| 12nd | Top people from Long Beach, California |
| 49th | Top people from Mississippi |
| 105th | Top lead guitarists |
| 2nd | Top Detroit blues musicians |
| John Lee Hooker | |
|---|---|
 John Lee Hooker performing at the Long Beach Music Festival, August 31, 1997
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | John Lee Booker, Johnny Hooker, John Cooker |
| Born | August 22, 1917 Coahoma County, Mississippi, United States |
| Died | June 21, 2001 (aged 83) Los Altos, California, United States |
| Genres | Talking blues, Electric blues, Delta blues |
| Occupations | Singer-songwriter, Musician |
| Instruments | Guitar, Vocals |
| Years active | 1948-2001 |
| Labels | Vee-Jay Records, Chess Records, Bluesway Records, Point Blank Records, Crown Records, Modern Records, Atco Records, King Records, Specialty Records, Polydor Records, Savoy Records, Impulse! Records, Ace Records, Atlantic Records, Verve |
| Associated acts | Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, B. B. King, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan |
| Website | John Lee Hooker.com |
| Notable instruments | |
| Gibson ES-335 | |
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist, born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free. John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own unique genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his masterful and idiosyncratic blues guitar and singing. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" (1948) and "Boom Boom" (1962).
Hooker's life experiences were chronicled by several scholars and often read like a classic case study in the racism of the music industry, although he eventually rose to prominence with memorable songs and influence on a generation of musicians.
Contents |
Hooker was born on August 22, 1917[1] in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi[2] the youngest of the eleven children of William Hooker (1871–1923), a sharecropper and Baptist preacher, and Minnie Ramsey (born 1875). Hooker and his siblings were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs, with his earliest exposure being the spirituals sung in church. In 1921, his parents separated. The next year, his mother married William Moore, a blues singer who provided Hooker with his first introduction to the guitar (and whom John would later credit for his distinctive playing style).[3] He was cousin to Earl Hooker. Hooker was also influenced by his stepfather, a local blues guitarist, who learned in Shreveport, Louisiana to play a droning, one-chord blues that was strikingly different from the Delta blues of the time.[2] The year after that (1923), John's natural father died; and at age 15, John ran away from home, never to see his mother and stepfather again.[4]
Throughout the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis, Tennessee where he worked on Beale Street at The New Daisy Theatre and occasionally performed at house parties.[2] He worked in factories in various cities during World War II, drifting until he found himself in Detroit in 1948 working at Ford Motor Company. He felt right at home near the blues venues and saloons on Hastings Street, the heart of black entertainment on Detroit's east side. In a city noted for its pianists, guitar players were scarce. Performing in Detroit clubs, his popularity grew quickly, and seeking a louder instrument than his crude acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar.[5]
Hooker's recording career began in 1948 when his agent placed a demo disc, made by Hooker, with the Bihari brothers, owners of the Modern Records label. The company initially released an up-tempo number, "Boogie Chillen", which became Hooker's first hit single.[2] Though they were not songwriters, the Biharis often purchased or claimed co-authorship of songs that appeared on their labels, thus securing songwriting royalties for themselves, in addition to their streams of income.
Sometimes these songs were older tunes which Hooker renamed as with B. B. King's "Rock Me Baby", anonymous jams "B.B.'s Boogie" or songs by employees (bandleader Vince Weaver). The Biharis used a number of pseudonyms for songwriting credits: Jules was credited as Jules Taub; Joe as Joe Josea; and Sam as Sam Ling. One song by John Lee Hooker, "Down Child" is solely credited to "Taub", with Hooker receiving no credit for the song whatsoever. Another, "Turn Over a New Leaf" is credited to Hooker and "Ling".
Despite being illiterate, Hooker was a prolific lyricist. In addition to adapting the occasionally traditional blues lyric (such as "if I was chief of police, I would run her right out of town"), he freely invented many of his songs from scratch. Recording studios in the 1950s rarely paid black musicians more than a pittance, so Hooker would spend the night wandering from studio to studio, coming up with new songs or variations on his songs for each studio. Because of his recording contract, he would record these songs under obvious pseudonyms such as "John Lee Booker", notably for Chess Records and Chance Records in 1951/52,[6] as Johnny Lee for De Luxe Records in 1953/54[6] as "John Lee","John Lee Booker", and even "John Lee Cooker"[7], or as "Texas Slim", "Delta John", "Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar", "Johnny Williams", or "The Boogie Man."[8]
His early solo songs were recorded under Bernie Besman. John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempo to fit the needs of the song. This often made it difficult to use backing musicians who were not accustomed to Hooker's musical vagaries: As a result, Besman would record Hooker, in addition to playing guitar and singing, stomping along with the music on a wooden pallet.[9] For much of this time period he recorded and toured with Eddie Kirkland, who is still performing as of 2008. Later sessions for the VeeJay label in Chicago used studio musicians on most of his recordings, including Eddie Taylor, who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies very well. His biggest UK hit, "Boom Boom", (originally released on VeeJay) had a horn section to boot.
He appeared and sang in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. Due to Hooker's improvisational style, his performance was filmed and sound-recorded live at the scene at Chicago's Maxwell Street Market, in contrast to the usual "playback" technique used in most film musicals.[10] Hooker was also a direct influence in the look of John Belushi's character Jake Blues.
In 1989, he joined with a number of musicians, including Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt to record The Healer, for which he and Santana won a Grammy Award. Hooker recorded several songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront". He also appeared on stage with Van Morrison several times, some of which was released on the live album A Night in San Francisco. The same year he appeared as the title character on Pete Townshend's The Iron Man: A Musical.
Hooker recorded over 100 albums. He lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area where, in 1997, he opened a nightclub in San Francisco's Fillmore District called "John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room", after one of his hits.[11]
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83. The last song Hooker recorded before his death was "Ali D'Oro", a collaboration with the Italian soul singer Zucchero, in which Hooker sang the chorus "I lay down with an angel". He was survived by eight children, nineteen grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, a nephew, and fiance Sidora Dazi. One of his children is the musician John Lee Hooker Jr.
Among his many awards, Hooker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1991 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom" were included in the list of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. "Boogie Chillen" was included as one of the Songs of the Century. He was also inducted in 1980 into the Blues Hall of Fame. In 2000, Hooker was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Hooker's guitar playing is closely aligned with piano boogie-woogie. He would play the walking bass pattern with his thumb, stopping to emphasize the end of a line with a series of trills, done by rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs. The songs that most epitomize his early sound are "Boogie Chillen", about being 17 and wanting to go out to dance at the Boogie clubs, "Baby Please Don't Go", a blues standard first recorded by Big Joe Williams, and "Tupelo Blues",[12] a stunningly sad song about the flooding of Tupelo, Mississippi in April 1936.
He maintained a solo career, popular with blues and folk music fans of the early 1960s and crossed over to white audiences, giving an early opportunity to the young Bob Dylan. As he got older, he added more and more people to his band, changing his live show from simply Hooker with his guitar to a large band, with Hooker singing.
His vocal phrasing was less closely tied to specific bars than most blues singers. This casual, rambling style had been gradually diminishing with the onset of electric blues bands from Chicago but, even when not playing solo, Hooker retained it in his sound.
Though Hooker lived in Detroit during most of his career, he is not associated with the Chicago-style blues prevalent in large northern cities, as much as he is with the southern rural blues styles, known as delta blues, country blues, folk blues, or "front porch blues". His use of an electric guitar tied together the Delta blues with the emerging post-war electric blues.[13]
His songs have been covered by Cream, AC/DC, ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, The Yardbirds, The Animals, Buddy Guy, The Doors, The White Stripes, MC5, George Thorogood, R. L. Burnside, The J. Geils Band, The Gories, Big Head Todd and the Monsters and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
Hooker issued a large number of singles, with almost a hundred releases by 1960.[14]
Here are ten of his early classic recordings:
Listed below are the original albums with notable reissues.
THE DETROIT YEARS (recordings 1948-1955)
THE CHICAGO YEARS (recordings 1955-1964)
THE FOLK YEARS (recordings 1959-1963)
THE ABC YEARS (recordings 1965-1974)
THE ROSEBUD YEARS (recordings 1975-2001)
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| John Lee Hooker | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 22, 1917 Coahoma County, Mississippi |
| Died | June 21, 2001 (aged 83) |
| Genres | Blues |
| Occupations | singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1948-2001 |
| Labels | Vee-Jay, Chess Records and others |
| Website | johnleehooker.com |
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Contents |
Hooker was born on August 22, 1917[1] in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi.
All through the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis where he worked on Beale Street and sometimes performed at house parties. In 1948, he started working at Ford Motor Company.
Hooker's early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempos to fit the songs. This made it nearly impossible to add backing tracks.
Hooker appeared and sang in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. He recorded over 100 albums.
In 1989, he played with Keith Richards, Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt to record The Healer and won a Grammy Award. Hooker recorded lots of songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront".
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83. The last song Hooker recorded before his death, is "Ali D'Oro".
| 1950s | ||
|---|---|---|
| Year | Album | Label / Notes |
| 1959 | How Long Blues | released on United |
| I'm John Lee Hooker | Vee Jay Records | |
| The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker | Riverside Records | |
| Burning Hell | Riverside | |
| 1960s | ||
| 1960 | Travelin | Vee Jay Records |
| That's My Story | Riverside | |
| House Of The Blues | Chess Records | |
| Blues Man | ||
| The Blues | Crown Records | |
| John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues | King Records | |
| 1961 | I'm John Lee Hooker | Galaxy Records |
| Plays And Sings The Blues | Chess | |
| The Folk Lore of John Lee Hooker | Vee Jay | |
| 1962 | John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues | Crown |
| Burnin' | Vee Jay | |
| Live At Sugar Hill | Galaxy | |
| Folk Blues | Crown | |
| The Best of John Lee Hooker | Vee Jay | |
| Drifting the Blues | ||
| Tupelo Blues | ||
| 1963 | Don't Turn Me from Your Door: John Lee Hooker Sings His Blues | Atco Records |
| The Big Soul of John Lee Hooker | Vee Jay | |
| John Lee Hooker On Campus | Vee Jay | |
| The Great John Lee Hooker | Crown | |
| 1964 | John Lee Hooker At Newport | Vee Jay |
| Burning Hell | ||
| Great Blues Sounds | ||
| I Want to Shout the Blues | ||
| The Great John Lee Hooker | Japan only | |
| 1965 | Hooker & The Hogs | |
| 1966 | It Serves You Right to Suffer | |
| The Real Folk Blues | Chess | |
| 1967 | Live at Cafè Au Go-Go | |
| 1968 | Hooked on Blues | |
| 1969 | Get Back Home | |
| If You Miss ÃŒm ... I Got ÃŒm | ||
| Simply The Truth | ||
| That's Where It's At! | ||
| Get Back Home | (First Issue) | |
| If You Miss 'Im...I Got 'Im | ||
| 1970s | ||
| Year | Album | Label / Notes |
| 1970 | John Lee Hooker on the Waterfront | |
| Moanin' and Stompin' Blues | ||
| 1971 | Endless Boogie | |
| Goin' Down Highway 51 | ||
| Half A Stranger | ||
| Hooker 'N' Heat/Infinite boogie | ||
| I Feel Good | ||
| Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive | ||
| 1972 | Live At Soledad Prison | |
| 1973 | Born In Mississippi, Raised Up In Tennessee | |
| 1974 | Free Beer And Chicken | |
| Mad Man Blues | ||
| 1976 | Alone | |
| In Person | ||
| 1977 | Black Snake | |
| Dusty Road | ||
| 1978 | The Cream | |
| 1979 | Sad And Lonesome | |
| 1980s | ||
| Year | Album | Label / Notes |
| 1980 | Everybody Rockin' | |
| Sittin' Here Thinkin' | ||
| 1981 | Hooker 'n' Heat | Recorded Live at the Fox Venice Theatre |
| 1986 | Jealous | |
| 1988 | Trouble Blues | |
| 1989 | Highway Of Blues | |
| John Lee Hooker's 40th Anniversary Album | ||
| The Detroit Lion | ||
| The Healer | ||
| 1990s | ||
| Year | Album | Label / Notes |
| 1990 | The Hot Spot | Featuring Miles Davis |
| Don't You Remember Me | ||
| 1991 | More Real Folk Blues: The Missing Album | |
| Mr. Lucky | ||
| 1992 | Boom Boom | |
| This Is Hip | ||
| Urban Blues | ||
| Graveyard Blues | ||
| 1993 | Nothing But The Blues | |
| Everybody's Blues | ||
| 1994 | King of the Boogie | |
| Original Folk Blues...Plus | ||
| Dimples | Classic Blues | |
| 1995 | Alternative Boogie: Early Studio Recordings, 1948-1952 | |
| Chill Out | ||
| Whiskey & Wimmen | ||
| Blues for Big Town | ||
| 1996 | Moanin' the Blues | Eclipse |
| Alone: The First Concert | ||
| 1997 | Don't Look Back | |
| Alone: The Second Concert | ||
| 1998 | Black Man Blues | |
| 2000s | ||
| Year | Album | Label / Notes |
| 2000 | On Campus | |
| 2001 | Concert at Newport | |
| The Cream | Re-issue | |
| The Real Blues: Live in Houston 1979 | ||
| House Rent Boogie | ||
| 2002 | Live at Newport | |
| 2003 | Face to Face | |
| Burning Hell | Our World | |
| Rock With Me | ||
| 2004 | Jack O' Diamonds: The 1949 Recordings | |
   | Official John Lee Hooker Site - John Lee Hooker |
| | John Lee Hooker Resource Page - John Lee Hooker - The World´s Greatest Blues Singer |
| | Discography and album ratings - Albums by John Lee Hooker - Rate Your Music |
| | John Lee Hooker 1980 Blues Foundation Induction into Hall of Fame - Blues Foundation :: Inductees |
| | "Discovering the Blues of John Lee Hooker" - Discovering the Blues of John Lee Hooker - For Dummies |
| | YouTube - John Lee Hooker - 'Tupelo' (1995) - YouTube - John Lee Hooker - Tupelo (1995) |
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