Hooker beats fellow Chicago bluesman Muddy Waters for the oldest comeback. Waters was 64 for Hard Again, I think, Hooker was 73 when this album was made and it apparently paid for a comfortable old age for him, which is nice.
Hooker collaborates with a wide range of other artists – the first track (the title track The Healer) is with Carlos Santana, somebody else who we haven’t heard from for a long while, and has a very Santana-style wandering psychedelic Latin feel to it. More up to date, he performs a duet with Bonnie Raitt – I’m In The Mood – and such is the vigour still in Hooker’s voice that a 73-year old man performing a song about sexual desire with a woman 33 years his junior somehow doesn’t come across as creepy or wrong.
Other collaborators include Canned Heat and Los Lobos who contribute some backing music but don’t influence the tracks as strongly as Santana and Raitt, and some fellow bluesmen Robert Cray, George Thorogood and harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite and as with the Muddy Waters album (or Will The Circle Be Unbroken) there’s a great sense of camaraderie and respect between musicians that comes across.
Apart from The Healer, the tracks are all variants on the blues, different tempos and different styles enough to keep the album interesting. Rocking Chair is quite old school, while My Dream is a gentle ballad. Certainly age hasn’t diminished Hooker, neither voice nor guitar playing. They say that “black don’t crack”, but going by Waters and Hooker, old bluesmen don’t age at all.
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