MIDWEST BLUES BEAT

by Eric Steiner


FAREWELL TO JOHN LEE HOOKER...

    This month, I’d like to honor the memory of John Lee Hooker, one of the
true giants of the blues.  Hooker died in his sleep at home near San
Francisco on June 21st at age 83. 

    Hooker, born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1917, helped define electric
blues after he moved from the Delta to Detroit in the 1940ís.  Recordings
like “Boogie Chillen,” “Boom Boom,” and “I’m in the Mood” are timeliness
blues classics. 

   Over a six-decade career, Hooker’s simple, yet forceful, blues used few
chords but spoke many, many volumes.  From a career that began in the studios
of Chicago and Detroit, to the blues festival circuit in the new millennium,
John Lee will be remembered in the same breath as other late, great urban
post-war bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.

    Last month, I caught Lil’ Ed and the Blues Imperials at John Lee
Hooker’s Boom Boom Room in San Francisco.  This nightclub features framed
prints of John Lee, Muddy, B.B. King and other blues giants.  As always, Lil
Ed’s set was pure, unadulterated Chicago blues.  Hooker would have been
mighty proud of Lil’ Ed and the boys that night.  This month, Lil’ Ed will
hold court at B.L.U.E.S on the 27th and 28th.
 
    More recently, Hooker introduced younger blues artists, and blues fans,
to a treasure trove of raw and powerful blues.  Hooker updated many of his
classics with a constellation of stars like Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Jimmie
Vaughn, Eric Clapton, and Carlos Santana, among many others.  John Lee and
Bonnie smoldered on “I’m in the Mood” on 1998’s Best of Friends, and this
disc also brought “Boom Boom” to a new generation of blues fans.

    The follow-up to this Hooker friendfest, The Healer, is perhaps one of
the best-selling blues records of all time.  The Grammy award-winning The
Healer marked a resurgence in Hookerís popularity after more than a decade
away from the recording studio.  Long-time Hooker bandmate Roy Rogers
produced The Healer, with help from Raitt, Robert Cray, George Thorogood, and
other blues notables.  
 
    For a taste of John Lee Hooker’s many early contributions to the blues,
I’d recommend the Chess Records 50th Anniversary Collection, released in
1997.  This disc captures Hooker just four years after he recorded “Boogie
Chillen’” for a wider audience. 

   For more information on John Lee and the family’s planned memorial
services, please check out his booking agency’s website, www.rosebudus.com . 
Rosebud’s Mike Kappus received the Blues Music Association’s A.G.E.S
(Achieve Greater Economic Success) at this year’s blues Town Hall meeting in
May. 
 
     Rest in Peace, Mr. Lucky.

PLAYING HOST TO TASTY SOUTHERN BLUES...

        Sonny Landreth and Kenny Neal will bring their own unique brand of
blues to the Midwest this July and both of these shows are well worth
catching.  Landreth will play the American Music Festival in Berwyn on July
3rd and Neal will headline the Munster Blues and Jazz Festival, along with
Coco Montoya, on July 7th and 8th.
 
    Sonny Landreth’s Levee Town release from last year is one of my favorite
blues CDs.  One of the hottest slide guitar players from Louisiana
apprenticed with Clifton Chenier and John Hiatt & The Goners.  I hope he'll
play the rollicking “The U.S.S. ZydecOldsmobile” and “Broken Hearted Road,”
a song that’s filled with Delta country blues that builds to a fine bluesy
rocker that recalls Robert Johnson. Just like Landreth’s earlier South of
I-10, his Levee Town is textbook Louisiana blues.
 
    Kenny Neal’s fourth Telarc Release, One Step Closer, features a dozen
great cuts from one of Baton Rouge’s most popular bluesmen.  I first heard
Neal listening to Louisiana Public Radio on the Atchafalya Swamp Freeway
between New Orleans and Lafayette earlier this year. Roy Breaux’s Blues Box
which broadcasts on KRVS from the University of Louisiana has got to be one
of the best blues shows in the nation, and you don’t need to drive down
Interstate 10 to check it out.  It’s available online at – http://
krvs.usl.edu .  His versions of Sonny Landreth’s “Congo Square”
and Bob Dylan’s “Walk Out in the Rain” are first-class.  Like great gumbo or
spicy jambalaya, Kenny Neal is the real deal, Louisiana-style.

    In addition to these great blues shows, Midwest BEAT readers have five
opportunities to hear Perry Jordan and his reformed Heartsfield line-up in
July:  On July 4th, they’ll play the Knoch Park Rib Festival out west in
Naperville; on the 7th in Pomona at the Shawnee Cave; and downtown Chicago on
the 12th and 14th at the Greater State Street Festival and Navy Pier.  Near
my old stompin’ grounds, Heartsfield will play the Homewood Festival on the
21st, and to round out the month, I hope they’ll play “Music Eyes” live at
Palatine’s Salt Creek Festival.  If you can’t catch ‘em live this month,
pick up their new Bedrock Records release, Rescue the Dog.

HOT TICKETS THIS MONTH...

   This month’s live music line up is hotter than the Oak Street beach on a
July afternoon. 

   The House of Blues turns Rasta on the 14th with Steel Pulse and Toots &
The Maytals.  The Four Bitchin’ Babes (Megon McDonough, Camille West, Sally
Fingerett and Debi Smith) return to the College of Du Page on the 15th,  
J.J. Kelley’s in Lansing will host The Alarm 2001 (which features original
Alarm founder, Mike Peters) on my birthday, July 18th.  We can only hope
they’ll reprise their seventies hits like “68 Guns” or “Where Were You
Hiding When the Storm Broke?”
 
    Last summer in these pages, I hollered about Tinsley Ellis’ Capricorn
Records debut, Kingpin.  He’ll bring his “Heart Fixin’ Business” back to
Buddy Guy’s Legends on July 14th.   I’d be remiss as a blues fan if I didn’t
mention that Eric Clapton has announced that this year will be his last year
on tour. The man (once hailed as “God” in graffiti on the walls all over
England) will play the United Center on the 24th.   While it’s probably sold
out, I’d still try for a last-minute ticket to see him play “Bell Bottom
Blues” or “Father On Up the Road” one more time.
 
     Until then, let’s play the blues.