GREAT READS

The Very Best of John Lee Hooker

Hooker, John Lee

While many welcome Spring by cleaning closets and planting flowers, I have the peculiar habit of celebrating the season change by bringing out my blues collection. Winter is too gloomy for the honey-why-do-you-leave-me's and the one-shoe-blues, but Spring is perfect: there's a cool bite to the air and the sky is just as likely to shine as it is to drip.

At the very top of my queue every year is The Very Best of John Lee Hooker, an amazing collection of bouncy, toe-tapping tunes that sound so fresh you'd swear that ol' Johnny is sitting on your back porch singing to anyone and no one at all. His voice is thick and assertive. His sloppy timing, strangely precise. This stripped-down collection is as bare as the day blues were born.

A voice, six strings, and a knowing strut, this album is a highlight of Hooker's early career. Songs on the album are:

1. Boogie Chillen'
2. Crawlin' King Snake
3. Hobo Blues
4. Huckle Up Baby**
5. I'm in the Mood
6. I Need Some Money** (pre-Beatles, Hendrix, Zeppelin, Flying Lizards - the original and the best)
7. Dimples
8. Boom Boom
9. Shake It Baby
10. Big Legs, Tight Skirt**
11. It Serves You Right to Suffer
12. You Know, I Know
13. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
14. I'm Bad Like Jesse James
15. Burning Hell
16. Terraplane Blues

**personal favorites

Recommended by Leah Davies