The 500 - #377 - The Ultimate Collection - John Lee Hooker

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 377

Album Title: The Ultimate Collection (1948 - 1990)
Artist: John Lee Hooker
Genre: Blues
Recorded: Various
Released: 1991
My age at release: 25
How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat
Song I am putting on my Spotify: I'm In The Mood

As has been mentioned in past posts, I am not a fan of compilation records being put on this list, making me a purist, I suppose. Compilation records are, often, just a collection of an artist's most popular songs. However, The Ultimate Collection by blues icon John Lee Hooker is different, and it belongs on The 500 List. 

The album is more than a retrospective of Hooker's career. It represents a literal and figurative journey through a rapidly changing America in the 20th Century. It is also a veritable Rosetta Stone of sounds which would go on to influence almost every other record on The 500 List.

John Lee Hooker was born in 1912, the youngest of 11 children, to sharecropper and Baptist minister William Hooker in Tutwiler,  Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. Thus, John Lee was raised in a strict Christian household where he was home-schooled and prevented from hearing secular music. Consequently, African-American spirituals, a hybrid of gospel and plantation "work-songs" from the antebellum south, were the foundation of his early music exposure.  This influence can be heard on some of his earliest recordings, including It Serves Me Right To Suffer from this compilation. Another track, Boogie Chillen' has its roots in North Mississippi Country Blues style which, despite his parents' best efforts, the young Hooker would have certainly heard.

In 1921, Hooker's parents separated and his mother married William Moore, a blues musician from Shreveport, Louisiana. Moore performed a droning, single chord style of blues that varied from the Delta Blues sound popular in the region. Moore was the first to introduce nine-year-old Hooker to the guitar and his influence can be heard on Let Your Daddy Ride. 

Hooker's sister, Alice, began dating guitarist Tony Hollins at about the same time. In 1922, Hollins gave John Lee his first guitar and taught him blues standards, such as Crawlin' King Snake which also appears in the anthology. 

Guitarist Tony Hollins - mentor to a young John Lee Hooker

At the age of 14, John Lee Hooker ran away from home and made his way to Memphis, Tennessee, where he busked on Beale Street and played at The New Daisy Theatre and at house parties where he met contemporary blues legends Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson.

The New Daisy Theatre - Beale Street - Memphis, Tennessee

It was during this time that Hooker developed his distinctive playing style, focused on a single chord, playing the bass notes with his thumb and picking out the melody with his fingers. His timing was loose and inconsistent. As a result, it was difficult for other musicians to play with him. This finger-picking style can be heard in the song Hobo Blues, released in 1948. 

John Lee Hooker (mid-1940s)

After a brief time in Cincinnati, Hooker moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1943 where he worked at the Ford Motor Company during the day while playing blues clubs on Hasting Street, in the heart of the black entertainment district, at night. It was at this time that he acquired his first electric guitar and his sound changed again because of amplification and an improvement in his techniques. His biggest hits, Dimples, Boom Boom, and One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, are recorded during this period.

Hooker continued to write and perform for more than 50 years and became a mainstay in the blues music scene. His influence can be heard in the music of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen and dozens of other artists with records on The 500 List. 

Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones with Hooker (1991)

My first exposure to John Lee Hooker was the film The Blues Brothers, featuring Dan Akyroyd and John Belushi in the titular roles. It played for about six weeks at the theatre located across the street from my high school, Saunders Secondary. I went to see it three times.

Movie Poster for The Blues Brothers (1980)

Hooker's cameo appearance shows him performing the song Boom Boom on Maxwell Street in Chicago.

Hooker in The Blues Brothers Movie

On Wednesday, June 20, 2001, I was teaching music to my grade seven and eight students at Lorne Avenue Public School. It was the end of the year and I was screening selected scenes from the movie The Blues Brothers and showed them John Lee Hooker's performance. I can remember this date because the next afternoon, Hooker's journey came to an end. He died in Los Altos, California, at the age of 88.

John Lee Hooker Gravestone
(Notice the birth date of 1917. After his death, it was determined
that he was born in 1912)

He was inducted into multiple Halls of Fame; received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award; and the National Heritage Fellowship Award -- the United States government's highest honour in the arts. He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

The Ultimate Collection, is the perfect way to document his incredible literal and figurative journey during the dynamically changing United States in the 20th Century. 

The 500 - #378 - (What's The Story) Morning Glory? - Oasis

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 378
Album Title: (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
Artist: Oasis
Genre: Rock, Brit Pop
Recorded: Rockfield Studios, Monmouth, Wales
Released: October, 1995
My age at release: 30
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very
Song I am putting on my Spotify: Champagne Supernova

Oasis exploded on the North American music scene during the spring and summer of 1996. My room-mates in Teachers' College were fans and this album was in regular rotation during the five months we spent together in our residence at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. If it wasn't playing on the communal stereo in the living room, it could be heard coming from one of the bedrooms on the second floor of our townhouse.

One of the few pictures I have of my roommates Craig (seated) and
Brendan in our townhouse. Also pictured, my other roommate Randy's dog Shaft.

At first, I wasn't a fan of the band. However, slowly but surely, the album won me over. My room-mate Brendan was teaching me guitar and together we worked on the song  Wonderwall from this record. I suppose my initial animus stemmed from a letter I had received 12 months earlier. More on that later, but first a little background on the band and this album.

One of the few pictures I have of me in Teacher's College.
Hard at work in my dorm room on my "state of the art" computer.

(What's The Story) Morning Glory? is the second studio release from Manchester, England, rock band Oasis. The five-piece band included Paul Arthurs on guitar, Tony McCarroll on drums, Paul McGuigan on bass. However, the band are best known because of the Gallagher brothers, Liam and Noel, who feuded publicly and courted controversy for more than 15 years.

The Gallagher Brothers Liam and Noel (with guitar)

The group formed in 1991 and were originally called The Rain. Their first release as Oasis, Definitely Maybe, was a commercial and critical success. McCarroll was fired from the band over creative and personal differences and replaced by Alan White, who would remain with them for the next four records.

Album Cover for Definitely Maybe

Following a financially successful, but perilously hedonistic world tour, the band returned to the studio to release (What's The Story) Morning Glory? in 1995. It was another stepping stone toward Oasis becoming one of the best selling groups of all time, with over 75 million records sold.

It was around this time that I learned of them. I had been corresponding with Scott, a friend from high school, who had moved to England to pursue his career in music. It was a time before email and the two of us were communicating through handwritten letters. 

When I last wrote, I had asked about the bands that were popular across the pond.  Scott told me about Blur, Elastica and Portishead, but it was a line about a band called Oasis that grabbed my attention. I found the letter a few months ago while cleaning my office and snapped a picture in anticipation of this post. 

It reads: "Oasis. Northern Mancunian shite. These boys rip off everybody and are infuriatingly arrogant to boot. Death would be too good for Liam Gallagher. Don't bother with this lot."

Please don't judge Scott too harshly. He was a talented singer-songwriter-guitarist and passionate about his own art. He also suffered from the curable condition of being a twenty- something. 

Scott's scathing review certainly coloured my opinion of the band as they became popular in Canada. At the start, I simply ignored them, choosing to listen to other artists. But, in Teachers' College, there was no escaping their sound and, eventually, I became a fan. Sure, they were arrogant -- but there was no denying their talent as musicians and songwriters.

Unfortunately, I have lost touch with all the people in this story - Scott, Craig, Randy and even Brendan, with whom I lived for another six months after Teachers' College. The old letter from Scott was a nice reminder of a past I had forgotten and I thought a lot about my old pals as I wrote this post. Friends who now seem like ghosts from a life someone else lived. 

Hearing (What's The Story) Morning Glory? in its entirety took me back too and I was particularly moved by this opening lyric from Don't Look Back In Anger:

"Slip inside the eye of your mind,
Don't you know you might find
A better place to play.
You said that you'd never been,
But all the things you've seen, 
Slowly fade away."

The 500 - #379 - CrazySexyCool - TLC

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 379

Album Title: CrazySexyCool
Artist: TLC
Genre: Hip Hop, Soul, R&B, New Jack Swing
Recorded: Multiple Studios (Atlanta & New York)
Released: November, 1994
My age at release: 29
How familiar was I with it before this week: A little
Song I am putting on my Spotify: Waterfalls

Chances are, you Googled something today or, perhaps, you texted a friend or Zoomed with a client. Maybe you Xeroxed a document before Fed-Exing or Purolating it.

Etymologists refer to the phenomenon of "verbifying" a word, typically a proper noun as in the examples above, as "anthimeria". It is a practise that has been around since the time of Shakespeare -- when Hamlet's "sea-gown scarf'd about" him.

Typically, an anthimeria evolves for practical, or poetic, purposes and the associations are largely positive. However, sometimes a negative connotation can be associated with a name. Consider the late Bill Buchner, who put up impressive statistics throughout a 21-year career in Major League Baseball. Unfortunately, he is best remembered for an error he made on a routine play in Game Six of the 1986 World Series.

Bill Buchner missing a ground ball, allowing the Mets to win Game 6
leading to another win in Game 7 of the 1986 World Series

Consequently, the verb "to Buchner", became part of North American sports fans' vernacular. A term not reserved to baseball, a hockey goaltender could also Buchner an easy save.

Which brings us to TLC, the three-member female vocal group from Atlanta, Georgia. The original 1990 line-up featured Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins, Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez and Crystal Jones taking the initialism TLC from the first letters of their names. Jones was soon replaced by Rozonda Thomas, who adopted the nickname "Chilli" to maintain the logic of the group's name.

Their first record, Ooooooohhh...On The TLC Tip, quickly established them as a force to be reckoned with in New Jack Swing style, which fused hip-hop with pop, funk and R&B. That 1992 record had three Top Ten hits and landed them a spot as the opening act on MC Hammer's 105-city world tour.

Ooooooohhhh...On The TLC Tip Album Cover

The record that appears on The 500 list is their second release, CrazySexyCool, from 1994. It achieved critical and commercial success, peaking at #3 and spending two years on the Billboard 200 record charts. It featured four singles, including their biggest hit, Waterfalls -- which was released with a high-tech, effect-heavy video that cost the group over a million dollars to make.

Screen images from the Waterfalls video

CrazySexyCool has been certified 12 times platinum, exceeding sales of 14 million units. Consequently, TLC is the best selling North American female group of all time and the only female group to achieve Diamond Certification from the Recording Industry of America (RIAA).

However, at the height of their power, the band filed for bankruptcy. Unwisely, the starry-eyed 20-year-olds had signed a dreadful contract with the record company Pebbitone, started by former performer Perri "Pebbles" Reid and her then-husband Antonio "LA" Reid. Pebbles had experienced commercial success with the 80s hits Girlfriend and Mercedes Boy before transitioning into the production side of the music industry.

Album Cover for the Girlfriend single from Pebbles (1987)

The predatory contract billed TLC for every possible expense. Now, typical contracts will recoup costs for the manufacture and release of a record. However, this deal billed the band for every expenditure, minor or major. Consequently, the members of the band finished 1994 having earned less than $60,000 each despite selling 12 million records and generating income in excess of $200 million. 

An anthimeria was born -- signing a bad contract in the music business is disparagingly referred to as "being TLC'd".

The situation was exacerbated by the problematic choices made by "Left-Eye" Lopez. Lopez was battling alcoholism while in a volatile relationship with Atlanta Falcon's wide receiver Andre Rison. In the early morning hours of June 9, 1994, Lopez started a fire in Rison's home. She intended to burn his collection of new shoes in the bathtub. However, the fibreglass tub melted quickly and the million dollar mansion was set ablaze.

The burned remains of Rison's million dollar estate.

During the recording of CrazySexyCool, Lopez was serving time in a rehabilitation facility. Consequently, her participation was limited. Despite this, her signature raps are powerful and received high-praise from critics and fans.

The group eventually renegotiated their contract, but their time together was brief. Internal conflict led to a break-up in 2001, shortly after the release of their third record, Fan Mail, which featured another smash hit, No Scrubs. 

Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez was killed in a car crash while organising charity work in Honduras. She was thrown from her vehicle while swerving to avoid a collision with an oncoming truck. She is buried in Dekalb, Georgia, and her empowering, social-conscious lyrics from Waterfalls are printed on her gravestone.

Gravestone marker for Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez

The remaining members, Watkins and Thomas, reunited in 2015 and embarked on a multi-city tour with New Kids on the Block, and Nelly. In 2017, a self-titled fifth album was released. 

TLC in 2017
Rozonda "Chili" Thomas (left) and Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins

Undeniably, TLC has made a significant impact on the world of music and the group deserves its place on The 500 list. However, they are also remembered as a cautionary tale to new artists about the dangers of hastily signing an untenable contract. Much like poor Bill Buchner, the group is far more than the unfortunate anthimeria  they created.

  
 

 

The 500 - #380 - Funky Kingston - Toots and the Maytals

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

Album # 380

Album Title: Funky Kingston
Artist: Toots and the Maytals
Genre: Reggae
Recorded: Dynamic Sound Studio (Kingston), Island Studios (London)
Released: April, 1972
My age at release: 6
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all
Song I am putting on my Spotify: Time Tough 

This week I have a guest blogger -- Gary, whom I have known for about 20 years. When Frederick "Toots" Hibbert passed away last September, I saw a picture of Gary wearing a face mask appear on my Facebook feed. 

The numbers "54-46" adorned the mask which I recognized as a reference to the 1969 Toots & the Maytals' song 54-46 Was My Number. The lyrics describe Toots' time in prison following a marijuana conviction, and 54-46 refers to his prison number.  

Aware that the Funky Kingston record was coming up on the list, I asked Gary if he was interested in guest blogging. Delightfully, he quickly agreed. So, here's Gary!

"I think the reason Toots resonates so much with the rest of the world is he is just a bad-ass soul singer”

Singer, Songwriter Bonnie Raitt (Who has two records on The 500 List)

Frederick "Toots" Hibbert

A Brief History Of Reggae

After independence from the UK in 1962, Jamaican music production grew at a frenzied pace. For the first time music was freely recorded and widely broadcast by Jamaicans, for Jamaicans. Local labels wanted to present new acts and music to the people without delay and the sound-system culture was born. 

Massive speakers were attached to or transported by trucks providing street-corner dance parties across the island. There was robust competition among artists for the recognition that came with having the best sound-system.

Artists, recording studios and performance venues were integrated within communities. This created a bountiful music-scene in a country celebrating liberation from hundreds of years of colonial rule.

In the 1950s, there was the musical genre of ska, which blended Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz. Musicians in the 1960s slowed the beat and the sound became known as rocksteady, which morphed into reggae –a term coined by Hibbert when he used it in his 1968 hit, Do the Reggay. 

As the economy declined in the 60s and 70s, the subject matter of the songs naturally shifted from the celebration of love and life to socio-political observation, lament and critique.

Frederick "Toots" Hibbert

Hibbert grew up in the countryside in the town of May Pen and learned music in church. His parents were preachers so he learned to sing in the gospel choir. He was orphaned at age 13 and went to live with his brother in the Trenchtown neighbourhood of Kingston, where, according to Hibbert, he was poor but happy.

May Pen (circled in red) on the island of Jamaica

Kingston was also the home of future legends in the reggae world, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley.  However, what set Hibbert apart from his contemporaries was the considerable influence of his favourite American singers, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Elvis Presley, Otis Redding, James Brown and Mahalia Jackson. Consequently, he brought more soul to the microphone. He also delivered on-stage showmanship that was unrivalled by his Jamaican peers.

Hibbert (middle) flanked by the Matthia & Gordon
The original line-up for The Maytals

Toots And The Maytals

In 1962, Hibbert connected with singers Jerry Matthias and Raleigh Gordon to form The Maytals. The union lasted through the ska era, survived their leader’s jail term for marijuana possession, and resulted in some wonderful up-tempo reggae work for producer Leslie Kong.

The first instrumentalist members added to the group were Jackie Jackson on bass, Hux Brown on guitar, Rad Bryan on guitar and Paul Douglas on drums. In 1972, the group was renamed Toots and the Maytals. By this time, not only had they become the biggest act on the island, but also, thanks to signing with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, they were also international stars.

The Maytals Classic Line-up

The music landscape at the time is accurately depicted in the 1972 cult-favourite film The Harder they Come wherein Toots and the Maytals appeared recording their 1968 hit, Sweet and Dandy. The Maytals' Pressure Drop, also appeared on the celebrated soundtrack.

Soundtrack to The Harder The Come (1972)

While the Wailers (including Bob Marley) and The Maytals both began their careers in 1963, The Maytals were easily the biggest act in Jamaica. However, in the mid-70s, Blackwell opted to promote Marley more, and The Wailers rose to prominence.

Funky Kingston

The first version of Funky Kingston was released in the UK in 1973. In 1975, a revised version of the album was released in the US. It is the one I am reviewing here. This new version kept only three tracks from the Jamaican album, substituting six taken from the follow-up record, In the Dark, including the 1969 single Pressure Drop.

So, what’s so great about this album? 

Even when the subject matter is sad, each song is uplifting and hopeful. The syncopated poly-rhythms set this music apart from all other sounds, creating much more of a groove than the hypnotic afro-beat of the time. The bass-lines are uncommonly melodic phrases that leave ample space for the vocals, guitars, keys and horns. Of course, Toots’ excellence as a singer/songwriter is, at times, overwhelming.


An unlikely opener, Time Tough is a beautiful example of Toots’ status as a hero to the common man. It’s 100% pure headphone candy and easily my favourite. His rich and raspy voice is so genuine that one can’t help but feel how tough time is while rocking to a gloriously uplifting back-beat and bass line. What it may lack in horns, it easily makes up for with angelic female background harmonies. The creative lead guitar accents throughout the song deserve a separate listen with headphones -trust me. Now, don’t take off the headphones! Give the first half another listen and try to predict when the organ shots are coming – I think he sobers up in the second half reliably hitting on the two.

Toots, the son of two preachers, offers some hopeful advice in the last verse:

Can't blame the minister
And you can't blame the preacher
And you can't blame your brother
And you cannot blame your sister
Can't blame your friends
Cuz today is judgement day
And that's why everyone have to pray

The song Funky Kingston appears third. By now we’ve warmed up and understand that these guys are not screwing around. This one most readily supports the inescapable comparisons to Otis Redding. The sax is almost a vocal effect until unleashed at the end. Toots’ voice is almost used as a percussive instrument, but it’s not just his bruising vocal tone, but also the raw energy and unrelenting commitment that so often makes a song a hit. Janice Joplin would really like someone to "take a piece of her heart", Otis Redding genuinely thinks that "tenderness" is in order and yes, Toots can’t stress enough that Kingston is, in fact, "funky."

The song-writing dexterity is striking in Love is Gonna Let Me Down. The first two verses are in a 3-4 waltz with the chorus in the familiar 4-4 time. The sweet reggae beat seems to come in relief in each chorus and wrap its arms around Toots as he sings of love yet to be lost. I hear a nod to Elvis Presley’s I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You in the verse and the guitar solo with hints of Cat Stevens’ The First Cut is the Deepest. They then stealthily slide the last uplifting verse in at 4-4. Makes sense since she walked through the door after all--probably because of the solo. In fact, things got so much better that we get some badass Nashville guitar licks on the last verse and as they fade out. Or, maybe I’m not sober right now.

Perhaps my favourite aspect of the cover of Louie, Louie is the intro which could have come from the STAX vaults. The frosh-week anthem becomes both fiery sermon and dance-til-you-drop marathon. And, thanks to the timely disregard for clear enunciation, the words are even harder to discern than in the Kingsmen's version. 

Funky Kingston -Alternate Cover

If you don’t cherish a groove, skip this paragraph. I won’t mind. Pomp and Pride and Got To Be There are excellent examples of just how big and warm and silky a musical pocket can be. The melodic bass lines are as attention grabbing as the lyrics. I’ve heard that the syncopated bass and ska guitar/keys downbeat at the slower rocksteady pace can mimic the heartbeat subliminally hearkening us to the womb. When I hear this music, it sounds plausible.

Country Road is a delightful surprise the first time you hear it and every time after that. Toots first lets us know that he knows that Ray Charles just covered it but goes on to add a little sauce. Some wonder where this John Denver cover came from, but no Jamaican thinks twice about it. Hibbert, a country boy, certainly could have lived and written every word, but made a few subtle changes. Jackson respectfully adheres to the original finger-picked bass line. At the end, Toots takes us back to his ‘clap-hand’ church roots to underline how deeply spiritual the song is.

I remember my uncle Karl telling me, when I was about ten, that he was a big country music fan and that country was second only to reggae in popularity back home. It was years before I learned that he wasn’t joking. By 1975, there was a long tradition of artists ‘reggaefying’ popular songs. Some of my favorites are; Alton Ellis, John Holt, Marcia Griffiths and the Mighty Diamonds. Of course, one should also know when to say when - as in this example.

Pressure Drop is the last big shot on the album. By 1975 it had been five years since it was a hit in Jamaica and Blackwell added it as a "ringer" of sorts. That aside, it’s a banger for sure, and has been covered by The Specials, the Clash and Robert Palmer. Willie Nelson and Keith Richards have chosen to perform it with the Maytals. 

In an interview in 2016, Hibbert said that Pressure Drop was a song about karmic justice. "It's a song about revenge, but in the form of karma. If you do bad things to innocent people, then bad things will happen to you". As Toots' would say: “Pressure’s gonna drop on you.” 

Even if the pressure has dropped on you, you will always be welcomed at church. The country boy takes us back to his gospel roots with Sailin’ On. One can almost imagine another gospel great, Ray Charles, singing harmony with him. In the black church, this is typical of the sound made by a joyous congregation as the collection plate is passed around.

Rest in peace and thank you, Toots.

Not bad for a guy from an island that can easily fit into Georgian Bay.

Thanks to you Marc. This project brought back some precious memories; watching my parents dance, hanging with my dad as he worked on the car and playing their records and doing a little dance myself -- when nobody was home.