Confessions of a Fanboy

Bad title and blatant cash grab aspirations of the Chess brothers aside, I’m having a lot of fun listening to this record this morning.

Chess Records released Folk Blues compilations for Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Hooker in an attempt to attract the folkies of the ’60s. That’s fair enough if the music on the records has any sort of folk/blues hybrid. Very little of the music on any of those compilations actually qualified, to my mind. There’s nothing wrong with the music on the albums, though, and that’s the thing.

I was skimming the iTunes library the other night when I saw “This Land is Nobody’s Land” on Hooker’s Folk set. It reminded me of the speech Bruce Springsteen gives before playing “This Land is Your Land” on the Live box set he released back in the ’80s and it made me laugh. I listened to “Nobody’s Land” and ever since I’ve been wanting to get back and listen to this whole set.

Some of the high points of Hooker’s career came while he was at Chess and what Real Folk/More Real Folk successfully does is pull some of his best Chess sides together and that is gold. Most of Hooker’s work at Chess was done in the pre-album age. It’s not like today where you buy someone’s greatest hits album and if you like it you can go buy the back albums. Much of Hooker’s best work was done when they were releasing 45 singles. You can’t (easily) collect those anymore, so compilations like this are necessary.

What’s not necessary are the 231 of them littering Hooker’s discography. Some of that is corporate greed at work, some of it is Hooker’s fault (and triumph). He never allowed a silly thing like a record contract dictate when he would and wouldn’t record and for whom. Cheers, Hook! Give them hell. Oh, wait a minute… how the shit am I going to keep up with all the great music he made when he recorded under multiple aliases and with 65 labels? Damn it, Hook! You’re killing me!

We’ll never be able to have it all, but here are a couple good places to start:

• The Very Best of John Lee Hooker (Rhino): This is a cheap way to collect some sides from throughout his career on all those labels.

• His Best Chess Sides
• The Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues: Two compilations of his time with Chess. You get 15-18 songs whichever way you go. There are a lot of common tracks between the two but there are a few exclusive to each.
• Hooker: The big kahuna. The big box set! This is one of the most beautifully assembled box sets I own. If you have some cash, why not start here and immerse yourself?

  Filed under: Bloggin' the Blues