John Lee Hooker's 1966 album Real Folk Blues is the last of several real folk blues albums from Chess Records that will be reissued in 2026 as part of the Chess Records 75 Series by Chess Records and Acoustic Sounds. While the other LPs in the series were compilations of older recordings by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and others, the Hooker album was re-recorded in Chicago in May 1966. Hooker displayed his inimitable spontaneity, reworking some of his older songs and improvising new ones, accompanied by his Detroit guitarist Eddie Burns and Chicago sidemen Lafayette Leake and S. P. Leary.