John Lee Hooker – The Standard School Broadcast Recordings (Vinyl)

Once considered a long-lost (and in most cases, complete unknown) studio recording from John Lee Hooker, ‘The Standard School Broadcast Recordings’ is the first commercial release of a rare 1973 fully electric blues band recording. Performed direct-to-tape at Coast Recorders in San Francisco, the session captures Hooker at a tumultuous and deeply transformative time of his career, accompanied by his reliable standby rhythm section of bassist Gino Skaggs and drummer Ken Swank, plus Hooker’s pianist son Robert. Syphoned off to feature only a brief interview and snippets of songs in its initial scholastic run, this collection showcases the entire recording session, including expanded liner notes from the preeminent Hooker scholar Charles Shaar Murray. It’s a wildly intimate and scorchingly beautiful collection of Hooker at his most raw – the Blues as high art. The CD also contains two bonus tracks: ‘Sallie Mae’ and ‘Instrumental’.