Blues legend John Lee Hooker is best remembered for his iconic hits, “Boom, Boom” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.” But perhaps his greatest legacy is found in the seductively supple vocal stylings of his daughter, the jazz-inflected, bluesy recording artist, Zakiya Hooker. Zakiya last showcased her brand of the remarkable Hooker inheritance with her 2009 CD release “Keeping It Real,” an unbridled presentation of sassy melodious seduction. Her return to rhythm’s landscape is now powerfully noted with her fifth and sixth releases, the consummate “In The Mood” and the outstanding performance production “Zakiya Hooker Live at the International BluesFest Eutin, Germany.”
“In the Mood” is one of Zakiya’s most diverse efforts to date. With the music actually recorded in Argentina and Zakiya’s vocals laid down in her current home state of Georgia, the project boasts eleven tracks drenched deep in the muddied Delta waters. A defining contribution establishing her own legacy as a woman who intimately dances the blues, Zakiya, like her father, displays no notion of loudly belting the genre. Poised, regal and confident, instead she just pours the blues all over you. Like warm massage oil penetrating the skin, her songs simply seep inside the pores, tingling to the core.