More John Lee Hooker
- This original ABC pressing has Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on ALL FOUR SIDES!
- These sides are out of this world — rich, full-bodied and Tubey Magical with a big punchy bottom end and lots of energy
- “… the timeliness of Endless Boogie is an unmitigated plus, and producers Bill Szymczyk and Ed Michel get a relaxed groove out of a cast of supporting musicians who can boogie Canned Heat right out of the studio.” – Robert Christgau
This vintage ABC pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What amazing sides such as these have to offer is not hard to hear:
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1971
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We Listen For on Endless Boogie
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper
TRACK LISTING
Side One
(I Got) A Good ‘Un
House Rent Boogie
Kick Hit 4 Hit Kix U (Blues For Jimi And Janis)
Side Two
Standin’ At The Crossroads
Pots On, Gas On High
Side Three
We Might As Well Call It Through (I Didn’t Get Married To Your Two-Timing Mother)
Doin’ The Shout
A Sheep Out On The Foam
Side Four
I Don’t Need No Steam Heat
Sittin’ In My Dark Room
Endless Boogie, Parts 27 And 28
AMG Customer Review
This is a quality John Lee Hooker album. John Lee is one of my favorites, but his catalog is pretty mixed. Endless boogie is not just an album, but a phase John Lee went through that was my favorite period with the artist. This phase includes live albums like ‘Live at Soledad Prison’ and his work with Canned Heat. On this album the songs are great, their is a quality backing band (with Steve Miller on Guitar for most tracks), and excellent overall sound quality. This album reminds me a lot of another great JLH album ‘Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive’ (buy it if you can find it. This is a smoking boogie blues album. Buy it and enjoy.