It Serves You Right to Suffer

Last updated
It Serve You Right to Suffer
It Serves You Right to Suffer.jpeg
Studio album by
Released1966 (1966)
RecordedNew York City
Genre Blues
Length33:10
Label Impulse!
Producer Bob Thiele
John Lee Hooker chronology
Hooker & The Hogs
(1965)
It Serve You Right to Suffer
(1966)
The Real Folk Blues
(1966)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [1]

It Serve You Right to Suffer (later retitled "It Serves You Right To Suffer" for reissue) is an album by blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Lee Hooker, released on the Impulse Records label in early 1966 (catalogue no. 9103). It was part of the short-lived Impulse folk music division, with the slogan adapted from their jazz promotion, "the new wave of folk is on Impulse!"

Blues is a music genre and musical form which was originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1870s by African Americans from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, and spirituals. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

John Lee Hooker American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie.

Folk music Music of the people

Folk music includes traditional folk music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.

Contents

Signed to Impulse's parent label ABC Records, this is the only album Hooker made for the jazz label. Producer Bob Thiele partnered Hooker with session musicians all possessing jazz pedigree, presenting a unique setting for his music. The released songs are a mix of new compositions and re-working of ones Hooker had previously recorded, and includes a cover of the Barrett Strong 1959 Motown hit "Money (That's What I Want)."

ABC Records was an American record label founded in New York City in 1955. It originated as the main popular music label operated by the Am-Par Record Corporation. Am-Par also created the Impulse! jazz label in 1960. It acquired many labels before ABC was sold to MCA Records in 1979. ABC produced music in a variety of genres: pop, rock, jazz, country, rhythm and blues, soundtrack, gospel, and polka. In addition to producing records, ABC licensed masters from independent record producers, and purchased regionally released records for national distribution.

Bob Thiele was an American record producer who worked on numerous classic jazz albums and record labels.

Barrett Strong American singer, songwriter

Barrett Strong is an American singer and songwriter. Strong was the first artist to record a hit for Motown, although he is best known for his work as a songwriter, particularly in association with producer Norman Whitfield. Among his most famous work at Motown, Strong wrote the lyrics for many of the songs recorded by the Temptations.

The album was reissued for compact disc by MCA Records on July 27, 1999.

Compact disc Optical disc for storage and playback of digital audio

Compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony and released in 1982. The format was originally developed to store and play only sound recordings (CD-DA) but was later adapted for storage of data (CD-ROM). Several other formats were further derived from these, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video Compact Disc (VCD), Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD), Photo CD, PictureCD, CD-i, and Enhanced Music CD. The first commercially available audio CD player, the Sony CDP-101, was released October 1982 in Japan.

MCA Records US record label, imprint of MCA Records, Inc.

MCA Records was an American record label owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group, which the label was part of until its dissolution in 2003. The label's country division MCA Nashville is a still active imprint of Universal Music Group Nashville.

Track listing

All songs by John Lee Hooker except "Money" by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford.

Berry Gordy American record producer, songwriter and founder of Motown record label

Berry Gordy III is an American record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer. He is best known as the founder of the Motown record label and its subsidiaries, which was the highest-earning African-American business for decades.

Janie Bradford is an American songwriter, most known for her tenure with Motown. With Berry Gordy, she co-wrote "Money ", originally recorded by Barrett Strong and used by The Beatles on their second album With The Beatles. "Money" is also on The Rolling Stones' first U.K. EP.

Side one

  1. "Shake It Baby" – 4:23
  2. "Country Boy" – 5:42
  3. "Bottle Up & Go" – 2:27
  4. "You're Wrong" – 4:22

Side two

  1. "Sugar Mama" – 3:15
  2. "Decoration Day" – 5:11
  3. "Money" – 2:26
  4. "It Serves You Right To Suffer" – 5:15

Personnel

Barry Galbraith American guitarist

Joseph Barry Galbraith was an American jazz guitarist.

Milton John Hinton was an American double bassist and photographer.

David Albert "Panama" Francis was an American swing jazz drummer.

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