John Lee Hooker Black Night Is Falling CD

The Rising Sun club in Toronto is the setting for this live 1977 set. Hooker is joined by a band of bass, drums, and second guitar. The foursome stretches out to provide lengthy versions of such Hooker classics as "One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer" and "Boom Boom" along with four other blues standards. In the '70s, Hooker was halfway between his early days as a boogie pioneer and iconoclastic primitive and his subsequent elevation in the '90s to bona fide blues legend-with the attendant major-label deal and all-star guest appearances by disciples like Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton.

On THE RISING SUN COLLECTION, Hooker's voice is front and center. And, if his rightly celebrated grooves are at times a little overshadowed by guitarist John Garcia's post-'60s wailing, that's more than made up for by Hook's warm and insinuating vocals and by his surprisingly personable chats with the audience between tunes. Where an artist as prolific as Hooker is concerned, there is no one definitive album. But RISING SUN fills the bill for a well-paced, well-recorded, mid-career live recording.

Recorded live in Montreal, Canada on May 5, 1977. Includes liner notes by Roue-Doudou Boicel.

Previously released as THE RISING SUN COLLECTION.

Personnel: John Lee Hooker (vocals, guitar); John Lee Hooker; John Garcia , John Garcia (guitar); Steve Jones (bass instrument); Larry "Wild Man" Martin (drums).

Liner Note Authors: Craig Morrison; Rouč-Doudou Boicel.

Recording information: Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club, Montreal, Canada (05/05/1977).

Personnel: John Lee Hooker (vocals, guitar); John Garcia (guitar); Steve Jones (bass); Larry "Wild Man" Martin (drums).

Living Blues (pp.53-54) - "[The album] features Hooker returning to his pre-rock roots."