Craft Recordings will reissue John Lee Hooker’s significant album, The Healer, on vinyl and CD, after more than a decade of being out of print. The 1989 LP earned the then 73-year-old Blues icon his first Grammy Award for the song “I’m in the Mood” with Bonnie Raitt. The album features contributions from guest artists including Carlos Santana, George Thorogood, Los Lobos, Canned Heat, Charlie Musselwhite, and Robert Cray. Set for release on October 28th 2022 and available for pre-order, The Healer was pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Quality Records Pressing (QRP), with lacquers cut by the award-winning engineer Bernie Grundman.
Hooker was a prolific singer-songwriter, also known as the “King of the Boogie”, who rose to fame in 1948 with the chart-topping R&B hit, “Boogie Chillen’.” Over the next four decades, he recorded dozens of albums and toured the world. As a great bluesman, Hooker inspired a generation of musicians across multiple genres, including Folk, Rock, and Blues.
Recorded at San Francisco’s Russian Hill Recording Studios, The Healer was produced by guitarist Roy Rogers, who served as a member of Hooker’s Coast to Coast Band and would go on to helm three more records by the artist, including the Grammy-nominated Mr. Lucky (1991) and the bestselling Chill Out (1995). Together, they invited some of the industry’s greatest talents to perform a selection of new and classic material in both stripped-down and full-band settings.
The success of The Healer opened up new opportunities for John Lee Hooker, including many collaborators and popular releases and is widely regarded as his “comeback” album. Two years after the release of The Healer, Hooker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, while in 1997, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was celebrated with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. The Blues Hall of Famer was also a recipient of the highly prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor that can be bestowed upon those in the Folk and traditional arts by the U.S. government.
