John Lee Hooker
The Essential Collection

THE REVIEW

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If we want to find something positive among all the flaws of a compilation, it is certainly the ability to be an excellent means of bringing the distant and the curious closer together.

There are no themes, no guiding threads, there is no real meaning between one track and another except to summarize an artistic career in the best possible way.

In this case, we are not simply talking about any artistic career but rather a founding father, one of those geniuses who have forever changed the world of music.

The bass lines, held with the thumb, the emphatic pauses at the end of the phrases, and a series of effects, slurs, quick staccatos, and vibratos have generated his personal style. The peculiarity of his invention lies in the composition that revolves, in the main theme, around a single chord played in an obstinate and hypnotic manner. The warm and husky voice but not for this reason tired, monotonous, and repetitive, will forever mark the way of interpreting a text on any melody of millions of singing birds. If iconographically speaking, Elvis is considered the king of rock, following the same guideline, we can affirm without any doubt that John Lee Hooker is the monarch of the blues, simple and mysterious music, relaxing and energetic, cool and rooted in the earth, elusive and mechanical, inexplicably sexy and transgressive.

I recommend this collection to the curious simply because it is the last one published before our bluesman's passing in 2001 and therefore approved by the author himself. Among the 20 tracks offered in "The Essential Collection," the following stand out: "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer", "Down At The Landing", "Ground Hog Blues", "Bang Bang Bang Bang", "Walkin' The Boogie", and the extraordinary "I Can't Quit You Baby".

John Lee Hooker's genius will contaminate millions of musicians worldwide, and it will be difficult for other authors to faithfully replicate the style of the trailblazer, but they will still inevitably be struck by the magic of the blues.