John Lee Hooker’s Best-Selling Comeback Album ‘The Healer’ Set For Reissue

Craft Recordings is delighted to reissue John Lee Hooker’s greatly acclaimed album, The Healer, on vinyl and CD, just after a lot more than a ten years of currently being out of print. The 1989 LP earned the then 73-yr-old blues icon his very first GRAMMY® Award (for the track “I’m in the Mood” with Bonnie Raitt) and characteristics contributions from a star-studded selection of visitor artists, which in addition to Raitt, incorporates Carlos Santana, George Thorogood, Los Lobos, Canned Warmth, Charlie Musselwhite, and Robert Cray. Established for release on Oct 28^th and accessible for pre-purchase beginning now, The Healer was pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Excellent Information Pressing (QRP), with lacquers minimize by the award-profitable engineer Bernie Grundman.

Couple of artists have created such an explosive comeback as Hooker did when he unveiled The Healer in 1989. The prolific singer-songwriter—also recognized as the “King of the Boogie”—rose to fame in 1948 with the chart-topping R&B strike, “Boogie Chillen’.” About the next four a long time, he worked tirelessly—recording dozens of albums, touring the planet, and reinventing modern day tunes along the way. As one of history’s greatest bluesmen, Hooker’s affect unfold much and broad, inspiring a era of musicians across several genres, such as people, rock, and blues. A handful of these artists are represented as friends on The Healer.

Recorded at San Francisco’s Russian Hill Recording Studios, the album was manufactured by guitarist Roy Rogers, who served as a member of Hooker’s Coastline to Coast Band and would go on to helm a few much more data by the artist, like the GRAMMY®-nominated Mr. Blessed (1991) and the bestselling Chill Out (1995). With each other, they invited some of the industry’s greatest skills to execute a choice of new and vintage content in both equally stripped-down and total-band configurations.

Between the higher-profile visitors was Bonnie Raitt—a blues star in her own right—who joined her musical hero for the languid “I’m in the Mood.” The solitary, which Hooker to start with produced a hit in 1951, was reimagined as a sultry and sassy duet. The duo’s interaction was so effective, in reality, that it gained them a GRAMMY® for Very best Conventional Blues Functionality at the following year’s award ceremony.

Yet another disciple of Hooker’s, Carlos Santana, appeared on the airy opening title monitor. “The Healer,” which grew to become a world strike, paired Santana’s electrifying guitar licks and Latin rhythms with Hooker’s deep, emotive vocals. This creative partnership would continue on all over the ’90s, with Santana showing on—and producing—several of the elder musician’s most important albums.

Robert Cray, who represented a new technology of blues stars, would before long come to be a common collaborator as perfectly, adhering to his look on the funky “Baby Lee.” Cray, who was a 10 years into his vocation at the time—having currently played alongside the likes of Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, and Eric Clapton—joined Hooker on many subsequent albums, including Increase Increase (1992) and Mr. Fortunate. The higher-electrical power “Cuttin’ Out,” in the meantime, reunited Hooker with blues-rockers Canned Warmth, with whom he recorded the acclaimed 1971 album, Hooker ’N Heat.

Chart-busting artist George Thorogood, who rose to prominence in the late ’70s blues-rock scene, guested on “Sally Mae” (at first introduced in 1948 as the B-side to “Boogie Chillen’”), wherever he shipped an impassioned effectiveness on the guitar. Also halting by the studio was famous harmonica player, Charlie Musselwhite, who accompanied his longtime friend on the track, “That’s Alright.” Rounding out the guest listing were East Los Angeles rockers Los Lobos, who experienced a short while ago scored a No.1 hit with “La Bamba” (a address of the Richie Valens tune, recorded for the blockbuster biopic of the very same identify). The versatile team backed Hooker on the zydeco-flavored “Think Twice Before You Go.”

Hooker also recorded a few solo tracks for The Healer, like the stripped-down “Rockin’ Chair,” the wistful ballad, “My Aspiration,” and the album closer, “No Substitute.” For the latter track, the bluesman shipped startlingly intimate vocals, paired with a lush acoustic guitar and his signature foot tapping, as he declared, “there ain’t no substitute for enjoy.”

Though Hooker released many albums in the ’80s, The Healer marked a turning position in his vocation, marrying the vintage model of his heyday with a strikingly contemporary seem. The accomplishment of The Healer opened up a breadth of new options for Hooker, which include a host of eager collaborators and a string of well-liked releases. The busy bluesman was also ready to bask in his status as a dwelling icon. Just two several years right after the release of The Healer, Hooker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, although in 1997, he obtained a star on the Hollywood Stroll of Fame and was celebrated with a GRAMMY® Life span Achievement Award in 2000. The Blues Corridor of Famer was also a receiver of the hugely prestigious Nationwide Heritage Fellowship from the Countrywide Endowment for the Arts—the optimum honor that can be bestowed on those people in the folks and classic arts by the U.S. authorities. These days, 21 several years just after his passing, Hooker’s legacy proceeds to stay on by way of his extensive catalog of recordings, as nicely as by the a lot of artists whose tunes he motivated. His work can be read usually in movies and Television demonstrates, even though a lot of of his songs have located a 2nd life as a result of sampling by hip-hop and digital music’s most significant functions.