John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon are the last of a generation of giants that plugged
Mississippi's Delta blues into urban America. Dixon went to Chicago and became a mainstay
at Chess Records, where he played bass, produced, arranged and wrote songs for
electrified Delta wailers such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, who, like Hooker, had
migrated to the Windy City from rural Mississippi. Hooker, who has just turned se... More >

So primal he subsumes all corruption, the old man--he turned 131 in August--accepts as his due ace solos etc. from Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Carlos Santana, Johnny Winter, etc. The rock moves don't impede the groove any more than unaccompanied stomps would, and rarely has he enjoyed a shuffle as definitive as the one Jim Keltner, Nick Lowe, Ry Cooder, and to-the-session-born Johnnie Johnson lay under "This Is Hip." He hasn't released a more thrilling or hypnotic album since he was 112. (Grade: A-)