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John Lee Hooker: Hooker Label: Shout! Factory Released: 2006

Blues fans who've attempted to get on board with the John Lee Hooker catalog – especially beginners – over the last 10 years probably have been frustrated. Low-budget labels putting out junk discs remastered from what sounds like LP’s or 78’s bought at garage sales and flea markets. There are a stack of full-retail, late albums featuring a very old John Lee Hooker paired up with blues and rock acolytes, which make for interesting albums but really aren't what blues fans consider vintage Hooker. And there are issues, reissues, and remasters, some of which sound awful. The marketplace was confusing to old fans, let alone new legions who discovered Hooker in their musical travels and wanted more than a taste from a mix CD.

This box fixes all that.

There's just a taste of the duet stuff. There's lots of great old stuff, such as the original 1948 "Boogie Chillen" single when Hooker played house rent parties in Detroit and honed his own style while hanging out with T-Bone Walker. And of course, there’s vintage Hooker from the 1950s through the 1970s, the material that – if you're a blues fan – you ultimately care about most.

Packaged with gorgeous, dark graphics befitting this forceful, talented, charismatic artist and his dark songs, the box offers a healthy dose of Hooker accompanied by studio bands and celebrity sidemen. On many tracks, however, it's focused on Hooker accompanied by Hooker alone. Which is how it should be, because the blues god can best be appreciated when unencumbered by other players and studio production – his vocal subtleties, the rapier rhythm guitar, the simple-but-mesmerizing triplet fills between phrases. The man needed no help from some knob-tweaker in a studio or young-gun accompanist usurping attention. Like, what effects do you need to add to when he almost whispers "I'm bad, like Jesse James" in that John Lee Hooker way that makes your spine writhe in fear? You know he's dead, and this is just a CD and all, but it really, for a brief second, feels like he might just come out from behind the speaker and grab you by the throat if you don't do what he says.

An aside: I will say that the three tracks included in this set (including a scorching "I Got My Eyes on You," known elsewhere as "Dimples," including on the original Vee Jay single in this set) that arose from his 1970s Hooker N' Heat double-album with Canned Heat just plain rock.

But for the most part, he wasn't no band guy. He was Hooker, a loner. And this box illustrates it perfectly. The biographical liner notes, written by Ted Drozdowski – whom I know personally and respect, you'll rarely encounter a blues fan more passionate, devoted, and knowledgeable – are worth reading and perfectly peg Hooker's legacy in the fabric of 20th century music.

Also included in the book is a concise discography, which solves a host of problems for new Hooker fans diving into his catalog. Listen to a song in the box from one of the many Hooker career epochs. Like it a lot? Look what record it came from and buy more from the era. Beats the crap out of flipping through 40 Hooker CD’s at the record store and wondering if the copyright date and label are original or actually the reissue date and label. The list also helps steer listeners from wasting their hard-earned cash low-quality illegal – or merely "sort of legal" – releases.

The one minor disappointment I found in this set is that (either because of space or licensing restrictions) they left off material from his two Alone live recordings, which I consider some of the greatest blues albums, ever – but don't let that scare you away. This box is pure gold.