Travelin' (John Lee Hooker album)

Travelin'
Studio album by John Lee Hooker
Released	1960 (1960)
Recorded	March 1, 1960
Studio	Chicago
Genre	Blues
Length	30:58
Label	Vee-Jay

Travelin' is an album by blues musician John Lee Hooker, recorded in 1960, which Vee-Jay Records released in the same year. ^[1]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings	[2]
The New Rolling Stone Record Guide	[3]
The Virgin Encyclopedia of The Blues	[4]
DownBeat	[5]

The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings wrote that "Travelin' "was the first of Hooker's Vee-Jay albums to be recorded at a single session. Cut from the same cloth, the performances have little variety in texture and not much in tempo." ^[2]

Pete Welding assigned the album 4 stars in his DownBeat review. ^[5] He wrote,

"He is one of the most powerful blues performers, yet there is not a great deal of originality or real poetry in his lyrics. In the hands of a lesser artist, one feels that they would hardly come across, but the power of Hooker is such that he can invest them with a genuine conviction and seriousness that makes them believable. The dark, brooding, inconsolable quality of his voice and the intensity of his delivery further add to this effect". ^[5]

Track listing

All compositions credited to John Lee Hooker

1. "No Shoes" – 2:10
2. "I Wanna Walk" – 2:15
3. "Canal Street Blues" – 2:30
4. "Run On" – 2:10
5. "I'm a Stranger" – 2:35
6. "Whiskey and Wimmen" – 2:10
7. "Solid Sender" – 2:30
8. "Sunny Land" – 2:15
9. "Goin' to California" – 2:20
10. "I Can't Believe" – 2:37
11. "I'll Know Tonight" – 2:35
12. "Dusty Road" – 2:09

Personnel

• John Lee Hooker – guitar, vocals
• William "Lefty" Bates – guitar
• Sylvester Hickman – bass
• Jimmy Turner – drums

References

1. Murray, Charles Shaar (2002). Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century. New York City: Macmillan. p. 237. ISBN   978-0-312-27006-3.
2. Russell, Tony; Smith, Chris (2006). The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings. London: Penguin. p. 270. ISBN   978-0-140-51384-4.
3. The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. Random House. 1983. p. 231.
4. Larkin, Colin (1998). The Virgin Encyclopedia of The Blues. London: Random House. p. 280. ISBN   9781448132744.
5. Welding, Pete (February 2, 1961). "John Lee Hooker. Travelin'". DownBeat . 28 (3): 40–41.