''Don't Look Back'' is an album released by
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
singer-songwriter
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...
in 1997 that was co-produced by
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
and
Mike Kappus
Mike Kappus (born May 24, 1950) is an American music manager and record producer.
Kappus was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. The Blues Foundation described Kappus as "the kind of manager and booking agent any musician would want" an ...
.
Van Morrison also performed duets with Hooker on four of the tracks. The album was the Grammy winner in the
Best Traditional Blues Album
The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album was awarded from 1983 to 2011 and from 2017 onwards. Until 1992 the award was known as Best Traditional Blues Performance and was twice awarded to individual tracks rather than albums.
The award w ...
category in 1998. The title duet by Hooker and Morrison also won a Grammy for
Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals
The Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals was an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality pop songs on which singers c ...
.
John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison
The two singers had collaborated on several occasions over the years before this album was realized and had become personal friends. Morrison had first recorded the title song, "
Don't Look Back" on his debut album as the frontman for the Northern Irish band
Them
Them or THEM, a third-person plural accusative personal pronoun, may refer to:
Books
* ''Them'' (novel), 3rd volume (1969) in American Joyce Carol Oates' ''Wonderland Quartet''
* '' Them: Adventures with Extremists'', 2003 non-fiction by Welsh ...
and according to one of the band members, Billy Harrison, the two first met in London in 1964. Their first collaboration was on Hooker's album, ''
Never Get Out of These Blues Alive
''Never Get Out of These Blues Alive'' is a studio album by American blues musician John Lee Hooker, released in 1972 by ABC Records and recorded on September 28–29, 1971.
Background
The album features Van Morrison, Elvin Bishop, Charlie ...
'' recorded in 1972, with a duet on the title song and Hooker's cover of Morrison's "
T.B. Sheets
"T.B. Sheets" is a blues-influenced song written and recorded by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Bang Records issued the song on his first solo album, '' Blowin' Your Mind!'' (1967). It later appeared on the Bang compilation '' T.B. ...
". They guested on each other's albums over the years with Hooker also appearing on two films with Morrison: BBC's ''One Irish Rover'' and Morrison's 1990 video, ''
Van Morrison The Concert
''Van Morrison: The Concert'' is the second video released by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, first released in 1990. Recorded in New York City the previous year, the concert featured two special guests and long-time friends Mose ...
''.
Track listing
#"
Dimples
A dimple, also called a gelasin (, ) is a small natural indentation in the flesh on a part of the human body, most notably in the cheek. Numerous cultures believe that cheek dimples are a good luck charm that entices people who perceive them as ...
" (
James Bracken
James C. Bracken (May 23, 1909 – February 20, 1972) was an American songwriter and the co-founder and co-owner of Vee-Jay Records with his wife Vivian and her brother, Calvin Carter.
Life
Bracken was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Kansas Cit ...
, Hooker) – 3:59 L*
#"
The Healing Game
''The Healing Game'' is the twenty-sixth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in 1997 by Polydor. It reached the Top Ten in four countries, and the Top Twenty in three more. Following two overtly jazz albums, it ...
" (
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
) – 5:09 M*
#"Ain't No Big Thing" (Hooker) – 5:19
#"
Don't Look Back" (Hooker) – 6:41 M*
#"Blues Before Sunrise" (
Leroy Carr
Leroy Carr (March 27, 1904 or 1905 – April 29, 1935) was an American blues singer, songwriter and pianist who developed a laid-back, crooning technique and whose popularity and style influenced such artists as Nat King Cole and Ray Charles. Mus ...
, Hooker) – 6:41
#"Spellbound" (Hooker, Michael Osborn) – 3:56
#"Travellin' Blues" (Hooker) – 5:35 M*
#"I Love You Honey" (Hooker, Freddy Williams) – 3:31
#"Frisco Blues" (Hooker) – 3:47
#"
Red House" (
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
) – 4:02
#"Rainy Day" (Hooker) – 5:50 M*
Notes
*L – with
Los Lobos
Los Lobos (, Spanish for "the Wolves") are an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, ...
band and also produced by Los Lobos with Mario Caldato Jr.
*M – Duets with Van Morrison
Chart
Personnel
*
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...
– vocal, guitar
*
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards.
As a teenager in t ...
– vocal, guitar
*
David Hidalgo
David Kent Hidalgo (born October 6, 1954, in Los Angeles.) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his work with the band Los Lobos. Hidalgo frequently plays musical instruments such as accordion, violin, 6-string banjo, cello, requin ...
– guitar
*
César Rosas – guitar
*
Steve Berlin
Steven M. Berlin (born September 14, 1955, Philadelphia) is an American saxophonist, keyboardist and record producer, best known as a member of the rock group Los Lobos and, before that, Top Jimmy & the Rhythm Pigs, the Blasters, and the Flesh ...
–
baritone saxophone
The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...
*
Conrad Lozano
Conrad R. Lozano (born March 21, 1951, in Los Angeles, California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a t ...
– bass guitar
*Victor Bisetti – drums
*
John "Juke" Logan
John "Juke" Logan (September 11, 1946 – August 30, 2013) was an American electric blues harmonica player, musician, singer, pianist and songwriter. He is best known for his harmonica playing on the theme music for television programs (''Home I ...
– harmonica
*Danny Caron – guitar
*Charles Brown – keyboards
*Ruth Davies –
acoustic bass
The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar a ...
*Kevin Hayes – drums
*Jim Pugh – keyboards
*Gregory Davis – trumpet
*Roger Lewis – saxophone
*John Allair – keyboards
*Richard Cousins – bass
*
Mike Kappus
Mike Kappus (born May 24, 1950) is an American music manager and record producer.
Kappus was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. The Blues Foundation described Kappus as "the kind of manager and booking agent any musician would want" an ...
– co-producer,
executive producer
Notes
References
*Heylin, Clinton (2003). ''Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography'', Chicago Review Press
External links
The Rosebud agency presents: Don't Look Back
{{Authority control
1997 albums
John Lee Hooker albums
Virgin Records albums
Albums produced by Van Morrison