awful, the keyboard (or keyboards, I suspect) are recording at very different volumes to everything else around them and the distant effect is not engaging me on this occasion. Thankfully I'm Going Away brings interest back and, more than anything else, reinforces my impression that I prefer Hooker when he raises the tempo and injects a little more into his hooks and riffs. Maybe, as someone once said about me, I don't appreciate the Blues really - just some facsimile of them. It is a view I took umbrage with at the time but it has grown on me in the years since. I like my downbeat, depressing music - I turn to sad stuff when I am down, not lively things to get me out of a hole - but Blues does not feature in my choice of wallowing companions. I wonder what determines whether a tune will work for me in those circumstances; pretty much everything I turn to has more depth of sound than this. Incidentally I am not surprised when I find myself marking Graveyard Blues for removal to the song burial zone that is my recycle bin.
I'm In the Mood is the first song that I recognise as appearing for a second time (it featured on disc 1). There is nothing about this particular recording that makes me feel that I need to hang on to it, unlike the last time I heard it. No Shoes is nice, though; whilst slow it again exhibits a more vocally ambitious Hooker, warbling up and down, a nice vulnerability in the voice to go with the slow, but relatively rich sound. Pity about a skip in the recording near the end, but you can't have everything, eh?
Yeeaaaah! No. Sorry, that does not work for me. The wailed affirmative in Nightmare Blues is coupled with a return to a very low effort riff and, despite the fact there is a bit of a lick to this in pace compared to some of the songs in the Big Box I find myself switching off to this one. I am facing the prospect of traveling into London for the first time in a couple of years next week, on the day a tube strike starts, to boot - just my luck; finally get to travel for work and it's not anywhere interesting and on a day which might mean a horrible squash getting home too. Ah well, shouldn't grumble - should be interesting to be elsewhere for the day, and if I do get delayed, at least the next day is a work from home job. Alas the travel probably means no roleplaying this week. Whilst that is no bad thing in some ways - I have not had enough time to contemplate what happens next in Out Amongst the Ruins - it is also a blow to lose my regular social outlet. Still, seeing old uni friends next weekend so its not like everything is barren. I digress because we have hit another dry section where not much happening in the music is worth a mention at all. I was about to comment that at least next door have quietened down but then the laughter that pierces my walls worse than any lawnmower kicked up again. Oh well.
My monkey nuts are almost gone... sigh. Still peckish - those things are moreish. There is something primal, satisfying about cracking the husks open, shelling them, removing the coating and getting at the nut inside. Even if they do make a terrible mess!
What I cannot tell is whether Hooker is literally reusing the exact hook or riff between songs here or whether it is just the supporting structure of it that is repeated. I suspect a mix of the two depending on the tracks you compare but there is a pattern that I am very sick of by now and it keeps rearing its head - as in Heart Trouble Blues. It has been six tracks already since the last one I plan to keep, and the seventh is soon heading for the can too as the another variation - and here it is clearly a variation, showing me up! - on the same annoying riff appears. I am trying to evaluate whether it would be so unwelcome if I was hearing it in just one tune instead of many and in all honesty I think my answer is yes. It just does nothing for me, repetitive for repetition's sake and it is there in place of any other instrumentation (just some tapping for rhythm) which highlights the over-reliance.
Ah! Finally something more interesting, complete with mouth organ, recording fuzz and more life in general. Pity it is on a song called Unfriendly Woman; the name makes me roll my eyes but the sounds make me tap my foot. Notoriety Woman does not make with the foot tapping but alas does keep the eye rolling going, not least from that same structure again. I admire anyone who can go on stage unsupported and perform to a crowd, but at the same time... sometimes getting support in is just better for everyone. From where I sit that sums up JLH to a T.
The summation may be past, but I still have two tracks to hear before I am free of him for tonight. I don't think I have much more left to add though, and unless the final track on the disc is a change up, neither does Hooker. It isn't, and he doesn't, so we close there, with me having butchered my holdings of all but 5 of the 23 tracks.
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