John Hammond Jr.: Bear's Sonic Journals: You're Doin' Fine - Blues at the Boarding House, June 2 & 3, 1973 (3CD)

John Hammond Jr. was perhaps the first white musician to gain some measure of recognition for his devotion to the blues. The offspring of the famed Columbia Records mogul never relied on his name or rested on his laurels. On the contrary, the son of the man who signed Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen to that heralded label (and helped nurture the career of Billie Holiday as well as the legacy of Robert Johnson) evinced a loyalty to the elemental genre so complete it attracted musicians as famed and preternaturally skilled as the late guitarist Duane Allman and members of The Band.

In fact, John Hammond Jr. had so fully mastered various styles of the blues that, by the time of these You're Doin' Fine recordings in early June of 1973, his performances stood as primers in the idiom. Accordingly, the forty-five tracks here are peppered with varied and often unsung material from legends of the genre such as Howlin' Wolf ("Ridin' In The Moonlight"), (show attendee) John Lee Hooker ("Ride 'Til I Die") and Muddy Waters ("I Can't Be Satisfied").

As he sings and plays guitar and harmonica, Hammond is unabashed in his engagement with the songs. In fact, he sounds absolutely bewitched on "Terraplane Blues," the overall end effect of such immersion is all the more impressive given that the musician is alone on the stage for the duration of each of the three sixty-minute-plus shows. And the Grammy Award- nominee's intensity never flags during the course of each set either: the dynamics do ebb and flow, but only through the sequential nature of the compositions. The relatively down-tempo "Hitchhiking Woman," for instance, supplies high contrast to the faster-paced likes of "Shake For Me" with which it is juxtaposed, while the sweet melody of "Love Changing Blues." rings in the air.

Apart from the scarcity of repeats in the song choices (there are but three in all), perhaps the most impressive aspect of Blues At The Boarding House is the absence of affectation or self-consciousness on John Hammond Jr.'s part. He does not over-indulge himself musically anywhere here either, preferring to keep numbers as compact as this rendition of Tampa Red's "It Hurts Me Too," one of more than a few cuts close to three-minutes in duration.

The late Owsley Stanley originally taped these shows for posterity and is rightly credited as producer of the title (technical audio guru Jeffrey Norman did both the mastering and the archiving). In keeping with the former's history as sonic expert for the Grateful Dead, among others, the recordings are as deep and full as the musicianship. In fact, the realistic sound quality preserves the subtleties of this artist's skill and taste as much as the intimate ambience of the room.

To that end, John Hammond Jr. evokes the joy intrinsic to the blues as vividly as its innate heartbreak on "I Wish You Would" and "King Bee" respectively. The man's acoustic guitar picking and rhythm work is replete with fine touches, not the least of which is some abandoned but deft bottleneck on "Traveling Riverside Blues."

The nuanced instrumental effect correlates with Hammond's singing. He hardly sounds like the thirty-one year old he was at the time, whether in guttural or mellifluous tones or nearly whispering on "Little Rain." Would that the between-song repartee was more fully audible, however, because evidence otherwise suggests the audiences in the relatively tiny (150 capacity) room are as raptly attentive at those intervals as when the performer is in action (or in completing a number).

Darryl Norsen's booklet and packaging design ratifies You're Doin' Fine -Blues at the Boarding House, June 2 & 3, 1973 as a bonafide gift set. The glossy finish on the five-by-five hardcovers highlights striking artwork by Richard Biffle and alongside the three CDs inside reside sixty-pages of text, photos and replications of memorabilia. Containing a virtual bio of Hammond), the extensive prose in various forms supplies foundational perspective as deep as it is wide, all of which becomes duly personalized through essays by this redoubtable artist's kindred spirits, Tom Waits and Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna co-founder Jorma Kaukonen, not to mention the ever-so-meticulous figure whose nickname 'Bear' adorns this archival series.

Created in honor of the latter, The Owsley Stanley Foundation proved long ago it would spare no expense in its archiving initiatives—see the five compact disc box Dawn of The New Riders of The Purple Sage (OSF, 2020)—and this edition of Bear's Sonic Journals is a resounding reaffirmation of that scrupulous approach.

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