Cold As Ice
This son of the legendary Mississippi blues giant doesn't have his father's aura of brooding mystery, raw baritone voice, or choogling guitar style, yet he is an original nevertheless. On the follow-up to his 2004 Grammy-nominatedBlues with a Vengeance, the laconic singer and lyricist mixes straight-up Chicago blues and smooth Southern soul with flourishes of funk and contemporary R&B. He's not an outright modernist; the traditional rhythms and horn charts see to that.  Nonetheless, in the medley "Four Hours Straight/Blues Man" and "Got to Be Me," Hooker's nearly rapping. And references to text messaging and the couplet "her sexual modus operandi was that of a freak / it was so addictive it would make you tweak" could work for OutKast. Of course, there are nods to his father, like the touching reminiscence "Do Daddy (Requiem for John Lee Hooker)" and a lackluster reading of his "In the Mood." But the junior Hooker seems determined to make a name for himself, rather than merely capitalize on Dad's.--Ted Drozdowski