We have received the first of the dupes from the studio and will begin packaging these albums to ship next week. This album is based on the double album originally released as Liberty LST-35022 in 1971. The original album was a double album and thus Paul was saddled with the difficult job of choosing which tracks to feature on our release, since we can only fit the equivalent of one very full LP on two reels. I think he did a great job of delivering the 10 best performances, including the awesome Boogie Chillen' No.2. Paul also did a nice job of preserving some of the inevitable conversation between artists and engineers that one finds on every session tape, just as was done on the original release.
The three of us love The Hook, and with so many recordings made by him over the years you can bet that this had to be a top notch album for us to decide to license it. The personnel in Canned Heat at the time were huge fans of Hooker and it shows in the performance as they back his unique blues boogie style to perfection. The call and response between Hooker and Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson on harmonica positively glows with the respect you can tell they had for each other's playing. This was the last of Wilson's recordings. He was an early member of the tragic 27 Club that has claimed the likes of Hendrix, Joplin and Winehouse, making this capture all that much more important. Paul's mastering shows a whole lot of love on this tape. The music was in it, and it got to come out.