John Lee Hooker — The Real Folk Blues

The Real Folk Blues was a series issued by Chess Records from 1965-67, intended to introduce audiences to the blues that were then being idolized and reinterpreted by so many British Invasion artists. Marshall Chess was essentially saying: “Those Manfred Mann songs you can’t get enough of? Those Yardbirds riffs? Those Rolling Stones? This is what they’re playing. This is the original.”

It did some good. For one thing, it helped that there was more recognition when some artists blatantly stole not just riffs but entire songs from these blues artists, put their own names on them and made gazillions of dollars. (Why I single out Led Zeppelin for my particular anger about that is unclear; certainly others did it, but boy they took denial to a certain level. I’ll have a rant about this when I get back to my Willie Dixon box set.)

I talked about my deep love for John Lee Hooker last time. This 1966 release by Chess (my version is from 1987) includes several JLH classics including “Stella Mae,” “I’m In The Mood,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” and “The Waterfront.” But as I said, all my John Lee vinyl is new to me, picked up in just the past few years. Pretty sure this one came from Deep Groove Records here in Phoenixville, too.