The Healer

Might listen to it again. There's a time and space for it. Smokey. Drink. Cramped quarters... sounds like it qualifies for my next flight.

Meh

It's alright. The spoken word pairs well with the instrumentation, but I didn't enjoy it very much. The album kind of passed by without too many standout moments. Highlight: 1.

(sigh) This is a great example about what gives me the screaming shits about this 1001 albums project. This was John lee Hooker's biggest album by far, won him a Grammy, and paid for him to live the rest of his life in comfort. It is really well recorded versions of some of classic material (even if a little heavy on the 80s digital synths, recorded to a click track, soooo much reverb, and somewhat over polished by Roy Rogers) and with very impressive guests stars (Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Rogers, Robert Cray, Canned Heat, George Thorogood, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos). But is this REALLY a John lee Hooker album? Have you really heard and understood John lee Hooker if this is the only album of his you have heard? Most tracks sound more like the guest stars than John Lee Hooker. Most of the guests do a pretty good version of the blues, but it is a little strange to me that nearly all of the collaborators on this album are white. And I'm sure they even have Hooker playing guitar on all tracks.It feels a little bit like wheeling Hooker out to provide a veneer of authenticity to a major label album of blues for a mainstream (read as "white") audience, but he really is just window dressing. I don't begrudge Hooker his belated recognition or long-delayed pay-day, but this is not the album you should hear from one of the titans of electric blues. This is blues for people who don't really know anything about blues. This is the blues for middle-aged financial advisers. This is blues for dentists who have a Harley Davidson in their garage to occasionally pretend they are a bad-ass. It's blues for soccer moms to dance to. This a blues for white people. Listening to this again reminds me of why I sold my copy of this album. I know John Lee Hooker had a patchy history with record labels, but surely there is a better choice to represent this giant of the blues?

Slow blues, slightly faster blues, blues with extra singers and musicians, all 12-bar, just an awful lot of very samey stuff.

Tremendously boring.

This did not start well. I have a real aversion to that soft blues style. And have never heard a Santana song that I like. But this got better, at least in places. In The Mood is such a classic that it is hard to ruin it. Although give me the original version any day. The songs near the end, where it is just the man himself and his guitar still sound good, but as a whole this album seems a miscalculated attempt to reach a ‘modern’ audience and takes out much of the energy and directness that makes John Lee Hooker one of the original greats.

An album mostly of collaborations, with most of them sounding how you think they would given who he’s collaborating with on that track. Not his best.

I dig his voice and guitar work but the 80s production really detracts from hit in my opinion. It does make me want to check out some of his earlier work though.

Saved Prior: None Off Rip: The Healer Cutting Edge: None Overall Notes: I understand that this man is a legend, and he's clearly very confident in his craft on this album. I just don't like blues. Only song I liked was kinda carried by the guests, Santana and the Santana Band.

2/5 nope

I enjoyed parts of it but have always had a hard time getting into straight blues (but love blues rock, blues influenced jazz, etc)

Better slower, better acoustic. *Rockin’ Chair *My Dream

Baš slušljiv i baš meh.

Pretty uneven album. About half the cuts are lame and both the production and John Lee Hooker himself sound aged (not in the way that’s good for a blues musician), particularly the first song, and the other half are solid blues numbers with the last song standing out as being truly poignant. It’s not that bad overall but it gets a 2 because 😈

A classic blues musician held back by 80s production that I dislike so much. The guest list also feels like a slight vanity project, or similar to how Santana was in the mid 00s (convenient he's on here too). Favorite track: "Rockin' Chair"

I found it really boring to be honest

Det var nu ikke hans bedste album. "My Dream" er lidt bedre end de andre. 2,5

Horny jazz

Good sound for blues….

Blues with no passion is terrible.

A bit boring. Some songs sounds improvised, and not very well.

The same okay song, the entire album. Listen to the entire thing and didn't hear anything.

A very distinctive sound equating to a thin pingy guitar tone, a stomping foot, and changing to either a I, IV or V chord whenever the mood strikes him. Some call it primitive and rootsy. I'd call it something else entirely.

Not as much feeling as a expected, seemed to be a bit lackluster in places.

I love blues, but this album is just flat. I wonder why an album like this made this list and none of the albums of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Not my kind of music, pretty meh

Not really much of a blues guy. But on occasion I can enjoy and appreciate the genre. But not this time. Nothing bad here just nothing that gets me excited. 2.5 🌟

Just not my thing

Not my genre of music but some of it was quite listenable

Must of these collaborations are good and more of a showcase for the relatively younger guitarists. Sacred cow or not, I don't enjoy most of John Lee Hooker's mumbling and guitar picking. 2.5/5

Blues by numbers.

The first song was AWFUL—something you’d hear in a Fair Trade store, everything I hate about world music produced to pander to the 90s white coffeehouse set. It’s for the 90s Starbucks crowd, lame 90s elements fucking up boring blues. I hate most of this album. At one point it “Rocking Chair” sounded like the comedian playing fake jazz piano. I will admit I did some toe tapping on track 3 and 4 and felt the heart of the last track. D. Still better than Anthrax.

Modern communications technology has jaded me. Every track elicited a thought of "I have heard derivations of this on Spotify/Pandora/Sirius/Radio/YouTube/etc". Would have been such an exciting thing to discover this album back when you had to work to listen to and discover music. It's all fine music, that's about all I can say. Maybe it was over produced with all the collaborations happening. Didn't have a unified POV.

Baby Lee is Robert Plant's favourite. Fancies babies. Nonce.

Eerste liedje klinkt bekend en klinkt aangenaam. Daarna verzandt het toch teveel in pure blues. Niet aan mij besteed.

Tja....

Blues.

It had some moments, but dragged on for way too long

Fine. 5/10

strong start but then kinda flopped

The lyrics the lyrics are repetitive are repetitive. Maybe that is Hooker’s style, but it isn’t for me. Guitar-wise, blues is fine but it all sounds like every other blues song Ive heard.

I know people like this guy, but he is just too into himself to appeal to me. Not my thang!

DNF

I dont like this

Vraiment, la seule chose qui manquait au Blues pour que j'aime ça, c'est le fow constant de clichés, une production des années 80 et Santana. I guess que les gars de Black Keys écoutent encore cet album. Pourri.

A blues legend they say. My dad used to love blues and played a lot in his later life, mum used to hate it. She said it was maudlin. I'm with my mum on this. I hope I never have to listen to this old bastard again. It was a painful experience listening to old Hooker repeating the same line, playing the same chords while stamping his foot with ever more intensity as each song progressed. I was hoping for something better, but not even Santana could drag this out of the mire. Not for me, ever.

For the scale of John Lee Hookers prolific career I was expecting to have my mind blown by this album. Two songs in I was desperately ready for it to be over. This is just the most boring same old blues you've heard a billion times before. I generally can see why albums have made the list but this one escapes me. Obviously no disrespect to Mr Hooker but if this is the best of his output I will have to start actively avoiding other recordings from him. 1 star not because it's bad but because it's just the most frightfully boring thing I've ever listened to.

5/19/26. Good opening track, but then deep into blues without experimenting with anything new, especially at its time of release. I have my own bias with blues since I find it predictable.

The only thing worse than waking up to a jazz album is waking up to a blues album.

Belle and Sebastian were right. The blues are still blue.

I could smell this smelly pile of poo from miles away. No thanks.

hard to listen to fr

A poor album made all the poorer by guest artists.

A nauseating, torturous listen for me, the best bits being the brief pauses between songs, or at least the moments before John Lee’s warbling voice meets the never ending, looping chord progressions. It perfectly encapsulates all my least favourite things about blues music. They sound like the unpaid band at the school fete.

First listen

Mr. Hooker might be talented but this music sounds stale, regardless of how much 1989-era studio secret sauce they tried to put on it.

Blues is boring. All sounds the same

Slow-burning electric blues built on repetitive grooves, minimal guitar figures, steady rhythms, and deep, conversational vocals settles into a hypnotic but static flow. Listening feels like sitting in a dim room where the same phrase echoes again and again without ever quite evolving. The atmosphere is authentic and grounded, but the repetition makes the experience feel dull and ultimately boring.

A guy practices the blues with a microphone present

This one was difficult to get through if you’re not into blues. That’s all I have to say on the matter. Every track, quite literally, sounded the same.

Never heard of this album before this and now I know why.

Not for me.

The first half I was feeling good about this album, but then I had to tune out because it was so boring.

Didn't enjoy this at all. Pointless noodling and mumbling. Some nice harmonica. But no thanks

Quite boring and generic. Did nothing for me

sex music for 50 year old white men with 23 year old filipina wives

What's the point? An artist past his prime in a genre past its prime, which wasn't that interesting to begin with. The cast of collaborators is alright, but is not enough to keep from being bland and utterly forgetful.

Couldn't get through one song.

Tubeless and dreary.

This album is a bit of a travesty due to the collaborators and dodgy production. Clearly a cash grab, although Hooker probably deserved it. Not sure why it’s on this list rather than a proper Hooker album.

This album has great, innovative, fresh, exciting lyrics like when he says he ain't gonna be your fool no more and he's rocking these blues away, or when he says his baby's done him wrong, but that's alright The only thing that could possibly make this album more captivating is if he takes these creatively-inspired lines and repeats them a few more times (so that the listener can soak all that depth in) to the same predictable melodies unchanged from decades ago I don't know the value of a blues album like this from the year 1989, or why it would be in the 1001 list, and even moreso I don't understand why this album is rated so high, there's a couple cool tracks, Cuttin' Out was entertaining, but the track stretch of Sally Mae > That's Alright > Rockin' Chair was about as dull as near-brain death (with some emotion in the singing on the latter track being the only remaining sign of life) am I so out of touch? no, it's the Gen X'ers who are wrong! cover's kind of cool though. only at the time of writing this did I realize dude wasn't a frog

i hate that late 80s/90s keyboard sound so i didnt make it past track 2

Nope

1+ Stars (3/15)

12 bar snooze

Only first track is decent

A man who mumbles words while playing the same guitar lick for 40 minutes. 1/10

Add another corpse to the pile of recent disappointments...

Ja, ja - Blues. Nix für mich.

Ça commence très fort avec l’association du blues et des solos interminables et énervants de Santana. Cheesy et passionnant comme une musique d’attente d’un club de musique un peu ringard... Formidable -_- Sinon c’est du blues où il passe son temps à chanter qu’il a le blues. Il finit même par y avoir un peu de souffrances sur certains solos et certaines notes criardes. Cette histoire des 1001 albums m’aura amené à découvrir de nouvelles choses et à l’inverse confirmé quelques certitudes, la principale étant que je hais le blues de toutes mes forces.

no es para mi

Trop blues à mon goût, trop de wahwah dans la voix. 3/10

This is exactly the kind of blues music I don't like from the 70's and 80's. It lacks the grit of early blues music with too much shine, and it reduces it to something that feels like the blues' version of elevator jazz. There are some impressive guests on this album, but if I ever want to listen to blues music, I'm going to listen to much older stuff, stuff made to sound more like older blues, or listen to more avant garde/experimental blues stuff.

Most of this is exactly the kind of blues that I find super boring.

1/5

Somehow this album is a Grammy Award winner!? Don’t waste your time, seek out his earlier work instead.

We played at a blues festival on the Isle of Wight and after the gig there was a late night Jam session and it basically sounded exactly like this for about four hours. I went to bed after 10 minutes because it sounded exactly like this but I could hear it downstairs for a long time after and it was just as dull as this is

Return-to-form plade for John Lee Hooker hvor han samarbejder med en masse kendte musikere I guess? Det her gjorde virkelig ikke noget for mig.

Bit boring. Presumably good if you like basic blues.

I've been laughing at Teddy's review for like 3 days now but on the other hand........there's so few pure blues albums on this list and ****this**** is one of the ones they go with? I really wasn't sold on this album in general but knowing that this is one of, if not the token blues albums on this list, out of a genre that consciously or not influenced, idk, a solid 90% of the rock albums on this list, feels totally ridiculous. Like I just checked and not even The Fucking London Howlin' Wolf London Sessions is on this list! What are we doing here!

god I hate blues

After first song I was willing to cut this album some slack, but I just can't. It feels like someone keeps pressing the left arrow button. I just heard this line sir do not repeat please can this song go somewhere AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

not my vibe

heres what we'll do. thats blues legend john lee hooker. how do we represent him on this album list? lets do it with a random excuse for a piss up with carlos santana in the late 80's. that'll do it. terrible.

Die ersten beiden Titel des Albums mit Santana und Bonnie Raitt sind Kracher. Und wenn der Rest des Albums genauso wäre... Der ist aber nur mit traditionellem Delta-Blues gefüllt, der für mich auf die Dauer ermüdend ist.

Lord, Lord, Lord Blues a healer, all over the world, all over the world Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord Healed me, healed, healed, healed It healed me It healed me, to heal me Can heal you, can heal you, heal you, if you let it He can play guitar, he cant write decent lyrics. Pass.

Blues. 1/5

What a slog. I just don't get the appeal.

Not for me

I guess I'm not a huge fan of blues. The first song was fine, but every other song started to piss me off. Those last three songs were especially bad. He's just loosely playing the guitar while he stutters the same thing over and over. It was really frustrating to listen to. Just say what you're trying to say, please. The songs don't really do anything over their duration either. I would say the guest musicians helped, and I guess they did a little bit, but it was still bad. My favourite song was The Healer.

so fucking boring

Jag gillar inte blues.

Blues is not really for me

I have never particularly enjoyed the blues. This isn't changing my mind. So very dull. I hate it.

Why would they pick a shitty duets album to represent one of the best bluesmen of all time?

Not my jam...nothing really compelling about it. 1.5/5

I lost whatever interest I had in this album very quickly.

I honestly can't tell if there are more than one song here. It all sounds exactly the same. Right down to the reverb that is so heavy handed, I can barely hear the vocals...

same as previous album,.not my thing

Not my cup of tea, found it rather boring. 1/5

Flicked through a couple of tracks but quickly realised this album needed more spirit, more spirit of the blues in fact... So get your coat on and get moving cos we don’t know the meaning of losing so come on, come on, get down to goodison park. wooooo

Dull. An album made for marketing reasons.

I thought I was going to like this album. Most songs feel like they go nowhere; however it's great to listen to the first minute, but then it just repeats and repeats and repeats. It gets on your nerves pretty darn quickly. The vocals are never good in any song. They're constantly repeating and are just awful all the way through. Throughout the album, the music has its moments, but most of the time it's just like the vocals in that it just repeats constantly. I really expected more out of this album, but nevertheless, it was a disappointing experience.

Pas un fan de blues à la base et cet album ne m'a pas fait changer d'avis malheureusement. Le son de flute de pan synth dans la première toune est hilarant, à part ça je suis resté sur ma faim pas mal, c'est un musicien légendaire mais cet album ne l'est pas. Des grand bout je sens le bassiste sur le radar : "quand est-ce qu'on va au IV déjà?!?" Style... J'aurais préférer un album plus vieux qui l'a révélé ou qqch plus root je sais pas.... Leurs choix commencent à m'épuiser...

C’est franchement mauvais. Ça commence avec du E-piano... pas bon ça. Ensuite, il y a plein de mauvaise compréhension harmoniques dans l’album. On dirait qu’il ne sait pas quand ça va aller au IV. C’est encore pire pour Bonnie Raitt. Les 3 meilleures toune sont les 3 où il est seul et sur la 1re des 3, on dirait qu’il ne sait pas du tout jouer de la guitare. Il n’y a que « No substitute » qui soit un peu venue me chercher.

Grand respect pour l’artiste et je comprends que cet album a été son plus gros vendeur grâce aux collaborateurs. Par contre, je ne reviendrai pas à cet album. Je vais plutôt aller fouiller dans ses plus vieux enregistrements.

boring and not impressed

sigh

Bored to death by this album. Probably need to relisten at a later date. ?/10

Never liked JLH. I don't understand why he's popular. He just outlived all the other great blues musicians.

The guitar is good. But it is not music I really enjoyed. It would be okay live in a bar however, with a lot of drink involved

Late 80s romance blues? Uninspiring. Guy can strum a guitar sure, but this was boring.

Veldig kjedelig album, ikkje min type musikk. Veldig sånn «elvis-musikk». Alle sangane va veldig like, og eg komme nok aldri til å høra på detta igjen

not for me

No no no no more blues. No no no no amount of collaborations can save this album of late 80s CPAP blues. D

Ja, gewoon kut natuurlijk. Met die irritante santana er ook nog bij...

just not my thing at all.

Can definitely see the critically-acclaimed moniker for this album. That said, it's not a personal preference and not something I would listen to on repeat.

Technically proficient but the blues is NOT my jam at all.

Capa assusta mas as músicas são bem melódicas e blues, o tiozinho canta bem também e os instrumentos são bem usados também sla 7.5/10