John Lee Hooker — John Lee Hooker

If I haven’t said this before, I should, just to remind myself: If you see a John Lee Hooker record, buy it.

For one thing, even if it has the same song titles as some other record or disc of John Lee Hooker’s music, it’s probably a completely different version of the song. In order to get around that whole thing where Black artists didn’t get paid royalties, JLH made his recordings for multiple companies. Sometimes, the titles were different, sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they were under his name, sometimes under an alias. All good, and a rare opportunity to hear alternate approaches to songs in the days before “alternate takes” became fashionable.

This is another one that’s very new to me, but of course my love for John Lee goes way, way back.