Song:Blues For Christmas
Album Blue Yule
Around this time of year, music fans start asking me about Christmas CDs. So I always like to feature a couple of jazz or blues Christmas CDs that are reasonably priced and are worth getting. Blue Yule is a various artists CD released by Rhino in 1991. I bet you didn't even know John Lee Hooker recorded a Christmas song. Of course he was a blues legend best known for his hits of the 60s like Boom Boom. Hooker wrote and recorded Blues For Christmas in 1954 at a time when he recorded for so many different labels and so many phony names it would make your head spin. He was under contract to Modern Records but it didn't stop him from recording for Chess as The Boogie Man, King as Texas Slim, Savoy as Birmingham Sam and as Johnny Lee for DeLuxe. He even recorded as John Lee Cooker. I guess he would record for whoever paid him and figure out the details later. Blues For Christmas was recorded at a recording session for the Detroit label Fortune Records. But Blues For Christmas was released as a single on Elmor Records and re-released on Chess. The song turns up on some of Hooker's Chess comps. Musicians are Jimmy Miller on trumpet, Johnny Hooks on tenor sax, Bob Thurman on piano and Tom Whitehead on drums. Hooker settled down and stopped recording under phony names after he signed with VeeJay in 1955. Canned Heat, Roy Milton, Charles Brown, Louis Jordan and Sonny Boy Williamson II are among the artists who appear on Blue Yule. Blues fans should check it out. Here's a video for Blues For Christmas by John Lee Hooker.
The more I get into blues the more I like him and others. But his name is one I can remember and I like his music. To bad about him doing all those recording under so many different names. Makes it hard to collect his music. Well, if he is under one label that will help. Thanks for the sample of Christmas music Frank.
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