CD John Lee Hooker – Black Night Is Falling: Live At The Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club (Collector’s Edition)

Recorded live in Montreal in 1977, the “Black Night is Falling – Live at The Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club” Collectors Edition includes the previously unreleased 17 minute jam of “Rock Steady” plus 3 “Rock Steady” remixes. The recording finds John Lee Hooker in fine voice and backed by a driving band composed of John Garcia on guitar, Steve Jones on bass, and Larry ‘Wild Man’ Martin on drums, with the end result being an excellent example of Hooker at his best. Highlights include impressive romps through Hooker’s signature tunes, ‘Boom Boom,’ which simply blazes with raw energy here, and ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,’ which is delivered as a wonderfully paced barroom cautionary tale. This is what the live Hooker sounded like with a sympathetic band behind him, a band that luckily wasn’t afraid to push him a little.