D.R. Hooker - The Truth (1972) [Original Pressing]

D. R. Hooker - The Truth (1972)

Original USA Private Pressing
On Records – XPL-1029 (Discogs)
~ThePoodleBites rip at 96 kHz / 24 bit FLAC + full high-res scans!~

"The Truth is one of the big private press classics ... Covers all the bases
in an impressive manner" ~ Patrick Lundborg

"If the softer songs are your cup of tea, this album will be an all-time favorite. If
not, it’s still a must-own for the rest." ~ Aaron Milenski

The underworld of rare psychedelic records is flooded by thousands of obscure and overlooked sounds, enough to easily overwhelm the interested explorer. Yet among the fold are a few well-known classics against which all others are judged -- enduring signposts to guide searchers along the path of cosmic musical discovery. The 1972 privately-pressed debut album by Donald R. Hooker, widely praised for its unique combination of psychedelia, lounge music, and early religious rock, is undoubtedly among those chosen few. Mr. Hooker, reportedly an east-coast computer engineer and Jehovah's Witness, successfully integrated then-contemporary electronic effects and Christian lyrics into a single album with diverse instrumentation, and the album's now-legendary status has led to it becoming a valuable collector's item.

All of that being said, I have always found this album to be rather mediocre: with enough interesting moments to make it a worthwhile listen, yet enough cringey guitar leads, lackluster melodies, and awkward Jesus crooning to distance it from the level of a total killer. Nonetheless, in the world of private pressings, there's no doubt that D.R. Hooker is several standard deviations above the average, and its unquestionable ubiquity among psych seekers means that a proper digital version is of indispensable value, the lack of which of course makes it an invaluable addition to this blog.

Many thanks to R.D. for kindly loaning out this gem from his archives for digital preservation!

Front cover of D.R. Hooker's The Truth

Enough rumors have circulated between collectors about D.R. over the years to make one confused about what is myth and what is reality. Certainly, the strange sounds here enclosed help contribute to that legend: after all, how many people in the early 1970s created a drug-addled LP mixing lyrics about love, mind expansion, and holy praise? Of course, it's unclear how much psychedelics were actually involved in its production: while utilized effects include those sourced from prime late-'60s acid-fried experimentalism, to my ears they more so serve to obfuscate the usual singer-songwriter gaffes than to accentuate a tangible musical goal.

"The Sea" starts off the album with D.R.'s ode to coastline life and the ever-changing ocean, musically rife with vintage synthesizer glissandi, furious bongos, and surf-like whammy guitar. The sound of waves crashing against the shoreline frame the song, giving it an almost radio-friendly polish, even if the vocals are occasionally strained and out-of-tune, and the guitar has some flubs towards the end. This track is a stand-out for many, and I also think it's great, though it's also hard to overlook the effects as sounding very dated these fifty-some years later. The second track, "Fall In Love," is surprisingly not psych nor rock at all, apart from perhaps a small subset of heady lyrics:

'Cause this world is beautiful when in touch with your mind
Expanding your consciousness is all very fine
So just relax, come along, fall in love

It's nonetheless a stand-out, perhaps because D.R.'s baritone voice aptly fits the song's relaxed, even enchanting spirit. The slower "Weather Girl" strikes me the same, like the thunder that bookends its reflective love refrains in an almost eerie mood, stretching the imagination with femme-inspired imagery not unlike the Elevators' "She Lives." This theme continues into the album-side closer "This Thing," a multi-part suite and signature D.R. guitar-driven track, beginning with amateurish guitar trills, jumping through blasts of synth and rock bits at various tempos, before concluding with a cacophonous electronic freak-out. It works, and although it's weird, that's part of this album's appeal.

Perhaps the LP's wriggliest earworm commences the more Christian-oriented side 2: the unassuming "Forge Your Own Chains," a laid-back lounger with synth arpeggios, horn accents, and reflective, anti-drug/anti-consumption lyrics -- it may sound contrary for a psych-head, but it's somehow very satisfying and even empowering, encouraging the listener to emancipate themselves from bad habits to improve mind, body, and soul. The arrangement is strong, with a woozy trombone reply to D.R.'s comments on drunkenness coming off as almost Zappaesque. Owing to the brass, this song would much later become the title track for an international funky-psych comp. Next comes "I'm Leaving You" which is probably the album's jammiest moment, drenched with enough flanging to put Strictly Personal's 'psychedelic bromo-seltzer' to shame. It's also good, though after a couple minutes the overdone effects become monotonous.

The album's title track then follows, creeping in with a backwards bell chime, reminiscent of the "A Thousand Days" intro from Relatively Clean Rivers. Wreathed by a spiraling guitar line, some surprising reversed cymbal hits oscillate between stereo channels, setting a sublime mood before the chorus. The lyrics are about accepting one's truth by shedding self-lies, and despite the (mostly-)unspoken underlying message (in the background D.R. says "give thanks to God, for without him we have nothing"), it doesn't come off as overly preachy. D.R.'s self-truth is more overtly revealed in his distorted-guitar-driven follow-up, "The Bible," overdubbed with reverb-laden names of Bible verses which are hardly audible above the music. The driving guitar lead has the right direction but is underwhelming in magnitude and mostly unexciting. The floating closer, "Falling Asleep," then slowly crescendos to a revelatory sign-off, before abruptly terminating with a reversed piano arpeggio, complete with a cryptic backmasked recitation:

Life is a mystery, 'course it's true
Look for the answer, recorded clues

While D.R. sadly passed away in 2009, Tom Sokira, the recording engineer behind this album (credited with his name written backwards, Samot Arikos, on the back cover), had these recollections regarding the creation of this record:

"I [was] owner of Dynamic Recording Studios in New Haven, CT. I had set up the studio in 1969 after a 10 year hiatus from audio spent as an aerospace engineer here in CT, designing tape data storage systems for spacecraft like Mariner and a bunch of others. D.R. came in one day in '72 and wanted to do a custom album. I did most of the track lay-down and mixing with one of my guys doing a lot of the mix-downs. I think we pressed 250-500 pieces for him. There was no regular D.R. Hooker band. All the guys on the session were local pick up dudes D.R. knew and worked with. D.R. was into the Jehovah's Witness Church at the time. We talked about a lot of stuff & why I was not into joining his church. D.R. really liked our piano tuner who was also a Jehovah's Witness. I still have the autographed Jehovah's Witness Bible D.R. gave me. He suggested I do Bible study with the tuner."

After The Truth was released, D.R. would assemble a band to record his second, slightly proggier album Armageddon, the first side of which is just as good as (if not better than) his first effort. Though it appears to have never been quite finished to his satisfaction, the existing demo recordings were released on the same On Records label in 1979. Nearly a decade later, in 1988, he released his final album, Rain On The Moon, on cassette tape only. While much different from his earlier LPs -- with some awkward 1980s synth and electronic drums -- a couple well-written songs still prevail.

"Seems like D.R. dropped out of sight after the first LP. I never heard from him again. I wasn’t aware of the other two albums until very recently. D.R. apparently worked in I.T. and traveled around quite a bit according to his obituary and was living in New Hampshire. ... By the way, there were no pictures that I know of during the sessions. I never took pictures during sessions unless the client requested it, sometimes pictures were taken by talent, etc." And as for Tom Sokira: "Sold the studio in '75 and I am still an active EE."

Back cover of D.R. Hooker's The Truth

Despite having been reissued several times over the past three decades, The Truth has never been reissued from the original tapes, rendering its modern versions betwixt barely tolerable and horrible. The first vinyl dub was released in 1993 on Gregg Breth's Del-Val label, which was vinyl-only and had awful inner-groove distortion from the source LP, perhaps from having been played with a worn stylus. The first digital version appeared in 1999 on the Swedish Subliminal Sounds label and was even worse, haphazardly recorded from a very noisy copy with some of the original music even missing. After Subliminal Sounds repressed this master in 2008, the label released a new digital master via Numero Group in 2023, sourced from a cleaner original copy; but this time it was processed with dynamic range compression, noise reduction, and a heavy automatic declicker, removing not only surface noise but musical percussive sounds such as cowbell, acoustic guitar strums, etc.

The recording itself, of course, didn't do these remastering attempts any favors. The Truth lacks a bit in the highs, and already underwent some form of vintage analog noise reduction (Dolby B?) before being cut to wax. Residual NR artifacts where tape noise increases along with treble in the music -- colloquially referred to as "breathing" -- are plainly audible. The pressing itself also has some issues: mint-looking copies play with high levels of noise when using thin-ridge type styli like the MicroLine on the AT150MLx or VMN40ML, while they sound nearly silent with cheaper elliptical types. While ML styli have technically better specs, good audio restoration isn't about using the most expensive or spec-impressive equipment, it's about using the right tool for the job; so for this project I used my VMN30EN, and after calibrating a counter-EQ for this stylus, the album sounded virtually identical to ML playback sans surface noise. A careful manual declicking was then carried out as usual, and given these substantial efforts, this could be the best this album has sounded since the tapes were rolled back in 1972 at that local Connecticut studio.

Period photo of D.R.

Track listing:
1) "The Sea" -- 4:33
2) "Fall In Love" -- 2:35
3) "A Stranger's Smile" -- 2:21
4) "Weather Girl" -- 4:11
5) "This Thing" -- 5:22
6) "Forge Your Own Chains" -- 4:42
7) "I'm Leaving You" -- 4:04
8) "The Truth" -- 3:40
9) "The Bible" -- 4:47
10) "Falling Asleep" -- 5:04

Vinyl condition: M-
Dynamic Range: DR 13

Equipment / Lineage:
– Audio-Technica VMN30EN elliptical stylus on AT150MLx dual moving-magnet cartridge
– Audio-Technica AT-LP1240-USB direct drive professional turntable (internal stock preamp/ADC removed)
– Pro-Ject Phono Box S2 Ultra preamp with dedicated Zero Zone linear power supply
– Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 MkII (96kHz / 24bit)
– Adobe Audition CC 2024 (recording)
– iZotope RX 11 audio editor (manual declicking, EQ subtraction, additional adjustments)
– Audacity 3.x.x (fades between tracks, split tracks)
– Foobar2000 v2.x.x (tagging, dynamic range analysis)

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