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| Track list: 1. Who's Been Jiving You 2. Prison Bound 3. Little Wheel 4. Goin' Mad Blues 5. Mean Old Train 6. Baby Lee 7. Howlin' Wolf 8. Me and My Woman 9. Miss Rosie Mae 10. Canal Street Blues 11. You Can Lead Me Baby 12. Miss Eloise 13. She Left Me By Myself 14. Run On 15. Don't Go Baby 16. Crying All Night 17. Miss Sadie Mae 18. Mad Man Blues 19. Burnin' Hell 20. Talkin' Boogie 21. Grievin' Blues 22. Please Have Mercy 23. Twister Blues 24. Give Me Your Phone Number Running time: 70 minutes Released: 2013 |
So we reach the last, and longest, of the discs in the Big Box anthology of late Blues legend John Lee Hooker. I have it in my sights.
An odd thing to be choosing to start this at quarter past 9 on a Monday evening, but whilst I worked late-ish today and didn't have the energy to cook (takeout to the rescue, as I failed to get shopping on the way home too) I am actually rather relaxed. The relatively high pace of our opening number is a good thing and makes me immediately feel positive about starting this exercise. I am sure doubts will follow but for now we are good.
Prison Bound starts as if it is going to just be guitar, before a very off-tone piano is crammed into action. This produces a really striking sound. Either it is all the recording equipment leaving a lot to be desired, or the tuning is bloody awful. However its off in a really quirky way. Thinking about it, it could have been a particular characteristic of pianos of a certain origin and era; I have only ever heard this kind of shonky tune carried on pianos in westerns or similar golden age films. Whatever the cause, I celebrate it, because the track is enjoyable as a result.
Little Wheel sees Hooker's voice taking on some depth and (I would guess) age. The recording sounds more recent too, better sound quality, more depth of support. I would guess at 70s or 80s for this cut, where the earlier provenance of many tunes was obvious. I don't have a practiced ear for these things but the cleanliness of the recording stood out a mile. It means (I think for the first time) I am keeping 3 in a row from one of these discs. It's been the strongest opening so far, and I wonder if it can keep that up. Hiding away all the best stuff on disc 6 of six? For shame. I recognise a couple of the song titles here as repeats from the prior discs but I don't expect to remember the tunes themselves when I get to them just through the sheer volume of John Lee Hooker songs I have listened to in the past few weeks, throwing a serious curveball at my LastFM artist tracking for the next 3 months!
Its not a serious complaint, but is does jokingly illustrate that this is a rather sharp divergence from my normal and varied diet of different musical foods. After the strong start, the next two tunes do nothing for me and I feel my eyes drooping. Was this a mistake? Nah, what else would I be doing at this time eh... getting frustrated by something, I'm sure. Just occasionally, when I know that no-one I know is around, living on my own gets to be a burden. Of course, were I not alone here I wouldn't have got away with giving in to my lethargy on the way home so... chalk up the wins, and overlook the loss! Baby Lee has a nice little roll to it, a very simple rhythmic hook but it's melodic rather than percussive and even though it repeats a lot it is light and sparse enough to just about pass the interest test for the first two minutes. The third minute though... no, it is just grating on me too much by now with the novelty worn off and nothing of interest structured around it to give the track any craft. Such a shame when something like that feels fresh up front but goes stale so fast through lack of any help. Alas the tribute to Howlin' Wolf also fails to deliver anything noteworthy, and so from three in the bank, we have 4 in the bin. It threatens five as the opening to the 8th track is low key and my fears are realised as this devolves to formulaic patterns that I am long tired of now. To be fair there is a little more playing around the central theme here than there has been in discs past but the whole presentation of the track fails to excite me.
The first (to my immediate knowledge) of the repeats now raises its head... or maybe not. I assumed that Miss Rosie May was a repeat of Rosie Mae from disc 5 but the slight change of title leaves that open to uncertainty. What I can say for sure is that it fails my interest test this time, even as I kept its cousin... for my own sanity that sways me against them being the same song. Canal Street Blues must be, though - that's not a title that gets replicated by accident, right? I am pretty sure I rather liked the other version though, and this falls flat, hard.
Finally a little more life. Its a simple little number but You Can Leave Me strikes a good note immediately, and only improves as an economically used piano joins in, soft and quiet over the structure. The vocal here, too, is key. Whilst the music is patterned to a fault the variety comes from the stresses and strains in the singing and those light touches that almost sound faint enough to have been captured from the studio next door. It all adds up to a nice little song, and one to break a long run of binned tracks. I am approaching half way through and my feel is that this disc generally is later recordings than the others. Maybe that's why it was organised this way, I don't know, but there are (I think) more electrified numbers, more bite to the guitar as a result. It doesn't always make for better tunes, alas. I thought it was going to be a write-off when it started, but She Left Me By Myself actually catches me sweet as the body of the track comes in and the sense of joy from playing is carried through the recording. The song isn't fantastic, and the playing probably not his best, but there is energy in this tune and a sense of fun that is often missing. That's not a massive surprise, it is the Blues after all, but with it injected here the tone is improved and that improvement carries straight through to Run On. This is another electrified track with a clear recording and decent backing. Energy and pace are once again slightly lifted and there are moments here and there where Hooker's voice sounds almost as good as Terry Callier used to.
Huh, a classic track. That snuck up on me. Mind you, as played here it has none of the snap of the properly classic renditions and Don't Go Baby is going out the digital door into the trash. The playing is almost not there, the majority of the track is carried over just by what sounds like stomping. Its all very disappointing as with a bit more life the song can fly. It's almost as if the disc is mocking my assertion that these are later recordings with a couple of these that surface now. I feel my foot tapping along to Crying All Night even as my head is thinking nothing of it. Its an odd dichotomy but I think at this point I am going to go with my head; the foot could be a side-effect of sitting cross-legged on a squashy sofa and typing on a coffee table.
Regardless of what happens with the rest of this disc, I have probably just about saved enough of the tracks from across the Big Box of John Lee Hooker to have justified the purchase. I am less enamoured of the whole working day (or near enough) I have effectively spent ploughing through it but I do think that my library will be better for it, and I feel a little more enlightened than I was before I started, having exposed myself to a large corpus of work that had essentially been boiled down to one song that does not appear on this collection in my mind. I suppose the a small annoyance is that the Big Box followed so close on the heels of The Best of Friends thus concentrating my exposure to Hooker further than the collection alone would manage. I would be astonished if the back-to-back nature of these listens hasn't coloured my impressions of the music some - the vitriol I spewed at one aspect in particular would probably have been much reduced if I hadn't been exposed so often in such a short time. Incidentally whilst it has reared its head on this disc, it is conspicuously absent for the most part so I have had to find other reasons to justify my dumping songs from my hard drive. It's not hard to find a justification that stands up, mind; flimsy is fine.
Into the last 5 tracks now and is it wrong that I have a palpable sense of excitement about the prospect of listening to something else? I haven't looked ahead since this marathon started, and I'm sure the capricious nature of the universe means I have a couple of old stinkers just around the corner to sour the thought but... no. No negativity please. That no negativity rule has kept my fingers still over the last few tracks as the Big Box comes to a conclusion with a quiet slide off stage rather than a bang. It would be too much to expect a crescendo over 6 hour-plus long albums though so I'll forgive the curators that.
All that remains to do is say farewell to John Lee. He goes out asking for our phone number - demanding really. Alas the demand, like much that came before it, is not one I feel any obligation to entertain. There is no doubt that the man was very, very good at what he did, but there is also o doubt that most of it was simply not up my street.
An odd thing to be choosing to start this at quarter past 9 on a Monday evening, but whilst I worked late-ish today and didn't have the energy to cook (takeout to the rescue, as I failed to get shopping on the way home too) I am actually rather relaxed. The relatively high pace of our opening number is a good thing and makes me immediately feel positive about starting this exercise. I am sure doubts will follow but for now we are good.
Prison Bound starts as if it is going to just be guitar, before a very off-tone piano is crammed into action. This produces a really striking sound. Either it is all the recording equipment leaving a lot to be desired, or the tuning is bloody awful. However its off in a really quirky way. Thinking about it, it could have been a particular characteristic of pianos of a certain origin and era; I have only ever heard this kind of shonky tune carried on pianos in westerns or similar golden age films. Whatever the cause, I celebrate it, because the track is enjoyable as a result.
Little Wheel sees Hooker's voice taking on some depth and (I would guess) age. The recording sounds more recent too, better sound quality, more depth of support. I would guess at 70s or 80s for this cut, where the earlier provenance of many tunes was obvious. I don't have a practiced ear for these things but the cleanliness of the recording stood out a mile. It means (I think for the first time) I am keeping 3 in a row from one of these discs. It's been the strongest opening so far, and I wonder if it can keep that up. Hiding away all the best stuff on disc 6 of six? For shame. I recognise a couple of the song titles here as repeats from the prior discs but I don't expect to remember the tunes themselves when I get to them just through the sheer volume of John Lee Hooker songs I have listened to in the past few weeks, throwing a serious curveball at my LastFM artist tracking for the next 3 months!
Its not a serious complaint, but is does jokingly illustrate that this is a rather sharp divergence from my normal and varied diet of different musical foods. After the strong start, the next two tunes do nothing for me and I feel my eyes drooping. Was this a mistake? Nah, what else would I be doing at this time eh... getting frustrated by something, I'm sure. Just occasionally, when I know that no-one I know is around, living on my own gets to be a burden. Of course, were I not alone here I wouldn't have got away with giving in to my lethargy on the way home so... chalk up the wins, and overlook the loss! Baby Lee has a nice little roll to it, a very simple rhythmic hook but it's melodic rather than percussive and even though it repeats a lot it is light and sparse enough to just about pass the interest test for the first two minutes. The third minute though... no, it is just grating on me too much by now with the novelty worn off and nothing of interest structured around it to give the track any craft. Such a shame when something like that feels fresh up front but goes stale so fast through lack of any help. Alas the tribute to Howlin' Wolf also fails to deliver anything noteworthy, and so from three in the bank, we have 4 in the bin. It threatens five as the opening to the 8th track is low key and my fears are realised as this devolves to formulaic patterns that I am long tired of now. To be fair there is a little more playing around the central theme here than there has been in discs past but the whole presentation of the track fails to excite me.
The first (to my immediate knowledge) of the repeats now raises its head... or maybe not. I assumed that Miss Rosie May was a repeat of Rosie Mae from disc 5 but the slight change of title leaves that open to uncertainty. What I can say for sure is that it fails my interest test this time, even as I kept its cousin... for my own sanity that sways me against them being the same song. Canal Street Blues must be, though - that's not a title that gets replicated by accident, right? I am pretty sure I rather liked the other version though, and this falls flat, hard.
Finally a little more life. Its a simple little number but You Can Leave Me strikes a good note immediately, and only improves as an economically used piano joins in, soft and quiet over the structure. The vocal here, too, is key. Whilst the music is patterned to a fault the variety comes from the stresses and strains in the singing and those light touches that almost sound faint enough to have been captured from the studio next door. It all adds up to a nice little song, and one to break a long run of binned tracks. I am approaching half way through and my feel is that this disc generally is later recordings than the others. Maybe that's why it was organised this way, I don't know, but there are (I think) more electrified numbers, more bite to the guitar as a result. It doesn't always make for better tunes, alas. I thought it was going to be a write-off when it started, but She Left Me By Myself actually catches me sweet as the body of the track comes in and the sense of joy from playing is carried through the recording. The song isn't fantastic, and the playing probably not his best, but there is energy in this tune and a sense of fun that is often missing. That's not a massive surprise, it is the Blues after all, but with it injected here the tone is improved and that improvement carries straight through to Run On. This is another electrified track with a clear recording and decent backing. Energy and pace are once again slightly lifted and there are moments here and there where Hooker's voice sounds almost as good as Terry Callier used to.
Huh, a classic track. That snuck up on me. Mind you, as played here it has none of the snap of the properly classic renditions and Don't Go Baby is going out the digital door into the trash. The playing is almost not there, the majority of the track is carried over just by what sounds like stomping. Its all very disappointing as with a bit more life the song can fly. It's almost as if the disc is mocking my assertion that these are later recordings with a couple of these that surface now. I feel my foot tapping along to Crying All Night even as my head is thinking nothing of it. Its an odd dichotomy but I think at this point I am going to go with my head; the foot could be a side-effect of sitting cross-legged on a squashy sofa and typing on a coffee table.
Regardless of what happens with the rest of this disc, I have probably just about saved enough of the tracks from across the Big Box of John Lee Hooker to have justified the purchase. I am less enamoured of the whole working day (or near enough) I have effectively spent ploughing through it but I do think that my library will be better for it, and I feel a little more enlightened than I was before I started, having exposed myself to a large corpus of work that had essentially been boiled down to one song that does not appear on this collection in my mind. I suppose the a small annoyance is that the Big Box followed so close on the heels of The Best of Friends thus concentrating my exposure to Hooker further than the collection alone would manage. I would be astonished if the back-to-back nature of these listens hasn't coloured my impressions of the music some - the vitriol I spewed at one aspect in particular would probably have been much reduced if I hadn't been exposed so often in such a short time. Incidentally whilst it has reared its head on this disc, it is conspicuously absent for the most part so I have had to find other reasons to justify my dumping songs from my hard drive. It's not hard to find a justification that stands up, mind; flimsy is fine.
Into the last 5 tracks now and is it wrong that I have a palpable sense of excitement about the prospect of listening to something else? I haven't looked ahead since this marathon started, and I'm sure the capricious nature of the universe means I have a couple of old stinkers just around the corner to sour the thought but... no. No negativity please. That no negativity rule has kept my fingers still over the last few tracks as the Big Box comes to a conclusion with a quiet slide off stage rather than a bang. It would be too much to expect a crescendo over 6 hour-plus long albums though so I'll forgive the curators that.
All that remains to do is say farewell to John Lee. He goes out asking for our phone number - demanding really. Alas the demand, like much that came before it, is not one I feel any obligation to entertain. There is no doubt that the man was very, very good at what he did, but there is also o doubt that most of it was simply not up my street.
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