John Lee Hooker
5/25/97
Avila Beach Golf Resort
Avila Beach, CA
4th Annual Avila Beach Blues Festival
Nyquist Omnis >Sony TCD-D7
(Combination Of Front Of Gen Admin And, As Show Progressed, Up To 6th Row FOB)
DAT Master Transferred: Tascam DA-30 >S/PDIF >HHb CDR 800 PRO
CD Master >FLAC (Level 8) + Tags Via xACT 2.37
Recorded, Transferred, FLAC’d, & Tagged By OldNeumanntapr
- Intro >Black Gloves
- Cold Cold Feeling
- Evil Hearted
- John Lee Hooker Intro jam
- Red House
- Here I Am
- I Got A Letter
- Crawlin’ King Snake
- Baby Lee
- Tuning into >The Boogie >Crowd
–Encore–
- Burnin’ Hell
- Outro / Crowd
OldNeumanntapr Notes-
This was another Avila Blues Festival, and who better to have headline but John Lee Hooker, the King of the Blues, the Godfather of the Boogie! I went with my brother-in-law George, while my wife and her sister did something with the kids.
A lot of my friends went to the Pozo Saloon that day to see another concert, I can’t remember who. Does it matter? No. But I wanted another chance to see ‘Mr Lucky’! I love John Lee Hooker. I also like seeing shows at the Avila Beach Resort. Beautiful scenery, right on the beach, and good weather. Pozo, on the other hand, is always hot and is out in the middle of Nowhere! A lady DJ from KOTR radio announced this show and from what I remember made an ass out of herself berating the crowd. She kept screaming, ‘Get on your feet people!’ and other things, some of which I thought sounded rude. Maybe it was just me but I felt that she was kind of hard-edged. Interestingly enough that she soon left KOTR. Gee, I wonder why?
John Lee Hooker always was a fun artist to see, but you could tell that as he was getting older he jammed less and less and relied more on vocal improvisation, and did his customary ‘You-You-You’ vocal rap on some of the songs and played very little guitar, letting his band make up the difference. When I went to work on Tuesday (right after Memorial Day) Jackie, my boss who was at the show, looked right at me and said, ‘You, You, You!’ mimicking Hooker. Too funny!
I was glad to be there and glad to get to record another Hooker show. I think the Anaconda show that I recorded in ’92 was a more intimate and special place to see Hooker but hey, I wanted to see him every chance I got. I’m glad I did because he’s gone now. Lots of good memories.
I started out recording from the very front of the Gen Admin section, as that was what our tickets were, but as the show progressed I gradually moved up closer and snuck into the Reserved Golden Circle Section to about the 6th row. So, the sound on the recording changes a bit. Listening to the very end of the recording, before the final announcements, you can hear me ask a woman with a camera if she would trade photos for a recording. I never heard back from her. Oh well. Thanks to John for his ‘Best Guess’ at a set list.
Do NOT Convert To MP3.
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