| The Healer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 1989 | |||
| Studio |
| |||
| Genre | Blues | |||
| Length | 41:43 | |||
| Label | Chameleon | |||
| Producer | Roy Rogers | |||
| John Lee Hooker chronology | ||||
| ||||
The Healer is a blues album by John Lee Hooker, released in 1989 by Chameleon. The album features collaborations with Bonnie Raitt, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos and Carlos Santana, among others. The album was a critical and commercial success and was important for Hooker's later career.
The Healer peaked at number 62 on the Billboard 200 and "I'm in the Mood" won the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Performance. The album was produced by Roy Rogers of the Delta Rhythm Kings, [1] and executive produced by Mike Kappus, [2] who conceived the idea for the project pairing Hooker with a variety of guest musicians. [3]
The video for "The Healer" featuring Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker was filmed in the Chameleon warehouse in Hawthorne, CA amidst stacks of Hooker's old vinyl LPs, and live on stage at "The Palace," a Hollywood nightclub across from Capitol Records on Vine St. A video for "In the Mood" that featured footage of Bonnie Raitt was in rotation at MTV and VH-1, along with a video that Robert Cray appeared in for "Baby Lee". [3]
John Lee Hooker was 73 years old when the album was released. It was his first Grammy win and was the album that had placed highest on the Billboard charts in his forty-year career. [3] The album had such success that it "permitted John Lee Hooker to live out the end of his life in comfort". [4] Powers recounts with joy sending a large royalty check to Hooker, and the deep gratitude he felt for the opportunity to help him to finally achieve the recognition he deserved.
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2023) |
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [5] |
| The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [6] |
| The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings |  [7] |
| Rolling Stone | [1] |
| The Village Voice | B+ [8] |
In a 2023 overview of Hooker's life and career, Tony Russell of Mojo considers this new recording of "In the Mood" a key song in Hooker's catalogue, calling it a "steamiliy erotic dialogue" with guest artist Bonnie Raitt. [3] It was voted number 424 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). [9]
All tracks are written by John Lee Hooker, except where noted
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Guest musician(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Healer" | Hooker, Roy Rogers, Carlos Santana, Chester D. Thompson | Carlos Santana and the Santana Band | 5:36 |
| 2. | "I'm in the Mood" | Hooker, Bernard Besman | Bonnie Raitt | 4:30 |
| 3. | "Baby Lee" | Hooker, James Bracken | Robert Cray | 3:43 |
| 4. | "Cuttin' Out" | Canned Heat | 4:35 | |
| 5. | "Think Twice Before You Go" | Los Lobos | 2:58 | |
| 6. | "Sally Mae" | Hooker, Bracken | George Thorogood | 3:15 |
| 7. | "That's Alright" | Charlie Musselwhite | 4:23 | |
| 8. | "Rockin' Chair" | 4:09 | ||
| 9. | "My Dream" | 4:02 | ||
| 10. | "No Substitute" | 4:07 | ||
| Total length: | 41:18 | |||
Credits adapted from the album liner notes:
| Chart (1990) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA Charts) [10] | 17 |
| Chart (1990) | Rank |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA Charts) [10] | 78 |
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA) [11] | Gold | 35,000^ |
| Netherlands (NVPI) [12] | Gold | 50,000^ |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
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 that he developed in Detroit. 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. Hooker was ranked 35 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of 100 greatest guitarists.
Carlos Humberto Santana Barragán is an American guitarist, best known as a founding member of the rock band Santana. Born and raised in Mexico where he developed his musical background, he rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States with Santana, which pioneered a fusion of rock and roll and Latin American jazz. Its sound featured his melodic, blues-based lines set against Latin American and African rhythms played on percussion instruments not generally heard in rock, such as timbales and congas. He experienced a resurgence of popularity and critical acclaim in the late 1990s.
Chameleon was a record label formed by producer, music entrepreneur and former Capitol Records A&R executive Stephen Powers, in association with Bob Marin, Managing Director of alternative rock importer Sounds Good, and Richard Foos, co-founder of Rhino Records.
Robert William Cray is an American blues guitarist and singer. He has led his own band and won five Grammy Awards.
Come See About Me: The Definitive DVD is a 2004 film featuring concert performances by American blues artist John Lee Hooker. The program was produced by Ravin' Films for Eagle Rock Entertainment and was directed and edited by Bob Sarles and produced by Christina Keating. It is the first video released by his estate and includes video footage from 1960 to 1994 and interviews with Hooker and other musicians. Allmusic called it "a tremendous primer for the novice [and] an extraordinary two-hours-plus of documentary footage for the fans".
The San Francisco Blues Festival was active from 1973 until 2008, and was located in San Francisco, California. It was the one of the longest running blues festival in the United States.
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Alan Haynes, born in Houston, Texas, is an American Texas blues guitarist. Haynes has been playing professionally since the 1970s and has performed with a variety of blues musicians that include Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Albert King, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt, John Lee Hooker, and Otis Rush among others. He now resides in Austin, Texas, and plays locally in and around Texas' major cities, especially Houston, occasionally in Dallas and Fort Worth, and also Europe, where he has a following in Scandinavian countries, Germany, Denmark and Israel.
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Roy Rogers is an American blues rock slide guitarist and record producer. He was named after the singing cowboy. Rogers plays a variety of guitar styles related to the Delta blues, but is most often recognized for his virtuoso slide work.
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Slipstream is the sixteenth studio album by Bonnie Raitt, released in April 2012. American Songwriter Magazine praised it as "her best album in years and one of the best of her 40-year career."
Tony Braunagel is an American drummer, producer, and songwriter from Houston, Texas, United States, who is based in Los Angeles, California. Braunagel has played on many film scores and television shows as well as numerous albums as a musician, composer and producer. He is best known as a session drummer and/or percussionist of over 200 albums including those of Otis Rush, Eric Burdon, Johnny Nash, Coco Montoya, Lucky Peterson, as well as Grammy winning albums of Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy (percussion) and for performing live with dozens of music icons including Bonnie Raitt, Rickie Lee Jones, BB King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Robert Cray, Bette Midler, Lyle Lovett, and Taj Mahal to name just a few.
Mike Kappus is an American music manager and record producer.
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I'm John Lee Hooker is an album by blues musician John Lee Hooker. Released by Vee-Jay Records in 1959, it compiles seven songs originally released as singles between 1955 and 1958 along with five new tracks recorded in 1959.
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The Cream is a live album by blues musician John Lee Hooker recorded in California in 1977 and released by the Tomato label in 1978.
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