Don’t Turn Me from Your Door: John Lee Hooker Sings His Blues

This album, released in 1963, was recorded at two different sessions nearly a decade apart, the first in 1953 and the second in 1961. And yet, the whole thing fits together seamlessly, because John Lee Hooker was such an individualistic musician, he was almost an outsider artist at times. On almost the whole album, it’s just him and his heavily reverbed, distorted electric guitar, the slap of his foot providing the only rhythm. He chops out simple chords and short melodic flourishes, murmuring his lyrics in a gravelly growl that seems to emanate from the earth itself. There are also two instrumentals, “Misbelieving Baby” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” on which he duets — if that’s the word — with Earl Hooker (no relation), and those are astonishing proto-noise-rock.