I once turned a career convict onto John Lee Hooker, and thence onto the blues, with this album. By the time I knew him, He
nry was an old-school badass and had already been in and out of state lock-up's, starting in California before ending up in New England. Reflecting on his West Coast time, he told me, "Vacaville could be nasty. Soledad was a fucking sewer."I mentioned that I had a John Lee Hooker concert that was partly recorded at Soledad--and that's all it took to see his eyebrow cock. A couple days later, handing back the CD I'd loaned him, all he said was, "More. You got anything more by this guy?" I loaned him a couple more Hooker albums and threw in a Buddy & Junior for good measure.
I've refined my shtick through recent years and have taken to burning and handing out discs by the short-stack whenever folks tell me, as they still oddly do, "I'm really getting into the blues. Any suggestions?" If I'm trying to turn folks onto the blues, I have perhaps a half dozen titles/artists they get on the first pass.
This would be one of them.
John Lee Hooker's Live at the Cafe Au Go Go (and Soledad Prison) is the ungainly title for a stitched-together live album that smolders, burns, throws down and boogies. On paper it seems almost ridiculous: melding a pair of previously-released LP's of shows spaced six years apart, with John Lee backed by very different bands. And expect it to work. Live Hooker could be a gamble as it is, with some releases exponentially better than others. Hooker could be a tough cat to back and, as the old saw goes, if you were on his stage, you played by his rules. Gamble though it may have seemed, this one ends up "blackjack" all the way through.
The Cafe au Go Go segment of this album (tracks 1-8) was originally released on the Bluesway label in 1967. The 5 Soledad tracks make up the bulk of 1972's Live at Soledad Prison, when it was released on ABC, Bluesway's parent label. In 1996, when MCA reissued these performances, they trimmed the opening two cuts from the Soledad show (the John Lee Hooker Jr.-led Super Lover and I'm Your Crosscut Saw) and folded the remaining 5 cuts in with the Go-Go's 8.
Hooker could hardly have gone wrong with his backing bands here, most especially in New York. At the Cafe au Go-Go, he's backed by the Muddy Waters Band, a formidable outfit indeed which, at this gig featured Muddy, Otis Spann, Sammy Lawhorn, Luther Johnson, Francis Clay on the drums and George "Harmonica" Smith blowing harp. Like Hooker, Muddy had his own idiosyncratic sense of timing and his boys knew precisely how to back such a man and how to play tight without getting in each others way. Witness if you will, Spann's subtle phrasings in I'm Bad Like Jesse James or the Johnson & Lawhorn licks in Heartaches and Misery.
If any of those assembled behind John Lee that night deserve singling out, it is probably Spann. His playing throughout the Cafe au Go-Go tunes are trademark Otis, lushly understated and rich. The man could set a mood or a pace like nobody's business. Here, Hooker's performance of When My First Wife Left Me is haunting, deeply soulful and all the way into the pocket. He's in great voice, a fully emotive voice...and Spann's fills with the band's textured playing are a significant reason why this track packs such a punch. Music like this is why blues bands were formed.
Fact is, there isn't a weak cut on this album. Right out of the gate and into the growling strut of I'm Bad Like Jesse James, John Lee gives us gives us probably its most chilling version. Right behind that he's rompin
g through She's Long, She's Tall, revisiting a standard blues theme that rarely gets cited: singing praises for his lady (rather than lamenting her wayward ways). Whether we're talking about this tune, Sonny Boy's Eyesight To the Blind, or the scores of songs cut for as long as the blues have been around, these guys are loving life and they ain't lamenting shit.
Cafe au Go-Go or Soledad Prison, this album's slow blues are its true selling points. Taking us through Hooker standards like When My First Wife Left Me, I'll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive or Serves Me Right To Suffer, John Lee's sly baritone brings it up from all the way down. This is blues with the hair still on its nuts.
I will always believe the blues to be at their best when they're played raw. So much of this album is a great example of why I hold this belief. Playing to a raucous and appreciative convict audience, the Soledad performances are looser and grittier, feeling like they just blew in on a cold Detroit wind. The free-form Boogie Everywhere I Go and the closing Bang Bang Bang Bang are front-end loaded to get some feet moving and blood pumping.
At Soledad, here famously in the company of his son, the standout performer behind Hooker isn't John Jr., it's guitarist Charlie Grimes. Rarely mentioned when one sees discussions of this album, the obscure Grimes lays it down sharp and nasty from when end of that prison stage to the other, straight through the disc's last 5 tracks. His playing with Luther Tucker on It Serves Me Right to Suffer is so tasty it hurts.
The strengths of the Soledad outings go beyond mere performance. As a disc, the assembled albums build to a boogieing crescendo, completing the trajectory begun with the earlier tracks. As a whole, the album becomes more fully realized and rightfully asserts itself as classic.
This one's for you, Henry. May the new year bring you closer to the horizon beyond that wall.
Peace, Mudcatz
John Lee Hooker
Live at Cafe Au Go-Go (and Soledad Prison)
MCA 1996
1. Bad Like Jesse James
2. She's Long, She's Tall
3. When My First Wife Left Me
4. Heartaches and Misery
5. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
6. I Don't Want No Trouble
7. I'll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive
8. Seven Days
9. What's the Matter Baby
10. Lucille
11. Boogie Everywhere I Go
12. It Serves Me Right To Suffer
13. Bang Bang Bang Bang
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