John Lee Hooker – Burnin’

Do you have a record dealer who will literally chase you down the street with something he thinks you need to see? I do, and I’m not complaining. I was walking down to the coffeeshop last Friday afternoon and after I passed by Forever Changes with a quick wave, Shawn came running out of the shop, waving John Lee Hooker’s “Burnin'” at me!

Honestly, I was initially confused. I have a CD of Burning Hell, the 1964 release of sessions from 1959, and so I just guessed that “Burnin'” was some variation of that. Because of the way he recorded – doing sessions for cash, re-recording the same or very similar songs for various labels – and the way some of the old blues records have been re-released by reissue labels, I worried this was something I already had some or all of. Thankfully, this is the age of instant information, so it was soon pretty clear that this was an entirely different album, recorded in 1961 and released in 1962, with an entirely different set of tracks. Why is this called “Burnin'”? Who could say. But there’s no “Burning Hell” or burning anything else on it. Unlike the “Burning Hell” sessions, where Hooker played entirely solo, this features a full band, Motown’s “The Funk Brothers,” with none other than Joe Hunter on piano (and oh, boy, is he!) and James Jamerson on bass. (The personnel are a bit confusing, though – these were Motown session players, while this was a Vee-Jay record recorded in Chicago.) This record put him on the charts with “Boom Boom,” which he played throughout his life as one of his signature tunes.

I’ve had this for all of a week and change, and have probably played it 8 times already. I’ll say that it’s my feeling that often, JLH works best on his own – he’s so singular, so idiosyncratic, that other players can be superfluous or worse. All those songs he did with Canned Heat? I could do without the Canned Heat. But in this case, the combo is tight, and the addition of piano, bass, drums and sax is quite a good thing indeed. Really an amazing album.