Alone

This brooding lesson in the "Three D's" of the blues--despair, death, and desire--is a window into the melancholy soul of Hooker's art. Each of the two discs are separate sets from a '70s solo concert at New York City's Hunter College. And by the time Hooker asks "How deep and how low can you git?" near the performance's end, we already know. It's not merely the profound darkness of these tales--in which Hooker becomes a killer, a TB victim, an abandoned lover--but the pain with which he suffuses his pinched, red-clay voice. Then there's his guitar, constantly working idiosyncratic variations on his patented boogie; sliding and snapping out replies to the tense lyrics of "Jesse James" or his improvised lonesome wail "Tired of Being Your Doggie." Throughout, Hooker exercises his command of tension and drama. --Ted Drozdowski