Given
Hooker
's unpredictable timing and piss-poor track record recording with bands, this 1965 one-off session for the jazz label
Impulse!
would be a recipe for disaster. But with
Panama Francis
on drums,
Milt Hinton
on bass, and
Barry Galbraith
on second guitar, the result is some of the best
John Lee Hooker
material with a band that you're likely to come across. The other musicians stay in the pocket, never overplaying or trying to get
to make chord changes he has no intention of making. This record should be played for every artist who records with
nowadays, as it's a textbook example of how exactly to back the old master. The most surreal moment occurs when
William Wells
blows some totally cool trombone on
's version of
Berry Gordy
's
"Money."
If you run across this one in a pile of 500 other
CDs, grab it; it's one of the good ones. ~ Cub Koda