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John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an influential American post-war blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. From a musical family, he is a cousin of Earl Hooker. He performed in a half-spoken style that became his trademark. Rhythmically, his music was free, a property common with early acoustic Delta blues musicians. His best known songs include "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom".
Biography
John Lee Hooker was born on 22 August, 1917 in Clarksdale, Mississippi the youngest of the eleven children of William Hooker (1871–1923), a sharecropper and a Baptist preacher, and Minnie Ramsey (1875-?). He and his numerous siblings were only permitted to listen to religious songs, and so young John's earliest musical exposure was to the spirituals sung in church. In 1921 John's parents separated and the next year his mother married William Moore, a blues singer who provided his first introduction to the guitar (and whom he would later credit for his distinctive playing style). The next year John's father died and at age 15 he ran away from home; he would never see his mother and step-father again. Attracted by factory work, Hooker moved from Mississippi to Detroit in 1943, where he would reside until 1969. He felt right at home near the blues venues and saloons on Hastings Street, the heart of black entertainment on Detroit's east side. Hooker's recording career began in 1948 with the hit single, "Boogie Chillen," cut in a studio near Wayne State University.
Despite being illiterate, he 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 50s 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. Due to his recording contract, he would record these songs under obvious pseudonyms such as "John Lee Booker," "Johnny Hooker," or "John Cooker."
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 made it nearly impossible to add backing tracks. As a result, Besman would record Hooker, in addition to playing guitar and singing, stomping along with the music on a wooden palette.
He appeared and sang in the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers. Due to Hooker's improvisatory style, his performance was filmed and sound-recorded live, in contrast to the usual "playback" technique used in most film musicals.
In 1989 he joined with a number of musicians, including Keith Richards and Carlos Santana to record The Healer, which won a Grammy award — one of many awards. 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".
He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83.
Hooker recorded over 100 albums and lived the last years of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he licensed a nightclub to use the name Boom Boom Room, after one of his hits.
Among his many awards, John Lee 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 named to 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.
Music
John Lee 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 more typical blues song, summed up by its title, and "Tupelo," a stunningly sad song about the flooding of Tupelo, Mississippi.
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 his career, he is not associated with the Chicago-style blues prevelant 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". This is because he kept the down home feeling in his music even when he moved to the city.
Quotes
- "It don't take me no three days to record no album." (during the recording of the double album Hooker 'N Heat with Canned Heat.)
- "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks." (when describing his own music in an article from The Daily News, Atlanta, Ga. 1992)
Discography
 | This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. |
Albums
- 1959 - Folk Blues
- 1959 - House Of The Blues
- 1959 - The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker
- 1960 - Blues Man
- 1960 - I'm John Lee Hooker
- 1960 - That's My Story
- 1960 - Travelin'
- 1961 - John Lee Hooker Sing The Blues
- 1961 - Plays And Sings The Blues
- 1961 - The Folk Lore of John Lee Hooker
- 1962 - Burnin'
- 1962 - Drifting the Blues
- 1962 - The Blues
- 1962 - Tupelo Blues
- 1963 - Don't Turn Me from Your Door: John Lee Hooker Sings His Blues
- 1964 - Burning Hell
- 1964 - Great Blues Sounds
- 1964 - I Want to Shout the Blues
- 1964 - The Big Soul of John Lee Hooker
- 1964 - The Great John Lee Hooker (Japan only)
- 1965 - Hooker & The Hogs
- 1966 - It Serves You Right to Suffer
- 1966 - The Real Folk Blues
- 1967 - Live at Cafè Au Go-Go
- 1968 - Hooked on Blues
- 1969 - Get Back Home
- 1969 - If You Miss'Im I Got'Im
- 1969 - Simply The Truth
- 1969 - That's Where It's At!
- 1969 - Get Back Home (First Issue)
- 1970 - If You Miss 'Im...I Got 'Im
- 1970 - John Lee Hooker on the Waterfront
- 1970 - Moanin' and Stompin' Blues
- 1971 - Endless Boogie
- 1971 - Goin' Down Highway 51
- 1971 - Half A Stranger
- 1971 - Hooker 'N' Heat/Infinite boogie
- 1971 - I Feel Good
- 1971 - Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive
- 1972 - Detroit Special
- 1972 - Live At Soledad Prison
- 1973 - Born In Mississippi, Raised Up In Tennessee
- 1974 - Free Beer And Chicken
- 1974 - Mad Man Blues
- 1976 - Alone
- 1976 - In Person
- 1977 - Black Snake
- 1977 - Dusty Road
- 1978 - The Cream
- 1979 - Sad And Lonesome
- 1980 - Everybody Rockin'
- 1980 - Sittin' Here Thinkin'
- 1981 - Hooker 'n' Heat (Recorded Live at the Fox Venice Theatre)
- 1987 - Jealous
- 1988 - Trouble Blues
- 1989 - Highway Of Blues
- 1989 - John Lee Hooker's 40th Anniversary Album
- 1989 - The Detroit Lion
- 1989 - The Healer
- 1990 _ The Hot Spot (Featuring Miles Davis)
- 1990 - Don't You Remember Me
- 1991 - More Real Folk Blues: The Missing Album
- 1991 - Mr. Lucky
- 1992 - Boom Boom
- 1992 - This Is Hip
- 1992 - Urban Blues
- 1993 - Nothing But The Blues
- 1994 - King of the Boogie
- 1994 - Original Folk Blues...Plus
- 1994 - Dimples (Classic Blues)
- 1995 - Alternative Boogie: Early Studio Recordings, 1948-1952
- 1995 - Chill Out
- 1995 - Whiskey & Wimmen
- 1995 - Blues for Big Town
- 1996 - Moanin' the Blues (Eclipse)
- 1996 - Alone: The First Concert
- 1997 - Don't Look Back
- 1997 - Alone: The Second Concert
- 1998 - Black Man Blues
- 2000 - On Campus
- 2001 - Concert at Newport
- 2001 - The Cream (Re-issue)
- 2001 - The Real Blues: Live in Houston 1979
- 2002 - Live At Newport
- 2003 - Face to Face
- 2003 - Burning Hell (Our World)
- 2003 - Rock With Me
- 2004 - Jack O' Diamonds: The 1949 Recordings
Compilations
- 1974 - Mad Man Blues (Chess 1951-1966)
- 1987 - Don't Look Back
- 1989 - The Hook: 20 Years of Hits
- 1991 - Hobo Blues
- 1991 - The Chess Masters
- 1991 - The Complete Chess Folk Blues Sessions (The Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues)
- 1991 - The Ultimate Collection 1948-1990
- 1992 - Best Of: 1965-1974
- 1992 - The Ultimate Collection (Universal)
- 1992 - The Vee-Jay Years, 1955 - 1964
- 1993 - Boom Boom (UK only)
- 1993 - Boogie Man
- 1993 - The Legendary Modern Recordings 1948-1954
- 1994 - Blues Collection (Boogie Man)
- 1994 - John Lee Hooker (LaserLight)
- 1994 - The Early Years
- 1994 - Wandering Blues
- 1995 - Red Blooded Blues
- 1995 - The Very Best Of
- 1996 - Blues Legend
- 1996 - Live at Cafe au Go-Go (and Soledad Prison)
- 1997 - His Best Chess Sides
- 1997 - Live In Concert
- 1997 - The Essential Collection
- 1998 - The Best of Friends
- 1998 - The Complete 50's Chess Recordings
- 1999 - Best of John Lee Hooker: 20th Century Masters
- 1999 - This Is Hip
- 2000 - The Definitive Collection
- 2001 - Born With The Blues
- 2001 - Gold Collection
- 2001 - Legendary Blues Recordings: John Lee Hooker
- 2002 - Blues Before Sunrise
- 2002 - The Complete - Vol. 1
- 2002 - The Complete - Vol. 2
- 2002 - The Complete - Vol. 3
- 2002 - The Complete - Vol. 4
- 2002 - The Classic Early Years 1948-51 (UK, London's JSP Records,4CD's)
- 2002 - The Real Folk Blues/More Real Folk Blues
- 2002 - Timeless Collection
- 2003 - Blues Kingpins
- 2003 - Final Recordings, Vol. 1: Face to Face
- 2003 - The Collection 1948-52
- 2004 - Don't Look Back: Complete Blues
- 2004 - The Complete - Vol. 5
- 2005 - The Complete - Vol. 6
- 2005 - The Early Years - Vol. 1
See also
References
- Boogie Man: Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American 20th Century, by Charles Shaar Murray, ISBN 0-14-016890-7.
External links
- Discography and album ratings
- Official John Lee Hooker Site
- John Lee Hooker Resource Page
- John Lee Hooker 1980 Blues Foundation Induction into Hall of Fame