This spring, we told you about a 16-song collection purporting to contain the finest recordings of guitarist and singer John Lee Hooker, a bold claim considering the multitude of recordings the native Mississippi bluesman made during his lifetime. As solid and terrific a set as Whiskey & Wimmen: John Lee Hooker’s Finest is for those seeking a quick dose of Hooker’s infectious grooves, it would turn out to be, to borrow from the lyrics of one of Hooker’s songs, really just a “little wheel ’til your big wheel come”, with Craft Recordings/Concord Bicycle Music recently rolling out an expansive 5-disc box collection providing a whole lot more for Hooker fans to get lost in.
Fans of that earlier compilation will be glad to learn that all but one of the songs (“Whiskey & Women”) included there can also be heard in some form on the 100-track John Lee Hooker: King of the Boogie, a few, in fact, in multiple versions, with songs like “Boogie Chillen'”, “Boom Boom”, “Dimples”, and “I’m in the Mood” presented in both studio/solo and live or collaborative (and in a couple of cases, all three) versions on this larger set.
The collection, for example, begins and ends with different versions of Hooker’s earliest hit “Boogie Chillen'”, the first, a crackling recording of just Hooker and his guitar from the September 1948 solo session that launched Hooker’s career and that helps establish the boogie from the set’s very start. Contrast that to the later (as in five decades later) more rocking version, which captures a much older Hooker joined by Eric Clapton, Rick Kirch, and Johnny Lee Schell all on guitar and incorporates some lively keyboards, one of only a few songs on which Hooker begins to show his age vocally. In between, there’s also a live acoustic solo version of the song from 1962, a rather low-key performance with a soft-spoken intro that, along with the other songs included here from that same San Francisco blues club (Sugar Hill) show — the much more traditional, Sonny and Brownie-like than boogeying “Bottle Up and Go” and creeping “Crawlin’ King Snake” (also representing the second version of the song) — helps remind the listener just how smooth Hooker’s voice and playing could be.
For longtime bluesmen Henry Gray and Tail Dragger, the late, great Chester Burnett — a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf — didn’t just serve as an inspiration. For them, he was a band leader and mentor, and the inclusion of these now senior statesmen of the blues is just one of the things that helps to make Howlin’ at Greaseland (West Tone Records) such a special tribute to this true giant of the genre, along with contributions from names like harmonica player Rick Estrin, multi-instrumentalist (and project recorder) Kid Andersen, horn man Terry Hanck, and keyboardist Jim Pugh (Robert Cray Band), among others.
Opening on the powerful, shuffling “Why Did You Hoodoo Me” and a gritty, crawling “Livin’ on the Bayou” that mixes Simmonds’ often Mark Knopfler-like vocals with some David Gilmour-ish guitar solos, Witchy Feelin’ is already a winner before you even arrive at the album’s creeping title track and such other gems as the steady-rocking “I Can’t Stop the Blues”; a laidback and lonesome “Standing in a Doorway” that will help fill up your musical drinking glass with its gentle vocals and thick slide riffs; a hard-driving, Cream-like “Can’t Find Paradise”; and a slow-cooking, wah-filled “Thunder, Lightning & Rain” on which the band brings things down a bit to allow Simmonds’ guitar to do much of the talking.
Here’s one we mentioned in our 
On the opening track of her debut album Jetlagger (Big Legal Mess Records), Brooklyn-born soulstress Bette Smith promises “I Will Feed You” and that’s exactly what she proceeds to do musically, moving from the haunting, Macy Gray-ish sound of that number and others like “Flying Sweet Angel of Joy” to such rockers as a Tina Turner-ish take on the Little Steven Van Zandt co-written “I Found Love” (Lone Justice) and heavy soul R&B of “Manchild”, one of several songs penned or co-penned by Jimbo Mathus, who also produced and provides some nice guitar, keyboard, and background vocals on the project.
Pierce didn’t write any of the songs included on his latest album You’ve Got to Feel It! (Calabama Recordings), but he did do an awfully nice job of selecting a dozen soul classics to cover here, from the “We Can Always Come Back to This”-like sway of Otis Redding’s “That’s How Strong My Love Is”, a gospelish take on James Carr’s “The Dark End of the Street”, and the slow, closing ballad “Many Rivers to Cross” (Jimmy Cliff) to the slightly more uptempo “Slip Away” (Clarence Carter) and Blues Brothers-ish grooves of “Stop” (Howard Tate) — with its powerful soul/R&B combination of horns and vocals — and swinging “Is It Something You’ve Got” (Tyrone Davis) to the tougher, Tommy Castro-like blues of “Don’t Fight It” (Wilson Pickett) from which the album’s title derives and that features background vocals from the Grateful Dead’s Donna Jean Godchaux (if this one doesn’t get you moving, we don’t know what will!) and a biting, funky take on Al Green’s “I’m a Ram”.