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Blues great John Lee Hooker enjoyed a career renaissance during the 1990s, a welcome phenomena created by the overwhelming success of his 1989 album The Healer. After recording sporadically during the decade of the 1980s, Hooker grabbed the opportunities created by The Healer, a high-profile, Grammy Award-winning album that featured contributions from musical acolytes like Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Carlos Santana, and he made the most of them.

Hooker released three albums in relative short order: 1991's Mr. Lucky also featured an all-star cast of musicians similar to his "comeback" disc, followed by 1992's Boom Boom, a comparatively stripped-down affair, and 1995's confused (and confusing) Chill Out...of which the less said about, the better. In 1997, Hooker released what would become his swansong, Don't Look Back actually resulting from a musical collaboration with the Irish blue-eyed soulman Van Morrison in 1972. Morrison produced Don't Look Back with a gentle hand, and no little reverence towards the aging artist, and the collection of old and new material proved to be a fitting finale for one of the most dynamic modern-era bluesmen.

John Lee Hooker's Don't Look Back

"Dimples," which was originally a hit for Hooker back in 1956, is provided a spiffy new coat of paint and a little something extra under the hood here. The lone song on Don't Look Back that was produced by Los Lobos, the Mexican-American roots-rockers provide Hooker's energetic vocals and a raucous soundtrack that rattles the rafters, while the explosive harpwork of John "Juke" Logan catapults the performance into the stratosphere.

Overall, however, Don't Look Back celebrates 25 years of friendship between Hooker and Morrison, which began when the Irish rocker sang with the bluesman on his 1972 album Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive. The two accomplished singers duet here on Morrison's beautiful "The Healing Game." Above a churchy organ riff, the two men's distinctive voices swap line-by-line above the trembling filigree fretwork and steady, quiet rhythms.

Visiting Hendrix's Red House

Hooker's "Spellbound" captures a little of the old Delta magic on tape, the song's raw performance driven by Jim Pugh's strident keyboard runs, John Lee's mesmerizing vocals, and a maddening circular guitar riff. It's a stripped-down, supercharged blues-boogie made all the more potent by Morrison's use of a sound dynamic that takes Hooker's vocals from a roar down to a whisper before disappearing into silence.

Hooker was a fan of Jimi Hendrix's music, so it's no surprise when he covers the guitarist's classic blues-rock gem "Red House." What is surprising, however, is what the blues legend does with the song. Slowly down the pace and removing much of the song's "rock," Hooker recreates the song as a smoldering blues shuffle with some jazzy guitar licks, a muted rhythm, and soulful vocals. The strutting "Frisco Blues" is a trademark Hooker talking-blues tale, complimented by wiry fretwork, a walking bass line, and a subtle timekeeping drumbeat. Dashes of keyboard notes pepper the lyrics.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

Nearly 80 years old when Don't Look Back was recorded, John Lee Hooker obviously didn't possess the monstrous mojo that imbued his records of the 1940s and '50s with an undeniable sense of menace. Under Morrison's considerate guidance, however, and eschewing the all-star line-ups of his recent LPs in favor of a solid backing band of rock-n-blues professionals, Don't Look Back is a perfect snapshot of a still-potent John Lee at the end of his career.

Don't Look Back was the final album of Hooker's lengthy and prolific recording career (he reportedly had waxed better than 100 albums over 50 years), and a fitting good-bye to one of the true giants of the blues genre. (Shout! Factory, reissue released July 17, 2007)