Customer Reviews

Mississippi River Delta Blues

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This rather dubious collection gathers some very old material from the dawn of John Lee Hooker's lengthy career. I paid under $5 for mine and was very happy. This is the grittiest, meanest, STOMPINEST that the Hook ever got - too bad there are no liner notes to tell where this material originated. My guess would be late 1940's material (I have a couple of these on another vinyl lp). Although the sound is quite rough, you can still rock the house with these, and they're very hard to find on other collections.

This is hands down one of the best blues albums I have ever heard. It's raw, gritty, and some of the most intense music I've ever heard. You can tell that there's something cathartic about this guys music from this era, every stomp and boogie on this album is a pure release. As the reviewer noted below the recording isn't quite up to par with today's standards. To me anything the sound lacks is made up in the feeling that comes through. I'm also shocked that this album isn't credited as being one of the forerunners of rock and roll. I know that Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry often assume that roll. However, this album pre-dates both of their careers and it is un-believable how hard it rocks when you take into consideration the fact that this came out somewhere around the late 40's.