Earl Hooker

Taught slide guitar by Robert Nighthawk, Delta-born Earl Hooker earned his reputation as a stalwart of amplified blues in the 1950s and 1960s. This collection shows sufficient grounds for his place in the sun: Hooker's guitar speaks volumes on both early 1950s recordings and country- and soul-mannered numbers cut shortly before his death in 1970. The stunner is "Sweet Black Angel," in which the young man's suspended-in-air notes-Azrael hovering-delineate a sepulchral, frightful mood. As a singer Hooker always had a tough time depicting any particular state of feeling at all. -- © Frank John Hadley 1993