Burnin'

Chronique

John Lee Hooker's 1962 album Burnin' is one of the most revered titles in his discography. While his earliest sides featured only his guitar and a stomp board, he also cut sides with a second guitarist or harmonicist. During the late 1950s, he usually played in Detroit with his Boogie Ramblers. Burnin' was recorded in a single day in a Chicago; it paired Hooker for the first time with a full, live, electric band in the studio. The musicians were brought in from Detroit; they were all session aces familiar with Hooker from his years of playing clubs on Hastings St. Keyboardist Joe Hunter (not Ivy Joe Hunter), bassist James Jamerson, guitarist Larry Veeder, and drummer Benny "Papa Zita" Benjamin, with saxophonists Hank Cosby and Andrew "Mike" Terry -- the very first incarnation of Motown's globally renowned house band, the Funk Brothers.
The set opener is single "Boom Boom." It growl sto life with saxes, piano and shuffling drums offering a rowdy vamp. At the midway point, Hooker playing in an uncharacteristically tight fashion, delivers a shout worthy of Ray Charles then delivers a stop-time guitar hook, signaling the band to rise up and drive the boogie. (The single charted at R&B and in the Hot 100.) It's followed by "Process," a slow walking blues offering steamy piano and sax work. Hooker's leads thread the verses, his shambolic shuffle working just behind the drum kit shuffle. "Lost A Good Girl," was one of the guitarist's club staples, a real crowd pleaser for dancers thanks to its laconic Chicago meats New Orleans groove. His reading of Leroy Carr's classic "Blues Before Sunrise" is rendered as an elegant piano and horn-driven walking blues with killer solo guitar work from Hooker, cutting jagged lines between verses. He answers with the hourserocking"Let's Make It," another of his live nuggets. The dialogue between horns, piano, snare, and Hooker's sung cadences are lusty, strident, boastful and fun. His guitar shuffle is loose, almost buzzy, but swings like mad. While there isn't a weak moment here, there are other highlights too, such as the low down, sexy, "Drug Store Woman," and the wooly "Keep Your Hands To Yourself (She Belongs to Me)," that makes full use of the propulsive vamp in "Tequila" He hits the seam exactly where jump blues meet rock and roll on the raucous closer "What Do You Say?"

© Thom Jurek /TiVo