Ruf (label)
22 April 2016 (released)
03 April 2016
What a blast! Jane Lee Hooker seem to be all about the best things in Blues and punk – driving rhythms, coruscating vocals and tearing guitar riffs and all wrapped up in original Blues songs that are torn out of the speakers with steel pincers.
The whole album is made up of their versions of highly classic numbers – ‘Wade In The Water’, ‘Mannish Boy’, ‘In The Valley’ – but they all have a new and very gutsy interpretation that adds to their origins.
The band comprise ex-members of Nashville Pussy, Wives and Helldorado and came together out of a mutual love of Blues classics and, to quote the band themselves “We’re a gang, a family. We love playing with, to and for each other”.
Featuring guitars from High Top and Tina ‘T-Bone’ Gorin, murderous drums from Mellissa ‘Cool Whip’ Houston, Hail Mary Z delivering hard as nail bass lines, the ear is immediately grabbed by the vocals of Dana ‘Danger’ Athena – imagine if you can a cross between Steve Marriot and Lydia Pense – who gives the sound real soul and frenzy.
The album was recorded using producer Matt Chiaravalle under instructions to “make it sound exactly like that album Hard Again that Johnny Winter did with Muddy Waters in 1977” to quote guitarist High Top, and to achieve this the whole album was recorded live in the studio with just about every track delivered in 1 or 2 takes.
Apart from the loud stuff – or which there is plenty – the soulful and the gospel side of Blues gats a great look in with a terrific ‘Bumble Bee’ and ‘Didn’t it Rain’ done as gospel punk (!)
It is a cracker of an album and one that just forces you to accept their version of the songs.
