Let's face it, there are hundreds of blues best ofs and all are usually dirt cheap. While that's all well and good it can be difficult to work out which one to go for if you don't know the artist. This is particualry problematic when buying a Hooker album as he recorded about fifty versions of each song - some good some bad. Therefore it can be difficult to know just how good the cd is.
Over the years I've managed to work my way through quite a number of John Lee Hooker compilations and I have to say, this is by far the best. Okay, it doesn't have 'One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer' (for some reason every best of either has that or 'Boom Boom' but neither together!) but it does have the best versions of 'Boom Boom', 'Boogie Chillen', 'Crawling Kingsnake' and 'This is Hip'. That in my book makes it worth the four quid alone. However, there are also a few lesser known gems here. 'Blues Before Sunrise' is a good example of this as is 'Nightmares'. Therefore if you only buy one JLH record then make it this one.