John Lee Hooker - House of the Blues (1959)

John Lee Hooker (1917 – 2001) was a highly influential American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. Hooker was born in Mississippi, he was the son of a sharecropper, and rose to prominence performing his own interpretation of what was originally a unique style of country blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that became his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his blues guitar playing and singing.


I could never say it as well as Leadbelly put it, so I'll leave it to him. Leadbelly said it this way:

"Never was a white man had the blues, 'cause nothin' to worry about.
Now, you lay down at night. You roll from one side of the bed to the
other all night long. You can't sleep.
What's the matter ? The blues got you. You get up and sit on the side
of your bed in the mornin'. You may have a sister and a brother, mother
and father around, but you don't want no talk out of 'em.
What's the matter ? The blues got you. Well, you go and put your feet
under the table, look down at your plate, got everything you want to
eat, but you shake your head, you get up.
You say, "Lawd I can't eat and I can't sleep."
What's the matter ?
The blues got you. Wanna talk to you.
Here's what you gotta tell 'em:

"Good morning blues, blues how do you do ?

Good morning blues, blues how do you do ?

I'm doin' all right, good mornin', how are you ?

I lay down last night, turnin' from side to side,

Ohhhhhhhhhh, turnin' from side to side,

I was not sick, but I was just dissatisfied."

John Lee Hooker is another man who knows what it is to have the
blues, and how to tell it.
Proof that he can do so with individual style and dramatic force and
surging swing is amply displayed in this collection, which must be
regarded as one of the great blues albums of recent years."

Tracklist:

1 Walkin' the boogie
2 Love blues
3 Union station blues
4 It's my own fault
5 Leave my wife alone
6 Ramblin' by myself
7 Sugar mama
8 Down at the landing
9 Louise
10 Ground hog blues
11 High priced woman
12 Women and money

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Prison Songs Vol.1 - Murderous Home (Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48)

This is the 1997 reissue of Alan Lomax's original Negro Prison Songs. These are recorded at Parchman Farm (Missisipi State Penitentiary) which is the only maximum security prison in Mississipi. Volume one is a masterpiece, the best single document of the African American work song and field holler tradition. The group work songs, while excellent examples of this are by their nature less distinctive than the solo performances. Nonetheless, they are uniformly strong and include many of the most common of such pieces.

“These songs belong to the musical tradition which Africans brought to the New World, but they are also as American as the Mississippi River. They were born out of the very rock and earth of this country, as black hands broke the soil, moved, reformed it, and rivers of stinging sweat poured upon the land under the blazing heat of Southern skies, and are mounted upon the passion that this struggle with nature brought forth. They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen.” – Alan Lomax

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