Hi Peter,
I think as James is inferring, there is a great deal of difference between the best sounding JLH and and the best JLH. His late period all-star stuff including stuff like the afirementioned Healer, Don't Look Back, Boom Boom and Chill out you mention you own is far better recorded than the primitive recordings of say I'm (1960) Plays and Sings the Blues (1961) and Burnin' (1962) or my favourite, The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948-1952, but the later has a drive and fervour that the cleaner recordings can't match.These recordings are so raw, no amount of remastering is going to clean up the sound (not that you'd want to...)
Part of the problem in JLH's discography is that though he recorded mainly for Modern and then Vee-jay in the early days, he also label hopped, churning out sides under both his own name and various pseudonyms in the 50s and 60s. Even in the 70s he recorded for MCA, Chess, Verve, BluesWay etc. He probably recorded stuff for at least 20 labels over the years. To get an idea of his approach to recording, Hooker and Heat (1970) contains a lot of studio chatter which makes it clear that he was a "lay it down and move on" kind of guy. That, his longevity and his re-recording of his own back catalogue is why his discography is one of the most extensive and confused out there.At a pinch I'd say there's probably something over 150 albums which claim to have "original" JLH recordings in some form or another...
IMHO pretty much most of the major blues recordings from 1948 to 1970 are recorded under less than optimum conditions. I'd have thought from your own collection you might have come to similar conclusions. To me it's the old cliche for the blues, its not the sound (in this case quality), its the feeling.
regards,
Giles
Peter
ATB Peter