Earl Hooker was an unsung hero of electric blues guitar. Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1930, Earl (middle name Zebedee) moved to Chicago with his family but left home at an early age to go play music. And play he certainly did, adding his Robert Nighthawk influenced slide playing to recordings by Sonny Boy Williamson, Junior Wells and Muddy Waters, among others.

It was hard life, being a jobbing session muso, especially when your health wasn’t good. Earl Hooker suffered from tuberculosis, the disease that ultimately killed him at the age of forty-one in 1970.

Like a lot of blues and jazz musicians, his recordings are scattered across numerous small, long-gone record labels, meaning that a CD compilation is a great way to access the music of this elegant blues guitarist.

The Vinyl Connection collection is fortunate to have two Arhoolie originals of Earl Hooker. The one I’m featuring here was recorded in 1969 with drummer Bobby Johnson and two white musicians, Geno Skaggs on bass and Steve Miller on keyboards.

This is not, however, the Steve Miller you’re thinking of—the silver-voiced singer-guitarist who loved the blues and achieved FM radio fame with a string of 70s hits. This is the Steve Miller who played piano and organ with Elvin Bishop.

The album opens with a classic piece of Chicago blues, ‘The moon is rising’. Earl sings, and is joined on harmonica for this song (and one other) by Louis Myers. Then we have a jaunty instrumental that boogies along splendidly under the leader’s whistling slide before Earl steps towards the mic again to wave an admonishing finger at his wayward woman in ‘Conversion blues’. Presumably he is exhorting her to convert to fidelity and while history does not record the success or otherwise of his entreaties, one’s thing is certain, the guitar playing is heavenly. The side closes out with a bluegrass tinged guitar rag called, um, ‘Guitar rag’ which evokes ‘When the Saints go marching in’ in a second-cousin-twice-removed kind of way and showcases Earl’s considerable picking skills.

The title track is another upbeat instrumental. Miller’s organ comping is terrific under Hooker’s sharp-as-a-flick-knife guitar. In fact the interplay between Hooker and Steve is perhaps the outstanding feature of this LP—it really is exciting.

While the different vocalists add variety (Miller sings two songs, Scaggs one), there is no doubting that this is Earl’s record. His guitar is all over it: lead breaks, rhythm, picking, slide. No lesser legend than BB King commented that, on slide guitar, “he was the best”. High praise indeed.

Did John Lee Hooker, Earl’s older cousin, dig Hooker and Steve? Perhaps he thought, “What a great sound. That white dude on organ cooks. I gotta get him on my next record.” Maybe John Lee had someone to arrange a call to Mr Miller. Maybe he met Geno Skaggs at Earl’s funeral in April 1970. Because Steve (and Geno) did appear on a John Lee Hooker album, 1971’s classic Endless Boogie (recorded late 1970). It just wasn’t the same Steve Miller.

Scrounged this photo from the web, having shed my original vinyl when I bought the CD. Sigh.

Endless Boogie. The title says it all, really. Four sides of churning, simmering electric blues. It grooves thrillingly and interminably through eleven songs either burning slowly or staggering into a mid-paced jog towards boogie heaven. Like he did in the same productive year with Canned Heat, John Lee utilises experienced white blues rockers of impeccable pedigree, including Geno Skaggs from Earl’s album and the Derek and the Dominos rhythm section of Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. And of course, the Joker himself, Mr Steve ‘Fly like an eagle’ Miller.

Opening cut “(I got) A Good ‘Un” is a gold-plated example of John Lee’s early seventies groove. It’s also an exemplar of the master’s command of a pithy lyric.

My baby

She’s a good ‘un

My good baby

‘S a natural-born good one

She don’ stand

To run around with me

She’s a good ‘un

The remaining two verses present minor variations on this same observation, with an added declaration from the titular good one that she loves John Lee. Who can blame her? On ‘I don’t need no steam heat’, domiciliary warmth is provided by the singer’s baby, presumably a renewable source.

But it’s not all lovey-dovey. ‘Sittin’ in my dark room’ has an abandoned sad sack retreating to his bedroom to cry. In the dark, which always makes it sadder I think.

Loneliness is also the focus of ‘A sheep out on the foam’ wherein some very tasty electric piano from Cliff Coulter accompanies John Lee’s slow-blues musing about ocean-going quadrupedal ruminant mammals and whether his baby will take him back one more time.

I don’t know how you feel about preachy blues, but ‘Kick hit 4 hit kix U’ presents itself as a lament for Jimi and Janis while warning foolish youngsters to stay away from drugs.

Dope addicts, dope addicts

You got to watch yourself

You one of these days, one of these days

You might pass on

Stop shootin’ no needle

And stop swallowin’ that LSD

Stop shootin’ no needles

And stop swallowin’ those pills

That needle’s too heavy

Your heart can’t take it none

Hey hey 

Hey hey.

One of my favourites is the lightly rocking ‘The Shout’, featuring acoustic guitar and clocking in at a neat three-and-a-half minutes. It’s a palate-cleansing salad between platters of roast-boogie richness.

Fittingly, the album ends with ‘Endless Boogie, Parts 27 and 28’ wherein everyone gets to jam with John in an exuberant, rollicking finale. If you love boogie, this album delivers 1 coulomb per second of electric goodness.

So turn up the amp and groove to John Lee or cousin Earl. First class bluesmen, both.