Mississippi-born blues giant John Lee Hooker made his name with an unorthodox approach to electric guitar, developing his own variants of boogie-woogie, Delta blues and country blues, his lyrics delivered in rich baritone. Early work featured masterful electric licks, backed by a studio ensemble, but Riverside took a different approach for ‘The Country Blues Of John Lee Hooker,’ recording our hero with just his voice and a solo acoustic, recounting tales of his itinerant youth with verve and gusto. Thoroughly appealing and of interest to all blues fans, this 1959 album foreshadows the better-known work for Chess that would follow.
