CD Review: John Lee Hooker’s The Standard School Broadcast Recordings (2025)

With well over 100 full-length recordings to his name (and more than a few under other names), we’ve long since passed the point where John Lee Hooker could surprise us…or are we? The Standard School Broadcast Recordings captures a recently-discovered, long-lost 1973 session by ‘The Hook’ and a trio of trusted musicians – bassist Gino Skaggs, drummer Ken Swank, and his son Robert Hooker on piano – recorded for the award-winning “The Standard School Broadcast” radio series, which broadcast on the NBC network in the western U.S. Copies of its shows were sent on vinyl to schools to teach kids about music, and three songs by Hooker were accompanied on the disc by performances by jazz guitar greats Joe Pass and Herb Ellis, pop/rock session player Chuck Day, and classical guitarist George Sakellarious.

Hooker and band recorded eight songs that day at San Francisco’s Coast Recorders, the tapes subsequently disappearing until recently. The Standard School Broadcast Recordings offers the entire session, 100% live and raw, with no overdubs, and the performances stand tall with anything that Hooker recorded before or after. “Bad Boy” and “Hard Times” are scary good, both songs haunting blues-dirges heavy-laden with Hooker’s sonorous vocals and scraps of edgy guitar. “Rock With Me” offers a dose of Hooker’s trademark boogie while the reprised “Sally Mae” – the B-side of “Boogie Chillen,” his 1948 debut single – offers a sordid tale of booze and betrayal. “I Hate the Day I Was Born” and “Should Have Been Gone” are equally distraught, displaying Hooker’s expressive genius and son Robert’s inspired piano-pounding (which shines throughout the sessions, delivering exactly the nuance each song demanded).

A medley of “When My First Wife Left Me” and “Hobo Blues” is the heart of the album, showcasing Hooker’s improvisational skills while “Coast Recorders Jam” is a spry, old-school instrumental romper-stomper with the younger Hooker’s lively piano-play up front of a jaunty, swinging rhythm, upon which John Lee embroiders various guitar patterns that, while not straying far from his trademark boogie-blues fretboard-bashing, nevertheless display the guitarist’s dexterity and imagination. For John Lee and his crew, it was just another sorely-needed payday; for the innocent schoolchildren who heard these performances in the classroom all those years ago, experiencing Hooker’s lamentations firsthand, I’m sure that it warped a few minds. Some may have even gone on to sing the blues while others…just maybe...became music critics. That’s the magic of John Lee Hooker! (BMG Music, released January 9th, 2025)

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