SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
WINTER, 2017
VOLUME FOUR NUMBER ONE
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
JILL SCOTT
DAVID MURRAY
(February 25--March 3)
OLIVER LAKE
(March 4–10)
GERALD WILSON
(March 11-17)
DON BYRON
(March 18-24)
KENNY GARRETT
(March 25-31)
COLEMAN HAWKINS
(April 1-7)
ELMORE JAMES
(April 8-14)
WES MONTGOMERY
(April 15-21)
FELA KUTI
(April 22-28)
OLIVER NELSON
(April 29-May 5)
SON HOUSE
(May 6-12)
JOHN LEE HOOKER
(May 13-19)
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-lee-hooker-mn0000815039/biography
John Lee Hooker
(1917-2001)
Artist Biography by Bill Dahl
He was beloved worldwide as the king of the endless
boogie, a genuine blues superstar whose droning, hypnotic one-chord
grooves were at once both ultra-primitive and timeless. But John Lee Hooker recorded in a great many more styles than that over a career that stretched across more than half a century.
"The Hook" was a Mississippi native who became the
top gent on the Detroit blues circuit in the years following World War
II. The seeds for his eerily mournful guitar sound were planted by his
stepfather, Will Moore, while Hooker was in his teens. Hooker
had been singing spirituals before that, but the blues took hold and
simply wouldn't let go. Overnight visitors left their mark on the youth,
too: legends like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, and Blind Blake, who all knew Moore.
Hooker
heard Memphis calling while he was still in his teens, but he couldn't
gain much of a foothold there. So he relocated to Cincinnati for a
seven-year stretch before making the big move to the Motor City in 1943.
Jobs were plentiful, but Hooker
drifted away from day gigs in favor of playing his unique free-form
brand of blues. A burgeoning club scene along Hastings Street didn't
hurt his chances any.
In 1948, the aspiring bluesman hooked up with
entrepreneur Bernie Besman, who helped him hammer out his solo debut
sides, "Sally Mae" and its seminal flip, "Boogie Chillen." This was
blues as primitive as anything then on the market; Hooker's
dark, ruminative vocals were backed only by his own ringing, heavily
amplified guitar and insistently pounding foot. Their efforts were
quickly rewarded. Los Angeles-based Modern Records issued the sides and
"Boogie Chillen" -- a colorful, unique travelogue of Detroit's blues
scene -- made an improbable jaunt to the very peak of the R&B
charts.
Modern released several more major hits by "the
Boogie Man" after that: "Hobo Blues" and its raw-as-an-open wound flip,
"Hoogie Boogie"; "Crawling King Snake Blues" (all three 1949 smashes);
and the unusual 1951 chart-topper "I'm in the Mood," where Hooker overdubbed his voice three times in a crude early attempt at multi-tracking.
But Hooker
never, ever let something as meaningless as a contract stop him for
making recordings for other labels. His early catalog is stretched
across a road map of diskeries so complex that it's nearly impossible to
fully comprehend (a vast array of recording aliases don't make things
any easier).
Along with Modern, Hooker recorded for King (as the geographically challenged Texas Slim), Regent (as Delta John,
a far more accurate handle), Savoy (as the wonderfully surreal
Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar), Danceland (as the downright
delicious Little Pork Chops), Staff (as Johnny Williams),
Sensation (for whom he scored a national hit in 1950 with "Huckle Up,
Baby"), Gotham, Regal, Swing Time, Federal, Gone (as John Lee Booker),
Chess, Acorn (as the Boogie Man), Chance, DeLuxe (as Johnny Lee), JVB, Chart, and Specialty; before finally settling down at Vee-Jay in 1955 under his own name. Hooker became the point man for the growing Detroit blues scene during this incredibly prolific period, recruiting guitarist Eddie Kirkland as his frequent duet partner while still recording for Modern.
Once tied in with Vee-Jay, the rough-and-tumble sound of Hooker's solo and duet waxings was adapted to a band format. Hooker had recorded with various combos along the way before, but never with sidemen as versatile and sympathetic as guitarist Eddie Taylor and harpist Jimmy Reed,
who backed him at his initial Vee-Jay date that produced "Time Is
Marching" and the superfluous sequel "Mambo Chillun."
Taylor stuck around for a 1956 session that elicited two genuine Hooker classics, "Baby Lee" and "Dimples," and he was still deftly anchoring the rhythm section (Hooker's
sense of timing was his and his alone, demanding big-eared sidemen)
when the Boogie Man finally made it back to the R&B charts in 1958
with "I Love You Honey."
Vee-Jay presented Hooker
in quite an array of settings during the early '60s. His grinding,
tough blues "No Shoes" proved a surprisingly sizable hit in 1960, while
the storming "Boom Boom," his top seller for the firm in 1962 (it even
cracked the pop airwaves), was an infectious R&B dance number
benefiting from the reported presence of some of Motown's house
musicians. But there were also acoustic outings aimed squarely at the
blossoming folk-blues crowd, as well as some attempts at up-to-date
R&B that featured highly intrusive female background vocals
(allegedly by the Vandellas) and utterly unyielding structures that hemmed Hooker in unmercifully.
British blues bands such as the Animals and Yardbirds idolized Hooker during the early '60s; Eric Burdon's boys cut a credible 1964 cover of "Boom Boom" that outsold Hooker's original on the American pop charts. Hooker
visited Europe in 1962 under the auspices of the first American Folk
Blues Festival, leaving behind the popular waxings "Let's Make It" and
"Shake It Baby" for foreign consumption.
Back home, Hooker
cranked out gems for Vee-Jay through 1964 ("Big Legs, Tight Skirt," one
of his last offerings on the logo, was also one of his best), before
undergoing another extended round of label-hopping (except this time, he
was waxing whole LPs instead of scattered 78s). Verve-Folkways,
Impulse, Chess, and BluesWay all enticed him into recording for them in
1965-1966 alone! His reputation among hip rock cognoscenti in the States
and abroad was growing exponentially, especially after he teamed up
with blues-rockers Canned Heat for the massively selling album Hooker 'n' Heat in 1970.
Eventually, though, the endless boogie formula grew incredibly stagnant. Much of Hooker's
1970s output found him laying back while plodding rock-rooted rhythm
sections assumed much of the work load. A cameo in the 1980 movie The
Blues Brothers was welcome, if far too short.
But Hooker wasn't through; not by a long shot. With the expert help of slide guitarist extraordinaire/producer Roy Rogers, the Hook waxed The Healer, an album that marked the first of his guest star-loaded albums (Carlos Santana, Bonnie Raitt, and Robert Cray were among the luminaries to cameo on the disc, which picked up a Grammy).
Major labels were just beginning to take notice of the growing demand for blues records, and Pointblank snapped Hooker up, releasing Mr. Lucky (this time teaming Hooker with everyone from Albert Collins and John Hammond to Van Morrison and Keith Richards). Once again, Hooker was resting on his laurels by allowing his guests to wrest much of the spotlight away from him on his own album, but by then, he'd earned it. Another Pointblank set, Boom Boom, soon followed.
Happily, Hooker enjoyed the good life throughout the '90s. He spent much of his time in semi-retirement, splitting his relaxation time between several houses acquired up and down the California coast. When the right offer came along, though, he took it, including an amusing TV commercial for Pepsi. He also kept recording, releasing such star-studded efforts as 1995's Chill Out and 1997's Don't Look Back. All this helped him retain his status as a living legend, and he remained an American musical icon; and his stature wasn't diminished upon his death from natural causes on June 21, 2001.
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/john-lee-hooker
John Lee Hooker
1991
John Lee Hooker is a giant of the blues and the father of the boogie.
Beginning in 1948 with his first single, “Boogie Chillen,” he
introduced the world to the persistent, chugging rhythm of boogie music,
a form of country blues Hooker learned back home in Mississippi. His
foot-stomping boogie was adapted and amplified in the Sixties and
Seventies by a great number of rock and roll artists, including the
Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Canned Heat, John Mayall, Ten Years
After, Foghat, ZZ Top and George Thorogood. Beyond his ability to lock
into a hypnotic boogie groove, Hooker is renowned for the gruff
emotionality of his voice and the stark intensity of his guitar playing.
Over the decades, he has proven to be a survivor. When interest in
electric blues began cooling off, Hooker found a niche for himself on
the coffeehouse circuit during the acoustic folk-music boom of the late
Fifties and early Sixties. More recently, his career has enjoyed a
sustained resurgence that included a Grammy award for his 1989 album The
Healer.
Hooker was born on August 22, 1917, to a sharecropping family in
Clarksdale, Mississippi. His stepfather, Will Moore, taught him how to
play guitar, and as a young man Hooker encountered such blues legends as
Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake along the way. In
his early teens, Hooker ran off to Memphis, where he worked as a
theater usher and played music on the side. He also lived in Cincinnati
and Knoxville before settling down in Detroit in 1943. He labored in an
auto factory by day and played blues at house parties and clubs along
the city’s legendary Hastings Street. In 1948, he recorded “Boogie
Chillen,” an enormously influential single that was picked up for
national distribution by Modern Records and rose to Number One on the
R&B chart in 1949.
Hooker went on to record for more than two dozen labels, often
resorting to aliases such as John Lee Cooker, Delta John and the Boogie
Man for contractual reasons. Much of his most popular work, including
the classic versions of “Boom Boom” and “Crawling Kingsnake,” appeared
on the Vee-Jay label. Beloved by rock and rollers, Hooker has never
lacked for support and collaborators. In 1970 Canned Heat collaborated
with Hooker on a landmark double album entitled Hooker ‘n’ Heat. Hooker
appeared in The Blues Brothers movie, sang the title role on Pete
Townshend’s concept album The Iron Man, and has duetted with Van
Morrison. His latter-day projects have attracted such contributors as
Carlos Santana, Keith Richards, Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt and Los Lobos.
In October 1990, a host of friends and admirers participated in an
all-star concert celebration of Hooker’s music at Madison Square
Garden.”
John Lee Hooker, the bluesman whose stark, one-chord boogies were some of the feistiest and most desolate songs of the 20th century, died yesterday in his sleep at his home in Los Altos, Calif., said his agent, Mike Kappus. He was 83.
Mr. Hooker's music stayed close to its Mississippi Delta roots. Usually playing an electric guitar with a menacing hint of distortion, he picked barbed, syncopated guitar riffs that went on to become cornerstones of rock. Electrified for tough urban crowds, they harked back to the rural South and to West Africa. ''I don't play a lot of fancy guitar,'' he once told an interviewer. ''The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean, mean licks.''
And with his deep, implacable voice, he sang of lust and loneliness, rage and despair in songs so bleak that they sometimes made him cry behind his dark glasses.
''No matter what anybody says, it all comes down to the same thing,'' he once said.
''A man and a woman, a broken heart and a broken home.''
''A man and a woman, a broken heart and a broken home.''
Mr. Hooker's songs stoked the blues-rock of the 1960's. They were picked up by English and American rockers, among them the Rolling Stones, Canned Heat, the Animals and, later, Z Z Top and George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Mr. Hooker estimated that he recorded more than 100 albums, and he toured everywhere from juke joints to concert halls.
Mr. Hooker was born Aug. 17, 1917, near Clarksdale, Miss. He was one of 11 children in a sharecropper family on a cotton plantation. His father was a minister, and he learned gospel songs in church. But he learned the blues and the beat he called the ''country boogie'' from his stepfather, William Moore. The bluesmen Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charley Patton were among the visitors to the Moore household; Mr. Hooker also learned from other Mississippi musicians and from phonograph records. He started playing on strings made from strips of inner tube nailed to a barn, then moved on to the guitar.
As a teenager, he ran away to become a musician. ''I was young and had a lot of nerve,'' he said in an interview with David S. Rotenstein. ''I knew I would get nowhere down in Mississippi and I ran away by night. I thought for sure I was gonna make it.''
Mr. Hooker made his way to Memphis, where he worked as an usher in the segregated W. C. Handy movie theater on Beale Street. He soaked up more blues playing with musicians like Robert Nighthawk before heading farther north. In Cincinnati at the end of the 1930's, he sang with gospel groups, including the Fairfield Four and the Big Six, and in 1943 he moved to Detroit. There, he worked in steel and automobile factories and played in the blues clubs.
Mr. Hooker made his first recordings in 1948 for Sensation Records, and he almost immediately had rhythm-and-blues hits, beginning with ''Boogie Chillun,'' a guitar-driven tour of the Detroit ghetto. In the song, the narrator reminisces:
''One night I was layin' down/I heard Mama and Papa talkin'/I heard Papa tell Mama,/Let that boy boogie-woogie/It's in him and it got to come out!''
Soon he quit his job to play the blues full time. Evading exclusive recording contracts, Mr. Hooker's label leased his recordings under pseudonyms, including Delta John, John Lee Booker, Birmingham Sam and His Magic Guitar, The Boogie Man and Texas Slim. Although Mr. Hooker played clubs with a band, he often recorded solo, stomping his foot for a beat. He continued to make hits under his name, including ''Crawling Kingsnake Blues,'' ''Hobo Blues,'' ''I'm in the Mood'' (a million-selling single in 1951), ''Dimples'' and, in 1962, ''Boom Boom.'' By then, he had moved to Chess Records, then to Vee-Jay Records, a Chicago label, and was recording with full bands.
Yesterday, Ms. Raitt said in a statement: ''I'm deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend and one of the last and greatest of the original Delta bluesmen. John Lee's power and influence in the world of Rock, R & B, Jazz and Blues are a legacy that will never die. Getting to know and work with him these last 30 years has truly been one of the great joys of my life. I'm so very grateful to have known him, and know that he went not in pain, truly loved and appreciated the world round.''
''When I was a child he was the first circus I wanted to run away with,'' Mr. Santana, the guitarist, said of Mr. Hooker. ''He, Jimmy Reed and Lightnin' Hopkins were the foundation for all of my music.''
Mr. Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and received a tribute concert at Madison Square Garden with performances by Ms. Raitt, Gregg Allman, Bo Diddley and others. Although he announced he would retire from touring in the mid-1990's, he continued to record until 1997 with many other guest musicians for Pointblank/Virgin Records, and received two more Grammy awards in 1997 for his album ''Don't Look Back'' (Best Traditional Blues Album) and for a duet with Mr. Morrison (Best Pop Collaboration). A compilation from his 1989-1997 albums, ''The Best of Friends,'' was released by Virgin in 1998.
In 1997, Mr. Hooker bought a San Francisco club to present the blues, calling it John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room.
Through five decades of recording and countless collaborators, Mr. Hooker maintained the Delta style. ''I just got smarter and added things on to mine,'' he once said, ''but I got the same bottom, the same beat that I've always had. I'd never change that, 'cause if I change that, I wouldn't be John Lee Hooker any more.''
Mr. Hooker is survived by eight children: Francis McBee Hooker, Diane Hooker-Roan, Zakiya Hooker Bell, John Lee Hooker Jr., Robert Hooker, Shyvonne Hooker, Karen Hooker and Lavetta Williams. He is also survived by a nephew, Archie Hooker; 19 grandchildren; and numerous great-grandchildren.
http://www.michiganrockandrolllegends.com/mrrl-hall-of-fame/94-john-lee-hooker
MRRL Hall of Fame
JOHN LEE HOOKER
InducteesJOHN LEE HOOKER
John Lee Hooker was Michigan’s greatest Blues musician. His one-chord boogie compositions, growling vocals, and rhythmic electric guitar style made him one of the most important historical links between the Blues and Rock and Roll.
Hooker was born near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1917, the fourth of eleven children. John Lee’s father was a sharecropper and a Baptist minister. As a child, John Lee’s first musical experiences involved singing in the church choir.
After his parents divorced, Hooker became interested in Blues music when his sister Alice began dating a guitar player named Tony Hollins. John Lee’s first musical instrument was an inner tube that he nailed to the barn door and would pull with one hand and pluck with the other. Hollins would later give John Lee his first guitar, an old Silvertone model.
The next significant step in John Lee’s musical development came when his mother remarried. His stepfather was a farmer named William Moore who was also a highly respected regional Blues artist. Moore encouraged John Lee and allowed him access to his record collection that included 78’s of Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, LeRoy Carr, and Blind Blake.
Hooker listened to the records over and over but his greatest influence would be the guitar style of his stepfather. Although William Moore never recorded, he sometimes worked with the legendary Charlie Patton, and he had a unique way of playing the guitar that young John Lee emulated. Years later Hooker would be quoted as saying, “All I listened to mostly was my stepdaddy, ‘cause I was into him just like he was God. The style I’m playing now, that’s what he was playing then”.
John Lee was not interested in the life of a sharecropper so at the age of fourteen, he left home to live with an aunt in Memphis. He worked as an usher at a black movie house for three years before moving north to live with another aunt in Cincinnati. There he found work with the Phillips Tank & Pump Co. and did some singing with a few local gospel quartets.
By the 1940’s, the Depression was ending and Hooker kept hearing about the opportunities for a black man in Detroit. The United States’ entry into World War II further boosted the activity in the Motor City and almost guaranteed a young black man a high-paying job. Hooker moved to Detroit in 1943. He arrived by Greyhound bus in Black Bottom, a sixty-six block area that was home to most of the city’s 150,000 black residents. Hooker found a place to live in a rooming house and got a job at the Ford River Rouge Plant.
By the late 1940’s, Hooker was married and had children. He had a daytime job as a janitor at the Dodge Main Plant and at night he played guitar and sang at various house parties. In 1948, he took a job on the day shift at Comco Steel. At night he still played for tips at rent parties, but he was now branching out into the bars and clubs in Detroit’s black entertainment district known as Paradise Valley.
John Lee played most often at the Apex Bar on Oakland Avenue. It was there that he was discovered by a black record store owner named Elmer Barbee. Barbee had a small recording studio at the rear of his shop, and he invited John Lee over to record some demos. Barbee then introduced Hooker to Bernie Besman, the owner of a small local label called Sensation Records and co-owner of Pan American Music Distributors. Besman liked John Lee’s demos and signed him to a personal management contract.
Besman arranged for Hooker’s first major
appearance at a concert at the Broadway Capitol Theatre in Detroit
where he closed the show with a very impressive solo performance.
Besman then set up a recording session for John Lee at United Sound, Detroit’s premier recording studio. Hooker usually played with pianist James Watkins and drummer Curtis Foster in Detroit clubs, but on this session, he played alone. John Lee’s first big hit, “Boogie Chillen” was recorded that night. He based the song on a number that he heard his stepfather do when John Lee was still a young boy.
Because Sensation Records was such a small operation, Besman leased “Boogie Chillen” to Modern Records, a label that operated out of Los Angeles and was owned by the Bihari brothers. Released at the end of 1948, the record reached # 1 on the R&B charts early in 1949.
The overwhelming success of “Boogie Chillen” enabled John Lee to quit his day job and become a full-time musician. Hooker quickly followed up his big hit on Modern with the two-sided R&B smash, “”Hobo Blues/Hoogie Boogie”. Both sides of the record made the Top Ten on the R&B charts in the spring of 1949. John Lee completed an amazing first year as a recording artist with another Top Ten R&B single, “Crawling King Snake Blues”.
John Lee Hooker’s music was in such
demand that he released records for other labels under a variety of
names such as John Lee Booker, Texas Slim, Birmingham Sam, Delta John,
and Boogie Man. In 1950, John Lee released “Huckle Up, Baby” on Besman’s
Sensation label, and it reached # 15 on the R&B charts.
Hooker seemed to save his best material, however, for release on the Modern label. His biggest hit came in 1951, as John Lee’s “I’m In The Mood” topped the R&B charts for four weeks and sold over a million copies. The song even managed to reach # 30 on Billboard’s Pop charts. Hooker claimed that Glenn Miller’s 1939 big band hit “In The Mood” was the inspiration for the song, but John Lee’s song sounds nothing like Miller’s.
Hooker’s contract with Modern expired at the end of 1954, and he signed a recording contract with Vee-Jay Records of Chicago. He continued to live and record in Detroit, however, and he performed locally with his Motor City-based band, the Boogie Ramblers.
By this time the vogue for solo
singer-guitarists had passed and Vee-Jay recorded Hooker with his
band. “Dimples” released as a single in 1956 is a good example of John
Lee’s sound at this time. Hooker’s first charting hit for Vee-Jay was “I
Love You Honey” in 1958.
In 1959, John Lee Hooker signed with Riverside Records and made his debut performance at the prestigious Newport Folk Festival. John Lee recorded his first album for the jazz-oriented label. He also recorded for the first time with an acoustic guitar as the folk audience expected “authentic” Blues musicians to perform without electric instruments. The 1960 Riverside single, “I Need Some Money”, was based on Barrett Strong’s then current hit single “Money” and features Hooker on acoustic guitar.
John Lee was back on Vee-Jay for 1960’s R&B hit “No Shoes”. His last R&B chart hit for the label was 1962’s “Boom Boom”. The song idea came from a waitress at a Detroit club where Hooker regularly performed. John Lee was consistently late for his gig and the waitress would chide him by pointing her finger at him like a gun and saying, “Boom boom, you late again”. Hooker worked it into a song and recorded it with some moonlighting members of Motown’s Funk Brothers at United Sound. The song peaked at # 18 on the R&B charts and even reached # 60 on the Hot 100.
During the early 60’s, Hooker had begun to tour extensively in Europe where he was held in great esteem. He also enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in America from an unlikely source. The British Invasion bands included many groups like the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, and the Animals who were steeped in the Blues and had recorded versions of classic Blues songs.
The Animals, with gravelly-voiced lead singer Eric Burdon, covered three of Hooker’s compositions and had a chart hit with their reworking of “Boom Boom” in early 1965. As a result of these British bands and American groups like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the J. Geils Band, and Canned Heat, Hooker as well as other great Blues artists such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf gained a legion of young white fans.
Hooker recorded albums for a myriad of different labels in the 60’s and 70’s including Chess, Vee-Jay, Impulse, Stateside, Red Lightnin’, Crescendo, United Artists, BluesWay, Liberty, Labor, ABC, and Specialty. His most successful LP during this period was a double album with Canned Heat called “Hooker ‘n’ Heat” that reached # 73 on Billboard’s album charts in 1970. John Lee continued to tour in the 70’s and 80’s often opening for rock acts. In 1980, he performed “Boom Boom” in The Blues Brothers film.
The late 80’s saw yet another resurgence of John Lee Hooker. He sang the title role in Pete Townshend’s 1989 album “The Iron Man”. That same year he joined the Rolling Stones for their pay-per-view concert in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He also released his biggest-selling album, “The Healer” and earned his first Grammy Award for his duet with Bonnie Raitt on their version of “I’m In The Mood”.
In 1990, New York’s Madison Square Garden hosted an all-star concert celebrating Hooker’s music. That same year he joined Miles Davis on the Grammy-nominated movie soundtrack “The Hot Spot”.
In 1991, John Lee Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was nominated that year for another Grammy for his album “Mr. Lucky” which featured tracks with Keith Richards, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana, and others.
More successful albums followed including 1992’s “Boom Boom”, 1995’s “Chill Out”, and the Van Morrison-produced “Don’t Look Back” in 1997. Hooker was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in 2000. He died in his sleep the following year at the age of 83.
John Lee Hooker was voted into Michigan Rock and Roll Legends in 2007.
Video:
Watch John Lee Hooker's 1960's solo performance of "Boom Boom" at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyj4ciJk34
Dr. J. Recommends:
“Hooker” Shout Factory, 4 CD, Box Set, 2006. This is the ultimate collection for the John Lee Hooker fan. The four discs cover his entire career, and the set has a very informative booklet.
“The Very Best Of John Lee Hooker” Rhino CD, 1995. If you don’t want to shell out the big bucks for the box set, this 16 song collection covers some of the best recordings of John Lee’s career from the years 1948 to 1980.
“John Lee Hooker: Come See About Me, The Definitive DVD” This
is an absolute must-have for any fan of John Lee Hooker. This is the
first official DVD from the Hooker estate archives, and its eighteen
riveting performances cover the years 1960 through 1994.
Internet and Video Links:
www.johnleehooker.com This is the official John Lee Hooker Web site. It contains quite a few photographs of the great bluesman, a partial discography, some audio song samples, biographical data, and information about the non-profit John Lee Hooker Foundation.
You can check out some cool John Lee Hooker videos by clicking on www.youtube.com/ and typing John Lee Hooker in the Search box at the top of the page.
GRAMMY Museum® to celebrate Blues legend John Lee Hooker
JOHN LEE HOOKER
(1917-2001)
The GRAMMY Museum®, in conjunction with the John Lee Hooker Estate, Craft Recordings and the Catalog Division of Concord Music Group, will celebrate the centennial of the legendary GRAMMY®-winning bluesman with the opening of a new exhibit titled “John Lee Hooker: King of the Boogie,” on Aug. 22 at GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, Mississippi, Hooker’s home state.
The exhibit will open on what would have been the late blues icon’s 100th birthday and will celebrate Hooker’s lasting legacy through rare recordings, photos and one-of-a-kind artifacts.
The exhibit is part of a year-long celebration of Hooker’s musical legacy that features special releases from Craft Recordings, a conference at Delta State University and special exhibits at the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and the Memphis-based Blues Foundation. The exhibit’s official media partners are Oxford American and Living Blues.
“John Lee Hooker was truly a seminal blues artist. Many of his songs are part of America’s blues music treasury,” saidBob Santelli, blues historian and founding executive director of the GRAMMY Museum. “In addition to impacting blues history, Hooker’s music influenced great rock bands like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Yardbirds and ZZ Top. We’re thrilled to honor the King of the Boogie’s legacy and tell the story of his incredible career in his own home state.”
On display at GRAMMY Museum Mississippi throughout the fall of 2017, the exhibit will feature:
- Rare and never-before-heard recordings from Hooker
- Instruments such as Hooker’s Gibson ES-335
- Hooker’s “Best Traditional Blues Album GRAMMY for 1997’s Don’t Look Back,” which was co-produced by Van Morrison and Mike Kappus
- Rare photos, performance outfits and more
“John Lee Hooker is gone but not forgotten. In collaboration with the GRAMMY Museum and our partners, the John Lee Hooker family is pleased and honored to be able to bring to the public the artifacts in this exhibit, donated not just by family but by his very dear friends and associates,” said Diane Roan-Hooker and Zakiya Hooker, daughters of the legendary blues artist. “This centennial is a celebration of John Lee Hooker’s amazing life and his love of the music that he shared with the world.”
To celebrate 100 years of Hooker’s music, Craft Recordings will issue a series of titles throughout 2017, culminating with a centennial CD box set, offering 100 career-spanning hits and rarities, plus previously unreleased material. Concord will also reissue several classic Hooker titles on 180-gram vinyl, as well as digitally, in hi-res and MFiT formats. To kick off the centennial celebrations, the label issued a 16-track collection of songs from the prime of Hooker’s career on its Vee-Jay imprint. “Whiskey & Wimmen: John Lee Hooker’s Finest” was released March 31 on vinyl and CD, offering classic tracks from the ’50s and ’60s, including “Boom Boom” and “Dimples.”
Other organizations celebrating the centennial include the Delta Blues Museum, which will host a special exhibit about Hooker featuring clothing, guitars, recordings and more, opening in July. The celebration will continue through August as the museum celebrates its annual “John Lee Hooker Month.” The Delta Blues Museum Band will perform Hooker’s songs when they open the 30th annual Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival on Aug. 11. The festival will run through Aug. 13. More information about celebratory activities at the Delta Blues Museum can be found at www.deltabluesmuseum.org.
Hooker’s 1996 album, “Real Folk Blues,” is being inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame at a ceremony coordinated by The Blues Foundation on May 10 in Memphis. In addition, The Blues Foundation will be opening a new exhibit, “The Rosebud Agency and Mike Kappus: 45+ Years Sharing the Music,” which will include a special display of Hooker artifacts, curated by Mike Kappus, long-time manager for Hooker. The exhibit will open on May 10, in conjunction with the Blues Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, and will run through October 2017.
In addition, the fourth annual International Conference on the Blues at Delta State University is scheduled for Oct. 1-3. With an established record of attracting internationally renowned blues scholars and GRAMMY Award-winning talent, the upcoming conference promises to deliver an extra dose of educational and celebratory flair. In partnership with GRAMMY Museum Mississippi, the conference will commemorate the John Lee Hooker Centennial this year.
To stay abreast of developments with the conference, visit www.deltastate.edu/bluesconference/.
About John Lee Hooker:
With a prolific career that spanned over five decades, legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker remains a foundational figure in the development of modern music, having influenced countless artists around the globe with his simple, yet deeply effective style. Known to music fans around the world as the “King of the Boogie,” Hooker endures as one of the true superstars of the blues — the ultimate beholder of cool. His work is widely recognized for its impact on modern music — his simple, yet deeply effective songs transcend borders and languages around the globe.
Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi, on Aug. 22, 1917, to a sharecropping family, Hooker’s earliest musical influence came from his stepfather, William Moore, a blues musician who taught his young stepson to play guitar, and whom Hooker later credited for his unique style on the instrument. By the early ‘40s, Hooker had moved north to Detroit by way of Memphis and Cincinnati.
By day, he was a janitor in the auto factories, but by night, like many other transplants from the rural Delta, he entertained friends and neighbors by playing at house parties. “The Hook” gained fans around town from these shows, including local record store owner Elmer Barbee. Barbee was so impressed by the young musician that he introduced him to Bernard Besman, a producer, record distributor and the owner of Sensation Records.
By 1948, Hooker—now honing his style on an electric guitar, had recorded several songs for Besman, who, in turn, leased the tracks to nationally distributed Modern Records. Among these first recordings was “Boogie Chillun,” (soon after appearing as “Boogie Chillen”) which became a No.1 jukebox hit, selling over one million copies. This success was soon followed by a string of hits, including “I’m in the Mood,” “Crawling Kingsnake” and “Hobo Blues.” Over the next 15 years, Hooker signed to a new label, Vee-Jay Records, and maintained a prolific recording schedule, releasing over 100 songs on the imprint.
When the young bohemian artists of the ‘60s discovered Hooker, among other notable blues originators, he found his career taking on a new direction. With the folk movement in high gear, Hooker returned to his solo, acoustic roots, and was in strong demand to perform at colleges and folk festivals around the country. Across the Atlantic, emerging British bands were idolizing Hooker’s work. Artists like the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds introduced Hooker’s sound to new and eager audiences, whose admiration and influence helped build Hooker up to superstar status. By 1970, Hooker had relocated to California and was busy collaborating on several projects with rock acts. One such collaboration was with rock band Canned Heat, which resulted in 1971’s hit record “Hooker ‘n’ Heat.” The double LP became Hooker’s first charting album.
Throughout the late ‘70s and ‘80s, Hooker toured the United States and Europe steadily. His appearance in the legendary “Blues Brothers” movie resulted in a heightened profile once again. Then, at age 72, Hooker released the biggest album of his career, “The Healer.” The GRAMMY Award-winning 1989 LP featured contemporary artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos and George Thorogood. “The Healer” was released to critical acclaim and sold over 1 million copies.
In the 1990s Hooker released five studio albums, including “Mr. Lucky,” which once again teamed Hooker with an array of artists; “Boom Boom,” which aimed to introduce new fans to his classic material; the GRAMMY-winning “Chill Out;” and a collaboration with Van Morrison, “Don’t Look Back,” which also garnered two GRAMMYs. Throughout the decade, Hooker’s great body of work and contributions to modern music were being recognized not only by his peers, but also by a younger generation. He became a familiar face in popular culture, with appearances on “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night with David Letterman.”
In 1990, a massive tribute concert took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden, featuring Hooker and an all-star lineup of guest artists. One year later, Hooker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1997 he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, shortly before his death, Hooker was recognized with a Recording Academy® Lifetime Achievement Award, and just one week before his passing, ever true to form, the bluesman spent his final Saturday night playing a now-legendary show to a packed house at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.
The Hook continues to live on. His music can regularly be heard in TV shows, commercials and films, and many of his tracks have also found a second life sampled in new songs — by the likes of R&B star Brandy, hip-hop legend Chuck D and French electronic musician St Germain, among many others. Most recently, in 2016 his iconic recording, the 1962 Vee-Jay Records single “Boom Boom,” was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame.
http://www.guitarworld.com/deep-john-lee-hooker-and-lightnin-hopkins
In Deep with Blues Masters John Lee Hooker and Lightnin' Hopkins
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
The blues is ripe for endless and constant reinvention. Through the decades, it has developed in many different incarnations.
These include plantation field hollers; the acoustic guitar playing
and songwriting mastery of Charlie Patton, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon
Jefferson, Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson; the Chicago, Memphis
and Texas blues of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and T-Bone Walker; and the
mid-to-late-Sixties blues-rock revolution spearheaded by
Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Today, bands such as the North Mississippi All-Stars, the Black Keys and Alabama Shakes continue to explore new ways to navigate the dark, swampy sounds honed through this long tradition of blues interpretation. In this edition of In Deep, we’ll be taking a look at the guitar work of two essential early blues guitar masters: John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins.
John Lee Hooker was born in 1917 in Coahoma County, Mississippi, and learned to play guitar from his stepfather, Willie Moore, who, conveniently for John Lee, was friends with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton. Hooker went on the road at age 14, joining legendary bluesman Robert Nighthawk in Memphis.
In 1948, Hooker began his recording career in style, cutting two incredible tunes—“Boogie Chillen’ ” and “Sally Mae”—at his first sessions, cut in Detroit. The songs were released on the Modern label, owned by the Bihari Brothers (who also recorded B.B. King’s earliest sides), and Hooker’s ascent to blues superstardom was underway.
Hooker performed and recorded a great many tunes on both acoustic and electric guitar in open A tuning (low to high, E A E A C# E), oftentimes using a capo at the first, second or third fret to perform in different keys. He picked with his fingers, primarily using his thumb to strike the bass strings and index finger to pluck the higher strings, and achieved a warm and very percussive sound, often performing alone or with another guitarist for accompaniment.
FIGURE 1 illustrates a rhythm figure along the lines
of “Boogie Chillen’.” Though written in 4/4, this figure is played with
a triplet, or swing-eighths, feel, which means that notes indicated as
pairs of eighth notes are actually sounded as a quarter note followed by
an eighth note within a triplet bracket.
Throughout this passage, the thumb and index finger alternate striking the lower and higher strings, with a quick, rolling double hammer-on occurring at the end of each bar. In bar 1, the hammer-on begins on the fourth fret and moves chromatically (one fret at a time) up to the sixth fret. In bar 2, the hammer-on starts on the second fret and moves up chromatically to the fourth fret. In bar 3, rapid slides up to the third fret are executed with an index-finger barre across the top two strings.
One of the fascinating aspects of Hooker’s open A playing was that he
often used only two primary chords, the “I” (one) and the “IV” (four),
forgoing the use of a “V” (five) chord that is common to the majority of
blues music. In open A tuning, Hooker would use a standard C “cowboy”
chord grip as his four chord, which yields an unusual Dadd9/C sound, as
illustrated in FIGURE 2.
Another interesting aspect of Hooker’s solo work is that he would often shift from a swinging triplet feel to the use of even, or “straight,” eighth notes, which provides great rhythmic contrast and tension. As shown in FIGURE 3, I begin with straight eighths on a sliding A7 chord voicing and then move back to the swinging feel when the initial riff is restated in bars 5–7.
Hooker also often used the D7/A voicing shown in FIGURE 4 for his
four chord: with the index finger barred across the top three strings at
the fifth fret, the pinkie is added and removed from the high E
string’s eighth fret. Robert Johnson often used this pattern to great
effect as well.
Hooker devised some great and very distinct licks in open A tuning, a few of which are presented in FIGURE 5.
Following index-finger slides on the top two strings, different A and
A7 voicings are followed by great single-note and double-stop licks
played on the middle strings using a bit of rhythmic syncopation. You
can hear Hooker play riffs like these on his classic song “Sally Mae.”
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons is a Hooker fanatic, and you can hear many of
these kinds of licks on Top classics like “La Grange” and “Jesus Just
Left Chicago.”
Combining open strings with single-note riffs is a central element of
Hooker’s style, made more effective with fingerpicking. FIGURE 6,
inspired by “Crawling Kingsnake,” and FIGURE 7, a nod to “Tease Me,”
offer a few more examples of how Hooker would combine a catchy melody
with an insistent root-note, open-string pedal tone.
In later years, Hooker relied more often on standard tuning, while
still using the capo on the first few frets for changing keys. A great
example of his playing style in standard tuning can be heard on “Boom
Boom Out Go the Lights.” FIGURE 8 offers an example in
this style, marrying a repeated melody, based on E minor pentatonic (E G
A B D) to an alternating bass line.
Lightnin’ Hopkins was born in 1912 in Centerville, Texas. Like Hooker, he learned directly from encounters with Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began his recording career in 1946 and went on to become one of the most influential blues guitarists ever. Elements of his style are clear in the playing of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and just about everyone that played or plays blues guitar.
Hopkins often performed unaccompanied acoustic guitar (or amplified acoustic), picking with his fingers in a manner similar to Hooker but with the use of a thumb pick.
FIGURES 9 and 10 offer examples of a mid-tempo swinging 12/8 blues played in his style, akin to his take on the blues classic “Goin’ Down Slow.”
http://www.metrotimes.com/city-slang/archives/2017/02/16/how-will-you-celebrate-john-lee-hookers-one-hundredth-birthday
Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Today, bands such as the North Mississippi All-Stars, the Black Keys and Alabama Shakes continue to explore new ways to navigate the dark, swampy sounds honed through this long tradition of blues interpretation. In this edition of In Deep, we’ll be taking a look at the guitar work of two essential early blues guitar masters: John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins.
John Lee Hooker was born in 1917 in Coahoma County, Mississippi, and learned to play guitar from his stepfather, Willie Moore, who, conveniently for John Lee, was friends with Blind Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton. Hooker went on the road at age 14, joining legendary bluesman Robert Nighthawk in Memphis.
In 1948, Hooker began his recording career in style, cutting two incredible tunes—“Boogie Chillen’ ” and “Sally Mae”—at his first sessions, cut in Detroit. The songs were released on the Modern label, owned by the Bihari Brothers (who also recorded B.B. King’s earliest sides), and Hooker’s ascent to blues superstardom was underway.
Hooker performed and recorded a great many tunes on both acoustic and electric guitar in open A tuning (low to high, E A E A C# E), oftentimes using a capo at the first, second or third fret to perform in different keys. He picked with his fingers, primarily using his thumb to strike the bass strings and index finger to pluck the higher strings, and achieved a warm and very percussive sound, often performing alone or with another guitarist for accompaniment.
Throughout this passage, the thumb and index finger alternate striking the lower and higher strings, with a quick, rolling double hammer-on occurring at the end of each bar. In bar 1, the hammer-on begins on the fourth fret and moves chromatically (one fret at a time) up to the sixth fret. In bar 2, the hammer-on starts on the second fret and moves up chromatically to the fourth fret. In bar 3, rapid slides up to the third fret are executed with an index-finger barre across the top two strings.
Another interesting aspect of Hooker’s solo work is that he would often shift from a swinging triplet feel to the use of even, or “straight,” eighth notes, which provides great rhythmic contrast and tension. As shown in FIGURE 3, I begin with straight eighths on a sliding A7 chord voicing and then move back to the swinging feel when the initial riff is restated in bars 5–7.
Lightnin’ Hopkins was born in 1912 in Centerville, Texas. Like Hooker, he learned directly from encounters with Blind Lemon Jefferson. He began his recording career in 1946 and went on to become one of the most influential blues guitarists ever. Elements of his style are clear in the playing of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan and just about everyone that played or plays blues guitar.
Hopkins often performed unaccompanied acoustic guitar (or amplified acoustic), picking with his fingers in a manner similar to Hooker but with the use of a thumb pick.
FIGURES 9 and 10 offer examples of a mid-tempo swinging 12/8 blues played in his style, akin to his take on the blues classic “Goin’ Down Slow.”
http://www.metrotimes.com/city-slang/archives/2017/02/16/how-will-you-celebrate-john-lee-hookers-one-hundredth-birthday
How will you celebrate John Lee Hooker's one hundredth birthday?
by Mike McGonigal
February 16, 2017
Detroit Metro Times
Detroit's finest blues musician turns one hundred years old this year,
in August. Sure, he was born in Mississippi. But John Lee Hooker became a
musician in Detroit, after moving here to work for Ford in the 1940s
like so many other thousands of black men from Mississippi. And it is
here between 1948 and 1955 that this genius of sharp modern boogie cut
all of his most important early records (including multiple titles under
a variety of pseudonyms to get around record label contracts).
We haven't heard whether or not the architects of New Detroit are going to dedicate a stretch of their expanded monorail to the artist, or throw up a little statue of him, or maybe name a really expensive cocktail bar after one of his songs. Maybe the centennial will be largely forgotten? It would be nice if there was a concerted effort to reissue some of his best music, like that one strange record he recorded for Impulse which I linked to last year. This compilation out next month might do for someone who doesn't really listen to music much; get it for your uncle, or whoever.
But how to rejoice? How to celebrate? Before you go making up your own neo bluegrass trip-hop remix of the guys' music yourself, perhaps just sit down and have a listen. Drink a tall glass of something. This person cut a lot of records in his career; this might take a minute. I'm having a latte, but you might opt for something else.
Let's all plan something real nice for his centennial on August 22. It just cannot be cheesy. Ideas?
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/27/john-lee-hooker-blues-100-years-10-best-songs
John Lee Hooker: 10 of the best from the blues legend
Blues
In what would have been his centennial, we take a look at the
essential tracks from an artist who, along with Chuck Berry, changed
rock forever
Call
John Lee Hooker a “blues legend” and you’re not just mouthing a cliche.
You’re missing the specificity of what he brought to the form, the
unique strand of DNA he sent coursing through the gene pool of countless
rockers and blues artists in his wake.
Hooker honed the blues into something new – a grinding, hymnal vamp,
which he finessed for all it was worth. Hooker’s essential sound
dispensed with the usual 12-bar blues progression to throw the focus on
the thrust of the rhythm. It’s deep groove music he made, with a sound
as indebted to the beat as funk, and as enamored of repetition as an
incantation. In Hooker’s greatest recordings, repetition bred intensity,
both in his guitar playing and in his vocals which, in their chanting,
droning cadence, could reach the transcendence of devotional singing.
All of this is worth noting as we approach what may or may not be the 100th anniversary of John Lee Hooker’s birth. The star, who died in 2001, upheld the blues tradition of not being overly concerned with exact birth dates. A variety of origin years have been credited by various sources, so let’s just settle on the one chosen by the record company now releasing his music, Vee-Jay Records. It picked this year to toast his centennial, marked by a well-curated, 16-song compilation of Hooker’s work, titled Whiskey & Wimmen, out on 31 March.
Hooker’s anniversary will arrive two weeks after the loss of another pivotal figure in 20th-century music – Chuck Berry, who was 90. In the same way Berry proved crucial to creating rock’n’roll, Hooker held a seminal role in the birth of the boogie branch of blues. On one level, his style transposed the earlier style of boogie-woogie piano to the guitar, then distilled it down to a groundbreaking, minimalist kind of blues. To help create it, he used a different tuning than most blues players do. He went with “standard” tuning, as opposed to the “open” tuning favored by most such artists. Hooker learned that style from his stepfather, Will Moore, an entertainer himself who had worked with Charley Patton and Son House. Hooker, who was born in Coahoma County, Mississippi, left the family by age 14 and went to live in Memphis, where he performed on Beale Street. He cut his first records, starting with 1948’s Boogie Chillen, for the LA-based Modern Records. Hooker’s early songs were all singles, for a variety of labels, but he later developed into a prolific album artist imitated by thousands. Over the years, his songs were covered by stars such as the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana and countless others. Amid his sprawling catalogue, these 10 pieces best express his rarity and genius.
http://www.johnleehooker.com/
http://www.johnleehooker.com/history/biography
Biography
By the early 1940s, Hooker had moved north to Detroit by way of Memphis and Cincinnati. By day, he was a janitor in the auto factories, but by night, like many other transplants from the rural Delta, he entertained friends and neighbors by playing at house parties. “The Hook” gained fans around town from these shows, including local record store owner Elmer Barbee. Barbee was so impressed by the young musician that he introduced him to Bernard Besman ̶ a producer, record distributor and owner of Sensation Records. By 1948, Hooker ̶ now honing his style on an electric guitar ̶ had recorded several songs for Besman, who, in turn, leased the tracks to Modern Records. Among these first recordings was “Boogie Chillun,” (soon after appearing as “Boogie Chillen”) which became a number one jukebox hit, selling over a million copies. This success was soon followed by a string of hits, including “I’m in the Mood,” “Crawling Kingsnake” and “Hobo Blues.” Over the next 15 years, John Lee signed to a new label, Vee-Jay Records, and maintained a prolific recording schedule, releasing over 100 songs on the imprint.
When the young bohemian artists of the 1960s “discovered” Hooker, among other notable blues originators, he found his career taking on a new direction. With the folk movement in high gear, Hooker returned to his solo, acoustic roots, and was in strong demand to perform at colleges and folk festivals around the country. Across the Atlantic, emerging British bands were idolizing Hooker’s work. Artists like the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds introduced Hooker’s sound to new and eager audiences, whose admiration and influence helped build Hooker up to superstar status. By 1970, Hookerhad relocated to California and was busy collaborating on several projects with rock acts. One such collaboration was with Canned Heat, which resulted in 1971’s hit record Hooker ’n’ Heat. The double LP became John Lee Hooker’s first charting album.
With his recent successes, John Lee entered the 1990s with a sense of renewed inspiration. Not only was the decade a time of celebration and recognition for the legendary artist, but it was also a highly productive era. He released five studio albums over the next few years, including Mr. Lucky, which once again teamed up Hooker with an array of artists; Boom Boom, which aimed to introduce new fans to his classic material; the GRAMMY® Award-winning Chill Out; and a collaboration with Van Morrison, Don’t Look Back, which also garnered two awards at the 1997 GRAMMYs®. Throughout the decade, Hooker’s great body of work and contributions to modern music were being recognized not only by his peers, but also by a younger generation. He became a familiar face in popular culture, with appearances on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman. In 1990, a massive tribute concert took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden, featuring Hooker and an all-star lineup of guest artists. One year later, John Lee was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, while in 1997, he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, shortly before his death, John Lee Hooker was recognized with a GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award, and just one week before his passing, ever true to form, the bluesman spent his final Saturday night playing a now-legendary show to a packed house at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA.
The Hook continues to live on: His music can regularly be heard in TV shows, commercials and films, and many of his tracks have also found a second life sampled in new songs – by the likes of R&B star Brandi, hip-hop legend Chuck D and French electronic musician St Germain, among many others. Most recently, his iconic recording, the 1962 Vee-Jay Records single “Boom Boom,” was inducted into the 2016 GRAMMY® Hall of Fame.
http://www.npr.org/artists/15404886/john-lee-hooker
Setlist :
This album didn't actually get released until a lot later obviously, but
it was definitely recorded in the late 40's, a timeless gem of pure
rhythm 'n blues, don't mess with the Hook!
John Lee Hooker (c. August 22, 1912[1] – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie.
Some of his best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "Crawling King Snake" (1949), "Dimples" (1956), "Boom Boom" (1962), and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including The Healer (1989), Mr. Lucky (1991), Chill Out (1995), and Don't Look Back (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and U.K., and Don't Look Back won a Grammy Award in 1998.
The Hooker children were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs; the spirituals sung in church were their earliest exposure to music. In 1921, their parents separated. The next year, their mother married William Moore, a blues singer, who provided John Lee with an introduction to the guitar (and whom he would later credit for his distinctive playing style).[9] Moore was his first significant blues influence. He was a local blues guitarist who, in Shreveport, Louisiana, learned to play a droning, one-chord blues that was strikingly different from the Delta blues of the time.[6] Another formative influence was Tony Hollins, who dated Hooker's sister Alice, helped teach Hooker to play, and gave him his first guitar. For the rest of his life, Hooker regarded Hollins as a formative influence on his style of playing and his career as a musician. Among the songs that Hollins reputedly taught Hooker were versions of "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Catfish Blues".[10]
At the age of 14, Hooker ran away from home, reportedly never seeing his mother or stepfather again.[11] In the mid-1930s, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where he performed on Beale Street, at the New Daisy Theatre and occasionally at house parties.[6]
He worked in factories in various cities during World War II, eventually getting a job with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1943. He frequented the blues clubs and bars on Hastings Street, the heart of the black entertainment district, on Detroit's east side. In a city noted for its pianists, guitar players were scarce. Hooker's popularity grew quickly as he performed in Detroit clubs, and, seeking an instrument louder than his acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar.[12]
Hooker's recording career began in 1948, when Modern Records, based in Los Angeles, released a demo he had recorded for Bernie Besman in Detroit. The single, "Boogie Chillen'", became a hit and the best-selling race record of 1949.[6] Despite being illiterate, Hooker was a prolific lyricist. In addition to adapting traditional blues lyrics, he composed original songs. In the 1950s, like many black musicians, Hooker earned little from record sales, and so he often recorded variations of his songs for different studios for an up-front fee. To evade his recording contract, he used various pseudonyms, including John Lee Booker (for Chess Records and Chance Records in 1951–1952), Johnny Lee (for De Luxe Records in 1953–1954), John Lee, John Lee Cooker,[13] Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, and the Boogie Man.[14]
His early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. Hooker rarely played with a standard beat, but instead he changed 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 recorded Hooker playing guitar, singing and stomping on a wooden pallet in time with the music.[15] For much of this period he recorded and toured with Eddie Kirkland. In Hooker's later sessions for Vee-Jay Records in Chicago, studio musicians accompanied him on most of his recordings, including Eddie Taylor, who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies. "Boom Boom" and "Dimples", two popular songs by Hooker, were originally released by Vee-Jay.[16]
Hooker performed "Boom Boom" in the role of a street musician in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. In 1989, he recorded the album The Healer with various other notable musicians, including Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt.[16]
He 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 Morrison several times; some of these performances released on the live album A Night in San Francisco. On December 19, 1989, Hooker performed "Boogie Chillen'" with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As part of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, the show was broadcast live on cable television as a pay-per-view program. His last studio recording on guitar and vocal was "Elizebeth", a song he wrote with Pete Sears, accompanied by members of his Coast to Coast Blues Band, with Sears on piano. It was recorded on January 14, 1998, at Bayview Studios in Richmond, California. 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."
Hooker spent the last years of his life in Long Beach, California. In 1997, he opened a nightclub in San Francisco's Fillmore District called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room, after one of his hit songs.[16]
Hooker fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died in his sleep on June 21, 2001, in Los Altos, California, at around 88 years of age. He was interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland.[17] He was survived by eight children, 19 grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren.[18]
"John Lee Hooker biography". johnleehooker.com. Retrieved February 19, 2011.
In
the 1920 federal census, series T625, Roll 895, p. 235, in the city of
Tutwiler, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, Supervisor's District 2,
Enumeration District 87, Sheet #29 A, line 25, enumerated February 3,
1920, John Hooker is one of nine children living with William and Minnie
Hooker. John is listed as 7 years of age at his last birthday. If this
is accurate – and if his birthday is August 22, as he claimed – he was
born August 22, 1912.
Dahl, Bill. "John Lee Hooker: Overview". AllMusic.com. Retrieved November 4, 2011.
The years 1912, 1915, 1917, 1920, and 1923 have been suggested as the year of his birth (Boogie Man,
p. 22); 1917 is given by most sources, though at times Hooker stated he
was born in 1920, which would have made him "the same age as the
recorded blues" (p. 59).
Palmer, Robert (1982). Deep Blues. Penguin Books. pp. 242–243. ISBN 0-14-006223-8.
According to Boogie Man,
p. 24, "In 1928, Will Hooker Sr. and Jr. made a profit of twenty-eight
dollars" from farming, making his death in 1923 impossible.
U.S.
Census, Series T625, Roll 895, p. 235, in the city of Tutwiler,
Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, Supervisor's District 2, Enumeration
District 87, Sheet 29 A, Lines 18–19, enumerated February 3, 1920.
Oliver, Paul. Conversation with the Blues. p. 188. See also Bennett, Joe; Curwen, Trevor; Douse, Cliff. Guitar Facts. p. 76.
Murray, Charles Shaar (2011). Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century. Canongate Books.]
Boogie Man p. 43.
Wogan, Terry (1984). Shoes Off the Record. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 116–118. ISBN 0-306-80321-6.
Liner notes. Alternative Boogie: Early Studio Recordings, 1948–1952.
Leadbitter, M.; Slaven, N. (1987). Blues Records 1943–1970: A Selective Discography. London: Record Information Services. pp. 579–595.
Boogie Man, p. 121.
Discovering the Blues of John Lee Hooker. Adapted from Blues for Dummies. August 1998. ISBN 0-7645-5080-2.
"John Lee Hooker". findagrave.com. Retrieved September 20, 2016.
Pareles, Jon (2001-06-22). "John Lee Hooker, Bluesman, Is Dead at 83". New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-01-25.
Blues Foundation (1980). "1980 Hall of Fame Inductees: John Lee Hooker". Blues Foundation. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
"500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll". Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 1995. Archived from the original on May 13, 2007. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
"Songs of the Century". CNN.com. March 7, 2001. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
"Lifetime Achievement Award". Grammy.org. 2000. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
Whitburn, Joel (1988). Top R&B Singles 1942–1988. Record Research. p. 194. ISBN 0-89820-068-7.
"John Lee Hooker: Singles". Official Charts. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
"Gloria" recorded with Van Morrison
"Baby Lee" recorded with Robert Cray
"Cuttin' Out" recorded with Canned Heat
"John Lee Hooker: Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
"John Lee Hooker: Albums". Official Charts. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
Murray, Charles Shaar (1999). Boogie Man: Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American 20th Century. ISBN 0-14-016890-7.
All of this is worth noting as we approach what may or may not be the 100th anniversary of John Lee Hooker’s birth. The star, who died in 2001, upheld the blues tradition of not being overly concerned with exact birth dates. A variety of origin years have been credited by various sources, so let’s just settle on the one chosen by the record company now releasing his music, Vee-Jay Records. It picked this year to toast his centennial, marked by a well-curated, 16-song compilation of Hooker’s work, titled Whiskey & Wimmen, out on 31 March.
Hooker’s anniversary will arrive two weeks after the loss of another pivotal figure in 20th-century music – Chuck Berry, who was 90. In the same way Berry proved crucial to creating rock’n’roll, Hooker held a seminal role in the birth of the boogie branch of blues. On one level, his style transposed the earlier style of boogie-woogie piano to the guitar, then distilled it down to a groundbreaking, minimalist kind of blues. To help create it, he used a different tuning than most blues players do. He went with “standard” tuning, as opposed to the “open” tuning favored by most such artists. Hooker learned that style from his stepfather, Will Moore, an entertainer himself who had worked with Charley Patton and Son House. Hooker, who was born in Coahoma County, Mississippi, left the family by age 14 and went to live in Memphis, where he performed on Beale Street. He cut his first records, starting with 1948’s Boogie Chillen, for the LA-based Modern Records. Hooker’s early songs were all singles, for a variety of labels, but he later developed into a prolific album artist imitated by thousands. Over the years, his songs were covered by stars such as the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana and countless others. Amid his sprawling catalogue, these 10 pieces best express his rarity and genius.
http://www.johnleehooker.com/
http://www.johnleehooker.com/history/biography
Biography
Known to music fans around the world as the “King of the Boogie,” John Lee Hooker endures
as one of the true superstars of the blues genre: the ultimate beholder
of cool. His work is widely recognized for its impact on modern music –
his simple, yet deeply effective songs transcend borders and languages
around the globe. Each decade of Hooker’s long career brought a new
generation of fans and fresh opportunities for the ever-evolving artist.
He never slowed down either: As John Lee Hooker entered
his 70s, he suddenly found himself in the most successful era of his
career – reinvented yet again, and energized as ever, touring and
recording up until his passing in 2001.
Born near Clarksdale, Mississippi on August 22, 1917 to a sharecropping family, John Lee Hooker‘s
earliest musical influence came from his stepfather, William Moore ̶— a
blues musician who taught his young stepson to play the guitar, and
whom John Lee later credited for his unique style on the instrument.
By the early 1940s, Hooker had moved north to Detroit by way of Memphis and Cincinnati. By day, he was a janitor in the auto factories, but by night, like many other transplants from the rural Delta, he entertained friends and neighbors by playing at house parties. “The Hook” gained fans around town from these shows, including local record store owner Elmer Barbee. Barbee was so impressed by the young musician that he introduced him to Bernard Besman ̶ a producer, record distributor and owner of Sensation Records. By 1948, Hooker ̶ now honing his style on an electric guitar ̶ had recorded several songs for Besman, who, in turn, leased the tracks to Modern Records. Among these first recordings was “Boogie Chillun,” (soon after appearing as “Boogie Chillen”) which became a number one jukebox hit, selling over a million copies. This success was soon followed by a string of hits, including “I’m in the Mood,” “Crawling Kingsnake” and “Hobo Blues.” Over the next 15 years, John Lee signed to a new label, Vee-Jay Records, and maintained a prolific recording schedule, releasing over 100 songs on the imprint.
John Lee Hooker
When the young bohemian artists of the 1960s “discovered” Hooker, among other notable blues originators, he found his career taking on a new direction. With the folk movement in high gear, Hooker returned to his solo, acoustic roots, and was in strong demand to perform at colleges and folk festivals around the country. Across the Atlantic, emerging British bands were idolizing Hooker’s work. Artists like the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the Yardbirds introduced Hooker’s sound to new and eager audiences, whose admiration and influence helped build Hooker up to superstar status. By 1970, Hookerhad relocated to California and was busy collaborating on several projects with rock acts. One such collaboration was with Canned Heat, which resulted in 1971’s hit record Hooker ’n’ Heat. The double LP became John Lee Hooker’s first charting album.
Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, John Lee toured
the U.S. and Europe steadily. His appearance in the legendary Blues
Brothers movie resulted in a heightened profile once again. Then, at the
age of 72, John Lee Hooker released the biggest album of his career, The Healer.
The GRAMMY® Award-winning 1989 LP paired contemporary artists (Bonnie
Raitt, Carlos Santana, Los Lobos and George Thorogood, among others)
with Hooker on some of his most famous tracks. The Healer was
released to critical acclaim and sold over one million copies. The Hook
rounded out the decade as a guest performer with the Rolling Stones,
during the national broadcast of their 1989 Steel Wheels tour.
John Lee Hooker
With his recent successes, John Lee entered the 1990s with a sense of renewed inspiration. Not only was the decade a time of celebration and recognition for the legendary artist, but it was also a highly productive era. He released five studio albums over the next few years, including Mr. Lucky, which once again teamed up Hooker with an array of artists; Boom Boom, which aimed to introduce new fans to his classic material; the GRAMMY® Award-winning Chill Out; and a collaboration with Van Morrison, Don’t Look Back, which also garnered two awards at the 1997 GRAMMYs®. Throughout the decade, Hooker’s great body of work and contributions to modern music were being recognized not only by his peers, but also by a younger generation. He became a familiar face in popular culture, with appearances on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman. In 1990, a massive tribute concert took place at New York’s Madison Square Garden, featuring Hooker and an all-star lineup of guest artists. One year later, John Lee was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, while in 1997, he was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2000, shortly before his death, John Lee Hooker was recognized with a GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award, and just one week before his passing, ever true to form, the bluesman spent his final Saturday night playing a now-legendary show to a packed house at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, CA.
The Hook continues to live on: His music can regularly be heard in TV shows, commercials and films, and many of his tracks have also found a second life sampled in new songs – by the likes of R&B star Brandi, hip-hop legend Chuck D and French electronic musician St Germain, among many others. Most recently, his iconic recording, the 1962 Vee-Jay Records single “Boom Boom,” was inducted into the 2016 GRAMMY® Hall of Fame.
http://www.npr.org/artists/15404886/john-lee-hooker
THE MUSIC OF JOHN LEE HOOKER: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. HOOKER:
John Lee Hooker - 33 Great Blues Tracks:
John Lee Hooker: "Boom boom":
John Lee Hooker Greatest Hits-- The Best Of John Lee Hooker-- [Full Album]:
John Lee Hooker - Live In Montreal:
The world's greatest blues singer, John Lee Hooker reached legendary status with his deep, weathered voice and distinctive chugging rhythms. His influence spread to an entire generation of blues-tinged rockers, including The Rolling Stones and The Doors. Hooker's music is a lesson in deep blues, and here he revisits some of his most familiar material, including "Boom Boom" and his biggest hit, "I'm in the Mood." Filled with frisky, guitar-driven boogies and heartsick ballads, this is the blues at its very best! Songs: It Serves Me Right to Suffer, One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer, I'll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive, Roll Me Like You Roll a Wagon Wheel, Boom Boom, I'm in the Mood, Look at What You Did to My Life, Chicken and Gravy, We're Gonna Do the Shout.
Setlist :
_ 00:31 instrumental 1
_ 03:27 instrumental 2
_ 06:03 it serves you right to suffer
_ 12:05 one bourbon one scotch one beer
_ 15:55 i'll never get out of this blues alive
_ 22:20 roll me like you roll a wagon wheel
_ 25:40 Boom boom
_ 32:20 i'm in the mood
_ 35:55 Look at what you did to my life
_ 42:00 Chiken & gravy (rock steady)
_ 47:52 Doin' the shout
JOHN LEE HOOKER - 'THE HEALER'-- (FULL ALBUM): (1989):
John Lee Hooker -- 'The Real Blues' --(Full Album):
John Lee Hooker - 'Boogie Chillen' -(Full Album)--1949:
This album didn't actually get released until a lot later obviously, but
it was definitely recorded in the late 40's, a timeless gem of pure
rhythm 'n blues, don't mess with the Hook!
TRACKLIST:
(00:00) 01. The War Is Over (Goodbye California)
(02:47) 02. Hoogie Boogie
(05:45) 03. Queen Bee
(08:21) 04. Hobo Blues
(11:25) 05. Let Your Daddy Ride
(14:05) 06. Weeping Willow Boogie
(16:57) 07. Howlin' Wolf
(19:37) 08. Drifting From Door To Door
(22:39) 09. Crawling King Snake
(25:41) 10. Tease Me Baby
(28:46) 11. Sally Mae
(32:00) 12. Boogie Chillen'
JOHN LEE HOOKER -- HOUSE OF THE BLUES-- (FULL ALBUM)-1960:
SIDE A
00:00 Walkin' The Boogie
02:35 Love Blues
05:35 Union Station Blues
08:33 It's My Own Fault
11:33 Leave My Wife Alone
14:22 Ramblin' By Myself
SIDE B
17:39 Sugar Mama
20:51 Down At The Landing
23:48 Louise
26:54 Ground Hog Blues
29:51 High Priced Woman
32:35 Women And Money
John Lee Hooker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John Lee Hooker | |
|---|---|
Hooker performing at the Long Beach Blues Festival, Long Beach, California, August 31, 1997
|
|
| Background information | |
| Born | c. August 22, 1912[1][2][3] Tutwiler, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | June 21, 2001 (believed to have been 88 years old) Los Altos, California |
| Genres | Blues |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1943–2001[4] |
| Labels | |
John Lee Hooker (c. August 22, 1912[1] – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie.
Some of his best known songs include "Boogie Chillen'" (1948), "Crawling King Snake" (1949), "Dimples" (1956), "Boom Boom" (1962), and "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" (1966). Several of his later albums, including The Healer (1989), Mr. Lucky (1991), Chill Out (1995), and Don't Look Back (1997), were album chart successes in the U.S. and U.K., and Don't Look Back won a Grammy Award in 1998.
Contents
Early life
Hooker's date of birth is a subject of debate.[2][5] It is believed that he was born in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in Tallahatchie County, although some sources say his birthplace was near Clarksdale, in Coahoma County.[6] He was the youngest of the 11 children of William Hooker (born 1871, died after 1923),[7] a sharecropper and Baptist preacher, and Minnie Ramsey (born c. 1880, date of death unknown). In the 1920 federal census,[8] William and Minnie were recorded as being 48 and 39 years old, respectively, which implies that Minnie was born about 1880, not 1875. She was said to have been a "decade or so younger" than her husband (Boogie Man, p. 23), which gives additional credibility to this census record as evidence of Hooker's origins.The Hooker children were home-schooled. They were permitted to listen only to religious songs; the spirituals sung in church were their earliest exposure to music. In 1921, their parents separated. The next year, their mother married William Moore, a blues singer, who provided John Lee with an introduction to the guitar (and whom he would later credit for his distinctive playing style).[9] Moore was his first significant blues influence. He was a local blues guitarist who, in Shreveport, Louisiana, learned to play a droning, one-chord blues that was strikingly different from the Delta blues of the time.[6] Another formative influence was Tony Hollins, who dated Hooker's sister Alice, helped teach Hooker to play, and gave him his first guitar. For the rest of his life, Hooker regarded Hollins as a formative influence on his style of playing and his career as a musician. Among the songs that Hollins reputedly taught Hooker were versions of "Crawlin' King Snake" and "Catfish Blues".[10]
At the age of 14, Hooker ran away from home, reportedly never seeing his mother or stepfather again.[11] In the mid-1930s, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee, where he performed on Beale Street, at the New Daisy Theatre and occasionally at house parties.[6]
He worked in factories in various cities during World War II, eventually getting a job with the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1943. He frequented the blues clubs and bars on Hastings Street, the heart of the black entertainment district, on Detroit's east side. In a city noted for its pianists, guitar players were scarce. Hooker's popularity grew quickly as he performed in Detroit clubs, and, seeking an instrument louder than his acoustic guitar, he bought his first electric guitar.[12]
Career
Hooker playing Massey Hall, Toronto. Photo: Jean-Luc Ourlin
Hooker's recording career began in 1948, when Modern Records, based in Los Angeles, released a demo he had recorded for Bernie Besman in Detroit. The single, "Boogie Chillen'", became a hit and the best-selling race record of 1949.[6] Despite being illiterate, Hooker was a prolific lyricist. In addition to adapting traditional blues lyrics, he composed original songs. In the 1950s, like many black musicians, Hooker earned little from record sales, and so he often recorded variations of his songs for different studios for an up-front fee. To evade his recording contract, he used various pseudonyms, including John Lee Booker (for Chess Records and Chance Records in 1951–1952), Johnny Lee (for De Luxe Records in 1953–1954), John Lee, John Lee Cooker,[13] Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam and his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, and the Boogie Man.[14]
His early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. Hooker rarely played with a standard beat, but instead he changed 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 recorded Hooker playing guitar, singing and stomping on a wooden pallet in time with the music.[15] For much of this period he recorded and toured with Eddie Kirkland. In Hooker's later sessions for Vee-Jay Records in Chicago, studio musicians accompanied him on most of his recordings, including Eddie Taylor, who could handle his musical idiosyncrasies. "Boom Boom" and "Dimples", two popular songs by Hooker, were originally released by Vee-Jay.[16]
Later life and death
Hooker performing in Toronto, August 20, 1978
Hooker performed "Boom Boom" in the role of a street musician in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. In 1989, he recorded the album The Healer with various other notable musicians, including Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt.[16]
He 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 Morrison several times; some of these performances released on the live album A Night in San Francisco. On December 19, 1989, Hooker performed "Boogie Chillen'" with the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton in Atlantic City, New Jersey. As part of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour, the show was broadcast live on cable television as a pay-per-view program. His last studio recording on guitar and vocal was "Elizebeth", a song he wrote with Pete Sears, accompanied by members of his Coast to Coast Blues Band, with Sears on piano. It was recorded on January 14, 1998, at Bayview Studios in Richmond, California. 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."
Hooker spent the last years of his life in Long Beach, California. In 1997, he opened a nightclub in San Francisco's Fillmore District called John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room, after one of his hit songs.[16]
Hooker fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died in his sleep on June 21, 2001, in Los Altos, California, at around 88 years of age. He was interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland.[17] He was survived by eight children, 19 grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren.[18]
Awards and recognition
Among his many awards, Hooker was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980,[19] the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2016. Two of his songs, "Boogie Chillen" and "Boom Boom" were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".[20] "Boogie Chillen" was also included in the Recording Industry Association of America's list of the "Songs of the Century".[21] He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.[22] He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Grammy Awards
- Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1990, for I'm in the Mood, with Bonnie Raitt
- Best Traditional Blues Recording, 1998, for Don't Look Back.
- Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 1998, Don't Look Back, with Van Morrison
- Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000
Discography
Charting singles
| Year | Title A-side / B-side | Label | Peak chart position |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US 100 [23] |
US R&B [23] |
UK Singles [24] |
|||
| 1949 | "Boogie Chillen'" / "Sally May" | Modern 627 | — | 1 | — |
| "Hobo Blues" / "Hoogie Boogie" | Modern 663 | — | 5 / 9 | — | |
| "Crawlin' King Snake" / "Drifting from Door to Door" | Modern 714 | — | 6 | — | |
| 1950 | "Huckle Up Baby" / "Canal Street Blues" | Sensation 26 | — | 15 | — |
| 1951 | "I’m in the Mood" / "How Can You Do It" | Modern 835 | 30 | 1 | — |
| 1958 | "I Love You Honey" / "You’ve Taken My Woman" | Vee-Jay 293 | — | 29 | — |
| 1960 | "No Shoes" / "Solid Sender" | Vee-Jay 349 | — | 21 | — |
| 1962 | "Boom Boom" / "Drug Store Woman" | Vee-Jay 483 | 60 | 14 | — |
| 1964 | "Dimples" / "I'm Leaving" | $tateside SS 297 | — | — | 23 |
| 1992 | "Boom Boom" / "Homework" | Point Blank/ Virgin POB 3 | — | — | 16 |
| 1993 | "Boogie at Russian Hill" / "The Blues Will Never Die" | Point Blank/ Virgin POB 4 |
— | — | 53 |
| "Gloria" (remake)[25] / "It Must Be You" | Exile VANS 11 | — | — | 31 | |
| 1995 | "Chill Out (Things Gonna Change)" / "Tupelo" (remake) |
Point Blank/ Virgin POB 10 |
— | — | 45 |
| 1998 | "Baby Lee" (remake)[26] / "Cuttin' Out" (remake)[27] / "No Substitute" |
Silvertone ORE CD 21 | — | — | 65 |
| "—" denotes a release that did not chart | |||||
Charting albums
| Year | Title | Label | Peak chart position |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US 200 [28] |
US Blues [28] |
UK Albums [29] |
|||
| 1967 | House of the Blues | Marble Arch MAL 663 | — | — | 34 |
| 1971 | Hooker 'n Heat | Liberty LST-35002 | 73 | — | — |
| Endless Boogie | ABC ABCD-720 | 126 | 38[30] | — | |
| 1972 | Never Get Out of These Blues Alive | ABC ABCX-736 | 130 | — | — |
| 1989 | The Healer | Chameleon D2-74808 | 62 | — | 63 |
| 1991 | Mr. Lucky | Point Blank/ Virgin 91724-2 | 101 | — | 3 |
| 1995 | Chill Out | Point Blank/ Virgin 7243 8 40107 2 0 |
136 | 3 | 25 |
| 1997 | Don't Look Back | Point Blank/ Virgin 7243 8 42771 2 3 |
163 | 3 | 63 |
| 1998 | The Best of Friends | Point Blank/ Virgin 7243 8 46424 2 6 |
— | 4 | — |
| 2002 | Winning Combinations: John Lee Hooker & Muddy Waters | Universal 008811264628 | — | 6 | — |
| 2004 | Face to Face | Eagle ER 20023-2 | — | 3 | — |
| 2007 | Hooker (box set) | Shout! Factory 826663-10198 | — | 14 | — |
| 2015 | Two Sides of John Lee Hooker | Concord 888072375970 | — | 12 | — |
| "—" denotes a release that did not chart | |||||
Film
- The Blues Brothers on Maxwell Street (Chicago) outside Aretha Franklin's restaurant (1980)
- John Lee Hooker & Furry Lewis DVD (1995)
- John Lee Hooker Rare Performances 1960–1984 DVD (2002)
- Come See About Me DVD (2004)
- John Lee Hooker – Bits and pieces about … DVD + CD (2006)
Notes
- Endless Boogie appeared in the R&B Albums chart.
References
Larkin, Colin, ed. (1995). The Guinness Who's Who of Blues (2nd ed.). Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-673-1.Murray, Charles Shaar (1999). Boogie Man: Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American 20th Century. ISBN 0-14-016890-7.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Lee Hooker. |
