John Lee Hooker - BBC In Concert, John Lee Hooker and Friends, The Sweetwater, Mill Valley, CA, 1-6-1992

 

John Lee Hooker - BBC In Concert, John Lee Hooker and Friends, The Sweetwater, Mill Valley, CA, 1-6-1992

Paul says : Here is a rather unusual concert as far as concerts in the long-running "BBC In Concert" series go. This primarily stars blues legend John Lee Hooker, but he's joined by different special guests on almost every song: ‘Ry Cooder’ John Hammond, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Charlie Musselwhite. The sound quality is excellent despite this being unreleased. The only bummer is that it's rather short, less than an hour long.

A lot of really interesting musical moments happened at the tiny Sweetwater club in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Just two months ago (writing this in February 2025), I posted a 1989 concert that took place there and featured Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and many others. For years, this club was a place where musicians hung out and performed with each other with barely anyone noticing, since the club could fit 100 people at best. 

This is the first and only example I could find of the BBC recording anything at this venue. I'm guessing what happened was that John Lee Hooker was suddenly hip again in the early 1990s after the success of his 1989 album "The Healer." He was 73 years old when it came out. It was the best selling album of his career, largely due to the appearance of many big name guest stars like Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, and Bonnie Raitt. In 1991, he released a similar album with more guest stars, "Mr. Lucky." So the BBC wanted a show from him, but he very rarely made it over to Europe. So they arranged to broadcast a concert from the U.S. And by having it at the Sweetwater, they were able to get some more guest stars to show up, since that kind of thing happened there a lot anyway. (For instance, Carlos Santana played many songs with Hooker at a Sweetwater concert in 1989.)

Many of these guest-filled Sweetwater shows from that era have somehow become soundboard quality bootlegs. But this one has not, as far as I know. So we're damn lucky that the BBC was there to record it. It's a shame that we only get six songs, but that's better than nothing. And what we do have sound great. (Given that Albert Collins was included in a group photo from this concert, I'll bet he was involved on stage somehow.)

John Hammond, Ry Cooder, and Charlie Musselwhite only helped out either on guitar or harmonica. But Bonnie Raitt dueted with Hooker on "I'm in the Mood" as well as playing slide guitar on that one and one other, and Robert Cray dueted with him on "Mr. Lucky" as well as playing lead guitar on that one too.

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Father Was a Jockey (John Lee Hooker with John Hammond)
02 talk 
03 Crawling King Snake (John Lee Hooker with Ry Cooder)
04 talk
05 I'm in the Mood (John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk 
07 I Want to Hug You (John Lee Hooker)
08 talk
09 Mr. Lucky (John Lee Hooker & Robert Cray)
10 talk
11 Boogie Chillun (John Lee Hooker with Charlie Musselwhite & Bonnie Raitt) 

 

John Lee Hooker & Robert Cray - Mr Lucky (John Lee Hooker And Friends, 3rd December 1992)

John Lee Hooker & Ry Cooder - Crawlin´ Kingsnake (John Lee Hooker And Friends, 3rd December 1992)