Burning Hell (Original Blues Classics) (CD)

John Lee Hooker is the most elemental of the electric blues giants. His spooky musical minimalism--plaintive yet powerful vocals coupled with guitar work alternately haunting and toe-tapping--has inspired countless artists, from contemporaries like Slim Harpo to acolytes the Rolling Stones. Few, however, can summon up the inexplicable erotic charge at the heart of Hooker's best performances. The patented "boogie" rhythm upon which seemingly every blues-rock and hard rock band of the 1970s wrought variations was virtually invented by Hooker. One of the most-recorded post-war bluesmen, Hooker released records on countless labels, working much of the time in Detroit and Chicago. He kept working well into his eighties, his style growing ever more refined and penetrating.

• Category:  Music  »  Blues  »  Modern Urban Blues
• Format: CD   Learn more about the CD format using Tower WIKI.
• Release Date: November 10, 1992
• Label: Original Blues Classics
• UPC: 025218055529
• WAPI (Tower ID): 106005950
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• Tower.com Sales Rank: #41964 in Music (See Top 100 Music Bestsellers)
• #871 in Blues (See Top 100 Blues Bestsellers)
• #44 in Modern Urban Blues (See Top 100 Modern Urban Blues Bestsellers)

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Solo Performer: John Lee Hooker (vocals, guitar).

Producer: Bill Grauer.

Reissue producer: Orrin Keepnews

Recorded at United Recorders, Detroit, Michigan on April 20, 1959. Includes liner notes by Alan Bates.

Digitally remastered by Phil De Lancie (Fantasy Studios, Berkely, California).

This is part of Riverside's Original Blues Classics series.

A 1959 recording that was inexplicably not issued in the United States until 1992, BURNING HELL ranks among Hooker's most edgy and focused performances. A companion piece to THE ACOUSTIC BLUES OF JOHN LEE HOOKER, it finds John Lee singing country blues accompanied only by his own acoustic guitar--something he rarely did after traveling North from the Mississippi Delta.

Tackling several originals as well as tunes associated with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins and Big Bill Broonzy, Hooker shows himself to be an excellent interpreter who could have held his own with Delta bluesmen of any era. Although his guitar playing is pretty raw, even by blues standards, John Lee more than compensates with his powerful, resonant voice. Several tracks, including "Burnin' Hell" and "You Live Your Life And I'll Live Mine" are downright frightening in their intensity. Although Robert Jr. Lockwood is often indentified as Robert Johnson's successor, this album would seem to indicate that Hooker is the most likely candidate to have a hellhound on his trail.

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