Live at the Café au-Go-Go (and Soledad Prison) / Live at the Cafe au-Go-Go (and Soledad Prison)

This 1966 concert album was recorded on a hot night in late August at the Café Au-Go-Go, in the heart of Greenwich Village. The Village had long been a tour stop for old bluesmen, many of whom experienced a career renaissance playing for the folkie crowd, who saw the blues players as a link to some impossibly authentic version of America. It’s speaks to Hooker’s integrity that he refused to pander to the whote college-age audience on Bleecker Street. The Café Au-Go-Go is intense. The rhythms are unadulterated — every song lumbers forth in a slow thrust. The effect is a cross between watching a rusty tractor creep across a winter field, and a long night in a dark brothel. People are sure to gravitate towards “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” but frankly the slower the groove, the better it gets. Don’t miss “Seven Days and Seven Nights” and “When My First Wife Left Me.” The set includes five bonus tracks, recorded live at Soledad Prison in 1972. The shift in tone is obvious. While the Café Au-Go-Go recordings are sultry, the Soledad songs are black, barbed-wire rock ‘n’ roll.