The great blues guitarist and songwriter John Lee Hooker
recorded for many labels during his lengthy career, but in the late 1960’s he
was able to sign a major label deal with the newly founded ABC – Bluesway group.
This album is made up of songs with a full band (as opposed to Hooker’s early
groundbreaking solo recordings) over the course of a few different sessions.
The musical accompaniment is subtle with some very nice bass and harmonica
adding to Hooker’s guitar and very deep voice. The album features some of his
great boogie tunes “Boom Boom” and “Think Twice Before You Go” which are pithy
and buoyant, nothing like the all night boogie albums that would be conjured up
by Hooker’s record label a few years later. The snarling “Backbiters and Syndicators”
and the witty “Mr. Lucky” are wonderful tunes that Hooker and his producer Al
Smith co-wrote and would stay in his repertoire late into his career. Another
very interesting development are two great topical protest songs, “The Motor
City is Burning” about the riots that erupted in Detroit in 1967 that lead to
the deployment of National Guard troops and the deaths of 43 people. “I Gotta
Go to Vietnam” is a powerful indictment of a war of folly from the position of
a black draftee that knows that the real war is being fought at home for civil
rights and against racial inequality. When people think of protest songs they
often think of white folksingers but these songs and others by his then
colleague J.B. Lenior showed that blues musicians were very clued into what was
happening. Just as before, John Lee Hooker’s career would wax and wane until
the late 1980’s when he achieved the position of a revered elder for many rock
and blues musicians. Several lion in winter albums followed where he was
flanked by his admirers (one album was called Mr. Lucky in fact) and he was one
of the few musicians with the longevity to see first hand the influence he had
over generations of musicians. 
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