John Lee Hooker 1917–2001

Blues guitarist

At a Glance…

Selected discography

Sources

John Lee Hooker has been credited, along with Muddy Waters, with being the co-founder of modern electric blues. Hooker has influenced and inspired several generations of musicians, including Dr. Ross, the Animals, Van Morrison, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. His death on June 21, 2001, was a sad day for music enthusiasts around the world.

Hooker, the son of sharecroppers Minnie and William, was born on August 22, 1917, near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Raised in the birthplace of the blues, he developed an interest in music at an early age and even built a one-stringed instrument as a boy. His mother’s second husband, Will Moore, was a popular local musician, and Hooker learned how to play guitar from his stepfather. Eventually Moore even gave Hooker one of his own instruments as a present. Hooker’s stepfather played with a hypnotic one-chord style which Hooker absorbed. This style later became an integral part of Hooker’s recordings. “Whatever I’m doin’ is his style,” Hooker told Billboard. “My style is his style.”

Hooker, barely in his teens, left home in the early 1930s. “Where I came from in Mississippi was hell,” he told the New York Times. “I wanted to be a star. I knew I couldn’t make it in Mississippi, so I was working my way up north.” Memphis was the first stop on his trip north, and Hooker found his way to Beale Street, the nucleus of the blues universe. Still too young to play at bars or nightclubs, Hooker found gigs at local house parties. Next, Hooker moved to Cincinnati. There he sang in gospel groups, gaining valuable experience performing in front of an audience. However, Hooker was still drawn to the blues. “When I started singing blues the church didn’t like it,” he told the New York Times, “but I was determined to be a musician and be a blues star, and I didn’t care much what they thought.”

Hooker arrived in Detroit in the 1940s. By day he worked as a janitor and by night he played the blues in such hot spots as the Apex Bar and the Town Bar. “The town was booming, and I was playing three and four, sometimes five nights a week in small clubs,” he told the New York Times. “I got to be hot stuff, the hottest musician in Detroit.”

Hooker’s first big break came after World War II came to an end. Detroit record store owner Elmer Barbee saw one of Hooker’s shows and invited the singer to his downtown store. Hooker brought his guitar and played

At a Glance…

Born on August 22, 1917, in Clarksdale, MS; died on June 21, 2001, in Los Altos, CA; son of Minnie and William Hooker; divorced; children: eight.

Career: Played house parties in Memphis and performed in various gospel groups in Cincinnati, 1930s; played clubs in Detroit, 1940s; recorded first single, “Boogie Children,” 1948; recorded under various pseudonyms; recorded for Vee-Jay Records, 1955-64; recorded for Riverside Records, 1959-60; worked coffeehouse circuit as folk performer; played Newport Folk Festival for first time, 1960; toured Europe with American Folk Blues Festival, 1962; collaborated on two albums with Canned Heat, late 1960s; recorded Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive with Van Morrison, 1972; made comeback with The Healer, 1989.

Awards: National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship, 1983; W.C. Handy Award, Top Traditional Blues Artist, 1983-88; W.C. Handy Award, Contemporary Blues Artist, Male Blues Vocalist, Contemporary Blues Album, for The Healer, 1989; Grammy Award, Best Traditional Blues Recording, for “I’m In The Mood,” 1990; Inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 1991; W. C. Handy Award Traditional Blues Artist of the Year, 1993; charter inductee Blues Hall of Fame; W.C. Handy Award Traditional Blues Album of the Year, for Chill Out, 1995; Grammy, Best Traditional Blues Recording, for Chill Out, 1996; Grammy, Best Traditional Blues Album, for Don’t Look Back; Grammy, Best Pop Collaboration, “Don’t Look Back,” (with Van Morrison); Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 1996.

for most of the night as Barbee recorded the tunes. One of the songs produced that night was “Boogie Chillen,” which was based on a song Hooker had once heard his stepfather play. Barbee, convinced the song would be a number-one hit, helped Hooker contact Bernard Bessman of Sensation Records and Hooker recorded the song for Sensation. “The thing caught fire,” Hooker said in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues. “It was ringin’ all around the country. When it come out every jukebox you went to, every place you went to, every drugstore, everywhere you went, department stores, they were playin’ it in there… And I was workin in Detroit in a factory there for a while. Then I quit my job. I said, ’No, I ain’t workin’ no more!’”

Hooker signed a contract with Modern Records in Los Angeles a year later, getting a $1000 advance. Between 1949 and 1951, Hooker produced three hits for Modern: “Hobo Blues,” “In The Mood,” and “Crawling Kingsnake.” But after Modern failed to pay the royalties he was due Hooker began recording for other labels under a variety of pseudonyms, including: Johnny Williams, Texas Slim, Delta John, Johnny Lee, Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar, the Boogie Man, John Lee Booker, Sir John Lee Hooker, and John Lee Cooker. He signed with Vee-Jay Records in Chicago in 1955. While at Vee-Jay, he abandoned his solo guitar accompaniment and recorded with a full band. “Vee-Jay wanted the big sound,” he told Billboard. “It was a good sound, a real good sound, a big fat sound.” That fat sound led to another string of hits, including “Dimples” and “Boom Boom,” which reached number 16 on the R&B charts and number sixty on the pop charts in 1962.

In an attempt to avoid being pigeonholed during an era when musical tastes were undergoing major changes, Hooker set out on the folk circuit, releasing solo acoustic records for Riverside that complemented his electric blues for Vee-Jay. He started playing at coffeehouses and appeared, beginning in 1960, at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1962 he toured Europe with the American Folk Blues Festival.

Hooker’s influence had already reached England by the time he embarked on his European tour. The Animals and the Yardbirds, deeply steeped in American blues, had their own hits covering “Boom Boom.” Other British groups had incorporated Hooker songs into their repertoires, as well. “I had no thought that British singers would start singing my songs,” Hooker told the New York Times. “I had no idea what would come with that. People got more civilized.” During the 1960s Hooker worked more and more with young rock musicians. In England he played with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and Eric Clapton. In the United States, he teamed up with his boogie disciples, Canned Heat, with whom he recorded two albums, Hooker ’N Heat and Live At The Fox Venice Theater. These collaborations introduced Hooker’s music to a new, younger generation. In 1972 he recorded Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive with another fan, Van Morrison. During the rest of the 1970s and for most of the 1980s, Hooker’s performing and recording tapered off, which wasn’t surprising since he was nearly sixty and had worked at a frantic pace for twenty years.

In 1989, when Hooker was seventy-two, he recorded the album that ushered in the most successful and productive period of his career. The Healer, conceived by his agent Mike Kappus, featured a star-studded line-up of guest artists, including Carlos Santana, Robert Cray, Los Lobos, and Bonnie Raitt. It won Hooker his first Grammy award. Other equally successful albums followed, including 1991’s Mr. Lucky, 1992’s Boom Boom, and Grammy winners Chill Out (1995) and Don’t Look Back (1997). In the 1990s Hooker enjoyed unprecedented worldwide popularity, performing regularly at festivals and on television. In 1990 an all-star tribute was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and in January of 1991 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He was also a charter inductee to the Blues Hall of Fame. In 1997 Hooker opened his own blues club in San Francisco, christened it the Boom Boom Room.

Hooker died in his sleep on June 21, 2001 at age 83. “When I’m gone, I won’t be gone,” Hooker said in a 1996 interview quoted in Guitar Player. “I won’t be here in person, but I’ll forever be in the hearts and minds of people. That’s the way I look at it.” Upon his death, Carlos Santana affirmed Hooker’s belief, telling PR Newswire, “There are no superlatives to describe the profound impact John Lee left in our hearts. For musicians and common people—all of us feel enormous gratitude, respect, admiration, and love for his spirit.”

Selected discography

John Lee Hooker Sings the Blues, King, 1961.

The Real Folk Blues, Chess, 1966.

Live At The Cafe Au Go-Go, Bluesway/ABC, 1967.

Hooker ’N Heat, Liberty, 1971.

Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive, ABC, 1972.

The Healer, Chameleon/Silvertone, 1989.

Mr. Lucky, Silvertone, 1991.

The Ultimate Collection, Rhino, 1991.

Boom Boom, Pointblank/Virgin, 1992.

Chill Out, Pointblank/Virgin, 1995.

Don’t Look Back, Pointblank/Virgin, 1997.

The Best Of Friends, Pointblank/Virgin, 1998.

Sources

Books

Contemporary Musicians, Volume 26, Gale Group, 1999.

Palmer, Robert, Deep Blues, Viking Press, New York, 1981.

Russell, Tony, The Blues From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, Schirmer Books, New York. 1997.

Sonnier, Austin M., A Guide to the Blues: History, Who’s Who, Research Sources, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1994.

Periodicals

Billboard, September 5, 1998; New York Times, October 16, 1990.

Guitar Player, March 1999. Jet, July 9, 2001.

PR Newswire, June 22, 2001.

Online

Biography Resource Center, Gale, 2001, http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC.

http://www.cnn.com (June 21, 2001).

Other

Additional material and information provided by The Rosebud Agency and Mike Kappus.

—Gerald E. Brennan and Jennifer M. York

John Lee Hooker

Blues singer, guitarist

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

“First comes the class in the small, crinkled, slightly seedy person of John Lee Hooker, a.k.a. The Hook, Doctor Feelgood, and, by way of formal onstage introduction, ‘The Godfather of the Blues’…. The first great recorded practitioner of the electric blues-rock-funk and stream-of-consciousness boogie, he introduced a style to which every white blues band since 1962 must trace at least half its roots.” John Lee Hooker was 72 when his 1979 appearence at New York’s Lone Star Cafe brought on that tribute from Patrick Carr in the Village Voice. Hooker’s influence on blues, blues-folk and blues-rock musicians remains vital ten years later.

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi, he learned his “Delta licks” style of guitar playing from his stepfather, William Moore, and his colleagues James Smith and Coot Harris. He ascribed his style—with, in writer Fred Stuckey’s words, “tonal ‘bendings’ of the third, fifth and seventh degrees of the scale and abrasive two-finger picking”—to them in an interview with Stuckey in Guitar Player, stating that “Down in Clarksdale, my stepfather taught me all I know about playing the guitar…. After this uprising of fancy music, I never did drop what I learned back then. I’m doin’ what the blues singers was doin’ back then, and it sounded good. It still sounds good, and I’m always goin’ to keep it just the way it is.”

Hooker travelled to Memphis, Cincinnati and Detroit where, in the mid-1940s, he made a demo for distributor Bernie Besman. Hooker recorded his first single, “Boogie Chillen” and “Sally Mae,” for the Sensation label. As distributed by Modern Records, it became a hit on the blues charts of 1949. He followed this record with “In the Mood for Love” and “Crawling King Snake” for Modern. From 1955 to 1964, he recorded for Vee Jay, making singles and albums for that Chicago-based firm, such as Travelin’ (1961) and Big Soul: Best of John Lee Hooker (1963). He also recorded under a confounding variety of pseudonyms—among them, Delta John, Johnny Lee, and Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar—for a large number of companies. Many of these one-time contracted recordings have been collected and re-mastered in recent years.

During the revived interest in traditional guitar music and performance styles prompted by the popularity of folk music in the 1960s, Hooker was “rediscovered” for the first of many times. He performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1960 and appeared at coffee houses and college campuses. Hooker was also being rediscovered in Great Britain, where he was an important influence on groups that equated blues with rock and roll, such as the Rolling Stones and the Animals, who recorded his “Boom Boom.” Hooker performances became as famous for the rock superstars who appeared

For the Record…

Born August 22, 1917, in Clarksdale, Miss.; son of a Baptist minister; stepson of William Moore (a guitarist).

Learned to play guitar from his stepfather; played in Mississippi, then in Memphis, Tenn., Cincinnati, Ohio, and Detroit, Mich.; began recording in the mid-1940s; has performed and recorded under a variety of pseudonyms.

Addresses: Agent— The Rosebud Agency, P.O. Box 210103, San Francisco, CA 94121.

in the audience as for his own music. In an engagement at Ungano’s in 1969, for example, the Village Voice reported that “three nights after opening, Eric Clapton, Delaney and Bonnie, Ginger Baker and Chris Wood came down to jam with the Doctor and returned the next night for more. And on Saturday, Richie Havens with his whole band in tow showed up to sing and jam.”

In the 1970s, as musical forms fused, he concertized with performers from the rock group Canned Heat (with whom he recorded Hooker ’n’ Heat) to folk vocalist Bonnie Raitt. He was frequently honored as one of the creators of his genre in joint and group concerts by the long-time greats of blues music. In the Blues Variations concert at Lincoln Center in 1973 he was paired with Muddy Waters and Mose Allison, while in A Night of the Blues at the Brooklyn Academy of Music two years later, he shared the program with Albert King and folk harmonicist Peg Leg Sam.

Hooker plays flexible blues of 10-13 bar phrases punctuated with foot tapping and an electric guitar sound that has been described as “percussive … just shy of dissonance and distortion.” Each song is a monologue that retells a story of emotional pain that requires a unique verbal pattern. Reviews of Hooker performances, generally by music historian/journalists who are long-term admirers, provide vivid pictures of his unique song structures and performance style. Carmen Moore wrote in 1970 in the Village Voice that “in his entire set, John Lee sang only one rhymed song. As usual, he paid little heed to the famed three blues chords: all, it seemed, were present at once. What his guitar did was talk, in snaky lines, in sitar quivers, in sudden shocks, in hilly phrases…. Gifted with one of the richest voices in contemporary music, this serious of serene of bassos sat down, the mike at his lips, and shared a few instances from his personal black life.” Ian Dove, reviewing the Blues Variations concert, also noted the personal delivery style: “He is a complete, closed-in performer, who accents the rhythmic drive of his performances by chopping off phrases and choking off the ends of his rhythmic lines. He keeps things simple, rarely straying from a couple of chords, and delivers his autobiographical blues with growing menace and much vibrato.” Almost a decade later, Patrick Carr wrote that Hooker “continues to perform and record with the same slow mastery of blue-life imagery, the same spare, quirky, throttled-violence guitar technique, and the same beautifully resonant leather-and-raw-silk vocal genius that were his from the start.”

The optimal way to hear Hooker is in live performance, but there are scores of albums featuring his work. He has made over forty albums under various names. Chess Records has recently begun to re-issue tapes and studio cuts in series of albums simply called The Blues, Volumes 1-3. Amiga Records also distributes a Hooker anthology, Blues, Collection 2.

“Godfather of the blues” or simply one of its greatest practitioners, Hooker has maintained one of the great native art forms of the United States. He described its universal importance and appeal to Guitar Player: “Everybody understands the blues now—the young, all races, all over the world. Back then people pretended they didn’t know, but now they know. The young people have really brought it out…. It’s a tremendous thing because it’s true. It’s the truest music that ever been written…. Everything comes right from the blues—spirituals, jazz, rock. The blues is the root of all this.”

Selected discography

“Boogie Chillun” (single), Sensation/Modern, 1948.

Travelin’, Vee Jay, 1961.

Big Soul: Best of John Lee Hooker, Vee Jay, 1963.

Hooker ’n’ Heat, (with Canned Heat), Liberty, 1971.

Boogie Chillun (includes a new version of the title song), Fantasy, 1972.

The Cream, Tomato, 1979.

Blues, Collection 2, Amiga, 1986.

Jealous, Pausa, 1986.

The Blues, Volumes 1-3, Chess Records.

Sources

Guitar Player, March, 1971.

New York Times, July 11, 1970; September 26, 1971 ; January 7, 1973; April 28, 1975.

Village Voice, July 24, 1969; June 18, 1970; November 16, 1972; August 8, 1979; August 29, 1986.

—Barbara Stratyner

John Lee Hooker

Blues guitar

For the Record…

The Hottest Musician in Detroit

“I Ain’t Workin’ No More”

“People Got More Civilized”

Selected discography

Sources

John Lee Hooker’s presence in blues, past and present, is imposing. He is a living monument to the music. Often credited as a co-founder, with Muddy Waters, of modern electric blues, Hooker influenced three or more generations of players: Dr. Ross who saw him play in Detroit in the 1940s; the Animals, Yardbirds, Van Morrison and Canned Heat who fell under his spell in the 1960s; Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray who played with him in the 1980s. Hooker’s own roots stretch back to Mississippi of the 1920s, the land and time when the blues were born. He recalls that as a child Charlie Patton, legendary as the “Founder of the Delta Blues,” visited the house to see his stepfather. After a fifty-year career of remarkable staying power and flexibility, John Lee Hooker entered the period of his greatest popularity and influence after his seventieth birthday. At eighty-one he was still going strong.

Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 near Clarksdale, Mississippi. His parents, Minnie and William, were sharecroppers. Hooker was interested in music from an early age and as a boy built himself a one-string instrument.

For the Record…

Born John Lee Hooker, August 22, 1917, Clarksdale, MS.; divorced; four children: Robert, John Jr., Zakiya, and Diane.

Learned guitar from stepfather Will Moore; played house parties in Memphis and performed in various gospel groups in Cincinnati in 1930s; played clubs in Detroit in 1940s; recorded first single the smash hit “Boogie Chillen” for Modern Records 1948; while under contract to Modern, recorded under assumed names for other labels; recorded for Vee-Jay Records, including hit singles “Boom Boom” and “Dimples” 1955-64; recorded for Riverside Records 1959-60; worked coffeehouse circuit as folk performer; played Newport Folk Festival for first time 1960; toured Europe with American Folk Blues Festival 1962; collaborated on two albums with Canned Heat, late 1960s; recorded Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive with Van Morrison 1972; made comeback with The Healer 1989;

Awards: Grammy Best Traditional Blues Recording, “I’m In The Mood” from The Healer, 1990; Grammy Best Traditional Blues Recording, Chill Out, 1996; Grammy Best Traditional Blues Album, Don’t Look Back, and Best Pop Collaboration, “Don’t Look Back,” (with Van Morrison); W.C. Handy Award Top Traditional Blues Artist, 1983-88; W.C. Handy Award, Contemporary Blues Artist, Male Blues Vocalist, Contemporary Blues Album (The Healer), 1989; W.C. Handy Award Traditional Blues Artist of the Year, 1993; W.C. Handy Award Traditional Blues Album of the Year, Chill Out, 1995. National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Fellowship, 1983; Blues Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 1996; Charter Inductee Blues Hall of Fame; Inducted into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 1991.

Minnie’s second husband, Will Moore, a popular local musician, began teaching the young boy how to play guitar. Eventually Moore even made him a present of one of his own instruments. More importantly, Hooker absorbed his stepfather’s manner of playing, a hypnotic one-chord style that became an integral part of his recorded work. “Whatever I’m doin’ is his style,” Hooker told Billboards Chris Morris in 1998. “My style is his style.”

The Hottest Musician in Detroit

When he was barely in his teens Hooker left home in the early 1930s. “Where I came from in Mississippi was hell,” he told Peter Watrous of the New York Times. “I wanted to be a star. I knew I couldn’t make it in Mississippi, so I was working my way up north.” His first stop was Memphis, whose Beale Street was the center of the blues universe at the time. Still too young for bars or nightclubs, Hooker played local house parties at the boarding house he was staying at. From Memphis he moved to Cincinnati where he sang in gospel groups, which gave him valuable experience singing in front of an audience, but his heart was with the blues. Unlike many other musicians, the switch from religious music to the Devil’s music did not cause Hooker any crisis of conscience. “When I started singing blues the church didn’t like it,” he told Watrous, “but I was determined to be a musician and be a blues star, and I didn’t care much what they thought.”

In the mid 1930s, Hooker landed in Detroit. He took a day job as a janitor and by night played his blues in places like the Apex Bar or the Town Bar. “The town was booming, and I was playing three and four, sometimes five nights a week in small clubs,” he told Watrous. “I got to be hot stuff, the hottest musician in Detroit.”

“I Ain’t Workin’ No More”

After World War II had ended, Hooker got his first big break. Elmer Barbee, a Detroit record store owner, caught one of Hooker’s shows. Impressed, he invited the singer down to his downtown store. Hooker took his guitar and ended up playing most of the night while Barbee recorded the songs on his disc-cutting machine. One of the tunes they came up with was “Boogie Chillen,” based on a song he had once heard his stepfather Moore play. Barbee was wild for the number, convinced that they had a hit on their hands. He helped Hooker hook up with Bernard Bessman of Sensation Records. Hooker recorded the song for Sensation. “The thing caught fire,” Hooker says in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues. “It was ringin’ all around the country. When it come out every jukebox you went to, every place you went to, every drugstore, everywhere you went, department stores, they were play in’ it in there… And I was workin’ in Detroit in a factory there for a while. Then I quit my job. I said, ‘No, I ain’t workin’ no more!’”

About a year later Hooker signed a contract with Modern Records in Los Angeles for an advance of $1,000. Between 1949 and 1951, Hooker had three hits for Modern: “Hobo Blues,” “In The Mood,” and “Crawling Kingsnake.” He was suddenly in high demand, though, at other labels. When Modern failed to pay him royalties he was owed he began recording for other companies under a variety of pseudonyms: Johnny Williams, Delta John, Johnny Lee, Texas Slim, Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar, the Boogie Man, Sir John Lee Hooker, John Lee Booker, and John Lee Cooker. In 1955 he signed with Vee-Jay Records in Chicago, a label he would remain with for ten years. While there he abandoned his solo guitar accompaniment in favor of a full band. “Vee-Jay wanted the big sound,” he told Chris Morris. “It was a good sound, a real good sound, a big fat sound.” That fat sound led to another string of popular records for Hooker, including “Dimples” and “Boom Boom,” which reached number 16 on the R&B charts and number 60 on the Pop charts in 1962.

Hooker wasn’t about to be pigeonholed though, especially at a moment in history when musical tastes were undergoing major changes. He hit the folk circuit, and soon solo acoustic records for Riverside complemented his electric blues on Vee-Jay. He started playing the coffeehouse circuit and made appearances, beginning in 1960, at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1962 he toured Europe for the first time with the American Folk Blues Festival.

“People Got More Civilized”

There was already a John Lee Hooker renaissance of sorts underway in England as he made that tour. The Animals and the Yardbirds, deeply steeped in American blues, had their own hits with “Boom Boom.” And other groups in the British blues revival had incorporated other Hooker songs into their repertoires. “I had no thought that British singers would start singing my songs,” Hooker confessed to Watrous. “I had no idea what would come with that. People got more civilized.” During the Sixties Hooker worked more and more with younger rock musicians who were his admirers. In England he played with John Mayal’s Bluesbreakers and a young guitarist named Eric Clapton. In the U.S. at the end of the sixties, he teamed up with his boogie disciples, Canned Heat, with whom he cut two albums, Hooker ‘N Heat and Live At The Fox Venice Theater— Influential collaborations that introduced Hooker’s music to a new, younger generation. In 1972 he recorded Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive with another old fan, Van Morrison. During the rest of the seventies and for most of the eighties, Hooker’s performing and recording tapered off, which wasn’t surprising—he was pushing sixty and had worked at a frantic pace for the previous twenty years.

In 1989, when Hooker was seventy-two, he made the album that initiated what might be the most successful, productive periods of his career. The Healer was conceived by his agent Mike Kappus. It featured a star-studded line-up of guest artists including Carlos San-tana, Robert Cray, Los Lobos, and Bonnie Raitt whose duet won Hooker his first Grammy, after being nominated in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Other albums, equally successful followed, including 1991 ’s Mr. Lucky, 1992’s Boom Boom, and Grammy winners Chill Out (1995) and Don’t Look Back (1997). The 1990s were Hooker’s reward for his lifetime in music. He enjoyed unprecedented worldwide popularity, performing regularly at festivals and on television. In 1990 he was presented with an all-star tribute at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and in January 1991 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Charter Inductee to the Blues Hall of Fame. He even owns his own blues club, the Boom Boom Room, which opened in 1997 in San Francisco.

John Lee Hooker is proof of the power of the blues and its ability to transcend boundaries of generation and race. “The blues is the root of all music,” he said. “People’s heartaches, aches and pains, trouble and disappointment, money, no money, down-and-out, that causes the blues, and that affects everybody of every color, rich and poor. The blues has got more message than anything else. It’s more flashy now, but it’s the same thing as before. It’s come down low and came back up, but it’ll never die.”

Selected discography

John Lee Hooker Sings the Blues, King, 1961.

The Real Folk Blues, Chess, 1966.

Live At The Cafe Au Go-Go, Bluesway/ABC, 1967.

Hooker ‘N Heat, Liberty, 1971.

Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive, ABC, 1972.

The Healer, Chameleon/Silvertone, 1989.

Mr. Lucky, Silvertone, 1991.

The Ultimate Collection, Rhino, 1991.

Boom Boom, Pointblank/Virgin, 1992.

Chill Out, Pointblank/Virgin, 1995.

Don’t Look Back, Pointblank/Virgin, 1997.

The Best Of Friends, Pointblank/Virgin, 1998.

Sources

Books

Palmer, Robert, Deep Blues, Viking Press, New York, 1981.

Russell, Tony, The Blues—From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, Schirmer Books, New York. 1997.

Sonnier, Austin M., A Guide to the Blues: History, Who’s Who, Research Sources, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. 1994

Periodicals

Billboard, September 5, 1998; New York Times, October 16, 1990

Additional material and information provided by The Rosebud Agency and Mike Kappus.

—Gerald E. Brennan

John Lee Hooker
1917–2001

Blues musician, guitarist

John Lee Hooker was an influential blues artist who played a role in the development of the genre from the late 1940s through the 1990s. Playing both electric and acoustic guitar, Hooker's distinctive vocal and instrumental style also shaped the development of rock and folk music during the 1960s and 1970s.

John Lee Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 (some sources say 1920), in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the fourth of 11 children born to William and Minnie Hooker. Hooker's father was a sharecropper and Baptist minister who did not like the blues, referring to it as the "devil's music." Hooker's parents separated when he was five and divorced when he was 11 years old.

While Hooker received a limited formal education, music was an important component to his life. He first became exposed to it at church and constructed his first instrument out of a piece of string and an inner tube. Soon after her divorce, Hooker's mother was remarried to William Moore, a blues musician. Hooker credited Moore with mentoring him as a musician.

Moore taught Hooker how to play guitar, showing the boy his minimalist but very rhythmic style of playing. Soon Moore and Hooker were playing together at house parties and dances near their hometown. Though Hooker enjoyed playing with his stepfather he was unhappy living in Mississippi and when he was 14 years old he ran away from home.

Travels to Tennessee and Midwest

Hooker first tried to join the U.S. Army, in part because during World War II a young man in uniform would attract attention from women. He made it through basic training and after three months was stationed in Detroit before it was discovered that he was underage and he was kicked out. Hooker then moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Supporting himself with day jobs such as movie theater usher, Hooker also worked as a musician at house parties because he could not get into clubs. Among the musician he played with was Robert Lockwood.

In his late teens Hooker moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he continued to work menial day jobs like dish washer and steel mill worker while establishing his music career at night. Because he was still a minor, Hooker could only play the blues at house parties. However, he also sang in gospel quartets like the Delta Big Four, Fairfield Four, and the Big Six. By working frequently in front of a crowd, Hooker learned the ropes of performing on stage and entertaining an audience.

In 1943 Hooker moved to Detroit, where jobs were plentiful because so many men were overseas fighting in World War II. He held day jobs washing dishes and working as a janitor in a Chrysler automobile plant until 1951. Now a legal adult, Hooker was now able to perform at the many blues clubs located near Detroit's Hastings Street.

While living in Detroit Hooker's style changed: from the country/rural folk-type blues played primarily on an acoustic guitar, he shifted to a more urban style played on an electric guitar. Part of the change was due to his encounter with Elmer Barber, a local record-store owner. Barber had heard Hooker perform and he made several primitive recordings of the young musician in the makeshift studio located in the back of his store.

Barber's recordings soon found their way to Bernie Besman, owner of a small record label, Sensation Records. It was Besman who suggested that Hooker should switch to electric guitar and include faster-paced material in his gigs at local clubs. Taking this advice, Hooker soon became one of the leading musicians in the Motor City, which at this time was witnessing a booming economy due to the men and women living there who had become wealthy due to the rise in wartime manufacturing.

Records First Hit Single

Hooker made his first single for Besman in 1948. "Boogie Chillen," recorded in a basement in Detroit, features only Hooker's vocals, his electric guitar, and the sound of his foot tapping the beat. When "Boogie Chillen" was released on Sensation it sold so well that the small label could not handle the demand. The single was then released on Modern Records and quickly climbed to the number-one spot on 1949's prototype R & B charts, selling a million copies.

Although Hooker did not receive the royalties he was entitled to for this and future songs, his success with "Boogie Chillen" came as a surprise to him. In 1949 he followed up his first single with ten other top-ten songs. Many of these early recordings feature only Hooker and his guitar, although fellow guitarist Eddie Kirkland sometimes appeared on recordings with him.

One reason that Hooker often recorded alone was that his beat was hard for accompanying musicians to follow. By recording alone, it was easier to achieve a clean take, and the recording session took less time. Describing his sound, Hooker once told John Collis of the Independent, "I don't like no fancy chords. Just the boogie. The drive. The feeling. A lot of people play fancy but they don't have no style. It's a deep feeling—you just can't stop listening to that sad blues sound. My sound."

Chronology

1917

Born in Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22

1948

Records first single, "Boogie Chillen," which climbs to the number-one spot on the R & B charts

1949

Follows up with ten other top-ten songs

1951

Releases "In the Mood"

1959

Releases his first record album, I'm John Lee Hooker, on Riverside Records

1971

Records Hooker 'n' Heat with the group Canned Heat

1980

Appears in The Blues Brothers; inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame

1989

Records The Healer

1990

Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

1991

Records Mr. Lucky

1995

Retires from performing on a regular basis

1997

Opens blues club in San Francisco called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room; releases Don't Look Back

2001

Dies in Los Altos, California on June 21

2003

Album Face to Face is released posthumously

Despite becoming involved in conflicts regarding royalty issues, Hooker continued to record for Modern in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and some of his hits of the period include "Rock House Boogie," "Crawling King Snake," and "In the Mood." One of his most popular recordings of the period, "In the Mood," was released in 1951 and sold a million copies. To ensure that he would earn enough to support his family, Hooker recorded and released material under several other names for over two dozen other labels. Some of his pseudonyms included John Lee Booker, which he used for Chess recordings, Johnny Lee, used for DeLuxe, and Texas Slim and John Lee Cooker, which he used on his recordings for the King label.

Many of Hooker's early releases influenced other bluesmen such as Buddy Guy and are considered to be early precursors to rock and roll. His blues songs incorporated the traditional blues sound with jump and jazz rhythms. Although Hooker recorded his music with little backup, he also performed with a live band at clubs in Detroit and beyond. Due to his talent, hard work, and determination, Hooker was a success on the R & B circuit throughout the 1950s.

In 1955 Hooker signed on with VeeJay Records of Chicago. For this label he changed his recording style; his subsequent recordings becoming a better reflection of his live show. Because solo blues performance was waning in popularity, Hooker started recording with a band, producing such hits as "Dimples" and "Boom Boom."

Becomes Hit on Folk Circuit

Even though Hooker found success performing on electric guitar, he discovered a new audience for his acoustic blues during the late 1950s. Folk music was now undergoing a revival of interest, and groups like the Weavers and blues singers like Odetta were increasingly becoming popular among young white college students. Hooker began appearing in folk clubs, coffeehouses, on college campuses, and at folk festivals as a solo artist, and did several recordings accompanying himself with acoustic guitar. Many of his songs written and recorded during this period reflect his background in Mississippi.

In 1959 Hooker released his first record album, I'm John Lee Hooker, on Riverside Records, his new label. This new turn in the career of the 42-year-old bluesman earned him an even wider audience, not just among white folk fans but in international markets where his records were also released.

Hooker once discussed his change from electronic band to solo folk music with Peter Watrous, telling the New York Times interviewer: "I played solo for a long time, so I know how to tap my feet so it sounds like a drum. It wasn't any problem to start playing the coffeehouses. I can switch to any style, you have to be versatile as a musician. I knew the white audience was out there but I didn't know how to get it. As the years go by, thing change and to me they were just people. I had no thought that British singers would start singing my songs, I had no idea what would come with that. People got more civilized."

In the 1960s Hooker began touring internationally, and the popularity of his music spread throughout the world, particularly among the more sophisticated audience. His songs also influenced emerging British rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Animals. Hooker continued to record on VeeJay, although he did not end his practice of laying down tracks for other labels as well.

Returns to Electric

By the mid- to late 1960s Hooker once again moved away from performing acoustic solo blues when the trend toward electric blues prompted him to put together a new band. In 1965 he recorded an album with British group John Mayall and the Groundhogs. Many of Hooker's recordings during the late 1960s were albums rather than singles, and many were recorded in collaboration with bands composed of younger musicians. While many of these recording sessions produced mixed results due to Hooker's unique rhythmic stylings, his sessions with the group Canned Heat is considered one of the best. The resulting album, 1971's Hooker 'n'Heat, was a hit.

Though Hooker continued to record a little and play a lot during the late 1970s and 1980s, the blues had declined in popularity and demand for his music had declined. He still toured as a way to pay the mortgage on the house he owned in San Francisco, often performing with his Coast-to-Coast Blues Band and sometimes coming under fire for letting other musicians carry him musically. Many of his early recordings were also repackaged and released for blues collectors.

Considered one of the top blues performers in the United States, Hooker was given a small role in the blockbuster movie The Blues Brothers in 1980. That same year he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In the late 1980s and 1990s his songs regained popularity, even appearing as part of film soundtracks. In the 1990s, Hooker himself began appearing in ads for Lee Jeans, Pepsi, various brands of liquor, and other products.

Records The Healer

In 1989 Hooker returned to the studio after a decade's absence and recorded The Healer. He was joined by several contemporary blues artists, including Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray, as well as Latin artists Los Lobos and Carlos Santana. Produced by Hooker's former guitarist Roy Rogers, The Healer became one of the biggest-selling blues records of all time, selling 1.5 million copies. Hooker also won a Grammy Award for the song "I'm in the Mood," which he performs on the album with Raitt.

Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and was the focus of a tribute concert at Madison Square Garden that same year. With the success of The Healer, he started recording again, again in collaboration with other blues artists. His 1991 recording Mr. Lucky was a hit on the album charts in the United Kingdom. Among the musicians he worked with on this recording were Johnny Winter, Keith Richards, Van Morrison, and Santana.

Hooker continued to perform and record into his late 70s and early 80s and found himself even more popular than he had been earlier in his career. He continued to perform live with the Coast-to-Coast Blues Band into the 1990s, but had the added security of royalty income to rely on. Unlike many other blues and R & B artists of his generation, Hooker continued to earn royalties from his early recordings because he had wisely saved his contracts and, with the proper legal advise, went to court to ensure that recording companies continued to honor them.

After a hernia operation in 1994 made it painful for Hooker to perform, he slowed down. After the release of Chill Out in 1995 he retired from performing on a regular basis, although he still made occasional appearances on stage. In 1997 he opened a blues club in San Francisco called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room. One of his final releases was the album Don't Look Back (1997), which features a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Red House."

Hooker died in his sleep of natural causes on June 21, 2001, at his home in Los Altos, California. At the time of his death, Hooker was working on the album Face to Face, which was released in 2003. During his lifetime he had recorded more than 500 tracks, making him one of the most recorded blues musicians of all time. Married and divorced four times, Hooker was survived by eight children. Late in his life he had contemplated his eventual passing, telling Ben Wener of Tulsa World: "We all got to go one day. We live out this life as long as we can and try to make the best of it. Simple as that. That's what I've done. All my life, just try to make the best of it."

REFERENCES

Periodicals

Independent, July 1, 1990.

New York Times, October 16, 1990; June 22, 2001.

Tulsa World, August 30, 1997.

Online

E! Online, www.eonline.com, September 15, 2003.

                                   Annette Petrusso

John Lee Hooker

American musician John Lee Hooker (1917-2001) was an influential blues artist who played a role in the development of the genre from the late 1940s through the 1990s. Playing both electric and acoustic guitar, Hooker's distinctive vocal and instrumental style also shaped the development of rock and folk music during the 1960s and 1970s.

John Lee Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 (some sources say 1920), in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the fourth of 11 children born to William and Minnie Hooker. Hooker's father was a sharecropper and Baptist minister who did not like the blues, referring to it as the "devil's music." Hooker's parents separated when he was five and divorced when he was 11 years old. While Hooker received a limited formal education, music was an important component to his life. He first became exposed to it at church and constructed his first instrument out of a piece of string and an inner tube. Soon after her divorce, Hooker's mother was remarried to William Moore, a blues musician. Hooker credited Moore with mentoring him as a musician.

Moore taught Hooker how to play guitar, showing the boy his minimalist but very rhythmic style of playing. Soon Moore and Hooker were playing together at house parties and dances near their hometown. Though Hooker enjoyed playing with his stepfather he was unhappy living in Mississippi and when he was 14 years old he ran away from home.

Traveled to Tennessee and Midwest

Hooker first tried to join the U.S. Army, in part because during World War II a young man in uniform would attract attention from women. He made it through basic training and after three months was stationed in Detroit before it was discovered that he was underage and he was kicked out. Hooker then moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Supporting himself with day jobs such as movie theater usher, Hooker also worked as a musician at house parties because he could not get into clubs. Among the musician he played with was Robert Lockwood.

In his late teens Hooker moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he continued to work menial day jobs like dish washer and steel mill worker while establishing his music career at night. Because he was still a minor, Hooker could only play the blues at house parties. However, he also sang in gospel quartets like the Delta Big Four, Fairfield Four, and the Big Six. By working frequently in front of a crowd, Hooker learned the ropes of performing on stage and entertaining an audience.

In 1943 Hooker moved to Detroit, where jobs were plentiful because so many men were overseas fighting in World War II. He held day jobs washing dishes and working as a janitor in a Chrysler automobile plant until 1951. Now a legal adult, Hooker was now able to perform at the many blues clubs located near Detroit's Hastings Street.

While living in Detroit Hooker's style changed: from the country/rural folk-type blues played primarily on an acoustic guitar, he shifted to a more urban style played on an electric guitar. Part of the change was due to his encounter with Elmer Barber, a local record-store owner. Barber had heard Hooker perform and he made several primitive recordings of the young musician in the makeshift studio located in the back of his store.

Barber's recordings soon found their way to Bernie Besman, owner of a small record label, Sensation Records. It was Besman who suggested that Hooker should switch to electric guitar and include faster-paced material in his gigs at local clubs. Taking this advice, Hooker soon became one of the leading musicians in the Motor City, which at this time was witnessing a booming economy due to the men and women living there who had become wealthy due to the rise in wartime manufacturing.

Recorded First Hit Single

Hooker made his first single for Besman in 1948. "Boogie Chillen," recorded in a basement in Detroit, features only Hooker's vocals, his electric guitar, and the sound of his foot tapping the beat. When "Boogie Chillen" was released on Sensation it sold so well that the small label could not handle the demand. The single was then released on Modern Records and quickly climbed to the number-one spot on 1949's prototype R & B charts, selling a million copies.

Although Hooker did not receive the royalties he was entitled to for this and future songs, his success with "Boogie Chillen" came as a surprise to him. In 1949 he followed up his first single with ten other top-ten songs. Many of these early recordings feature only Hooker and his guitar, although fellow guitarist Eddie Kirkland sometimes appeared on recordings with him.

One reason that Hooker often recorded alone was that his beat was hard for accompanying musician to follow. By recording alone, it was easier to achieve a clean take, and the recording session took less time. Describing his sound, Hooker once told John Collis of the Independent, "I don't like no fancy chords. Just the boogie. The drive. The feeling. A lot of people play fancy but they don't have no style. It's a deep feeling—you just can't stop listening to that sad blues sound. My sound."

Despite becoming involved in conflicts regarding royalty issues, Hooker continued to record for Modern in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and some of his hits of the period include "Rock House Boogie," "Crawling King Snake," and "In the Mood." One of his most popular recordings of the period, "In the Mood" was released in 1951 and sold a million copies. To ensure that he would earn enough to support his family, Hooker recorded and released material under several other names for over two dozen other labels. Some of his pseudonyms included John Lee Booker, which he used for Chess recordings, Johnny Lee, used for DeLuxe, and Texas Slim and John Lee Cooker, which he used on his recordings for the King label.

Many of Hooker's early releases influenced other bluesmen such as Buddy Guy and are considered to be early precursors to rock and roll. His blues songs incorporated the traditional blues sound with jump and jazz rhythms. Although Hooker recorded his music with little backup, he also performed with a live band at clubs in Detroit and beyond. Due to his talent, hard work, and determination, Hooker was a success on the R & B circuit throughout the 1950s.

In 1955 Hooker signed on with VeeJay Records of Chicago. For this label he changed his recording style, his subsequent recordings becoming a better reflection of his live show. Because solo blues performance was waning in popularity, Hooker started recording with a band, producing such hits as "Dimples" and "Boom Boom."

Became Hit on Folk Circuit

Even though Hooker found success performing on electric guitar, he discovered a new audience for his acoustic blues during the late 1950s. Folk music was now undergoing a revival of interest, and groups like the Weavers and blues singers like Odetta were increasingly becoming popular among young white college students. Hooker began appearing in folk clubs, coffeehouses, on college campuses, and at folk festivals as a solo artist, and did several recordings accompanying himself with acoustic guitar. Many of his songs written and recorded during this period reflect his background in Mississippi.

In 1959 Hooker released his first record album, I'm John Lee Hooker, on Riverside Records, his new label. This new turn in the career of the 42-year-old bluesman earned him an even wider audience, not just among white folk fans but in international markets where his records were also released.

Hooker once discussed his change from electronic band to solo folk music with Peter Watrous, telling the New York Times interviewer: "I played solo for a long time, so I know how to tap my feet so it sounds like a drum. It wasn't any problem to start playing the coffeehouses. I can switch to any style, you have to be versatile as a musician. I knew the white audience was out there but I didn't know how to get it. As the years go by, thing change and to me they were just people. I had no thought that British singers would start singing my songs, I had no idea what would come with that. People got more civilized."

In the 1960s Hooker began touring internationally, and the popularity of his music spread throughout the world, particularly among the more sophisticated audience. His songs also influenced emerging British rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and the Animals. Hooker continued to record on VeeJay, although he did not end his practice of laying down tracks for other labels as well.

Returned to Electric

By the mid-to late 1960s Hooker once again moved away from performing acoustic solo blues when the trend toward electric blues prompted to put together a new band. In 1965 he recorded an album with British group John Mayall and the Groundhogs. Many of Hooker's recordings during the late 1960s were albums rather than singles, and many were recorded in collaboration with bands composed of younger musicians. While many of these recording sessions produced mixed results due to Hooker's unique rhythmic stylings, his sessions with the group Canned Heat is considered one of the best. The resulting album, 1971's Hooker 'n' Heat, was a hit.

Though Hooker continued to record a little and play a lot during the late 1970s and 1980s, the blues had declined in popularity and demand for his music had declined. He still toured as a way to pay the mortgage on the house he owned in San Francisco, often performing with his Coast-to-Coast Blues Band and sometimes coming under fire for letting other musician carry him musically. Many of his early recordings were also repackaged and released for blues collectors.

Considered one of the top blues performers in the United States, Hooker was given a small role in the blockbuster movie The Blues Brothers in 1980. That same year he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. In the late 1980s and 1990s his songs regained popularity, even appearing as part of film soundtracks. In the 1990s, Hooker himself began appearing in ads for Lee Jeans, Pepsi, various brands of liquor, and other products.

Recorded The Healer

In 1989 Hooker returned to the studio after a decade's absence and recorded The Healer. He was joined by several contemporary blues artists, including Bonnie Raitt and Robert Cray, as well as Latin artists Los Lobos and Carlos Santana. Produced by Hooker's former guitarist Roy Rogers, The Healer became one of the biggest-selling blues records of all time, selling 1.5 million copies. Hooker also won a Grammy Award for the song "I'm in the Mood," which he performs on the album with Raitt.

Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and was the focus of a tribute concert at Madison Square Garden that same year. With the success of The Healer, he started recording again, again in collaboration with other blues artists. His 1991 recording Mr. Lucky was a hit on the album charts in the United Kingdom. Among the musicians he worked with on this recording were Johnny Winter, Keith Richards, Van Morrison, and Santana.

Hooker continued to perform and record into his late 70s and early 80s and found himself even more popular now than he had been earlier in his career. He continued to perform live with the Coast-to-Coast Blues Band into the 1990s, but had the added security of royalty income to rely on. Unlike many other blues and R & B artists of his generation, Hooker continued to earn royalties from his early recordings because he had wisely saved his contracts and, with the proper legal advise, went to court to ensure that recording companies continued to honor them.

After a hernia operation in 1994 made it painful for Hooker to perform, he slowed down. After the release of Chill Out in 1995 he retired from performing on a regular basis, although he still made occasional appearances on stage. In 1997 he opened a blues club in San Francisco called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room. One of his final releases was the album Don't Look Back (1997), which features a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Red House."

Hooker died in his sleep of natural causes on June 21, 2001, at his home in Los Altos, California. He had performed five days earlier and was making plans to return to the recording studio. At his death he had recorded more than 500 tracks, making him one of the most recorded blues musicians of all time. Married and divorced four times, Hooker was survived by eight children. Late in his life he had contemplated his eventual passing, telling Ben Wener of Tulsa World: "We all got to go one day. We live out this life as long as we can and try to make the best of it. Simple as that. That's what I've done. All my life, just try to make the best of it."

Books

Hochman, Steve, editor, Popular Musicians, Salem Press, 1999.

Larkin, Colin, editor, Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Guinness Publishing, 1995.

Periodicals

Associated Press, June 22, 2001.

Billboard, September 5, 1998; July 7, 2001.

Daily Telegraph, June 23, 2001.

Down Beat, June 1997.

Independent, July 1, 1990.

New York Times, October 16, 1990; June 22, 2001.

Ottawa Citizen, November 1, 1992.

People Weekly, October 29, 1990.

San Francisco Chronicle, February 11, 1995.

Toronto Star, December 24, 1998.

Tulsa World, August 30, 1997.

Variety, June 25, 2001. □