Hooker, John Lee

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JOHN LEE HOOKER

Born: Clarksdale, Mississippi, 22 August 1917; died Los Altos, California, 21 June 2001

Genre: Blues

Best-selling album since 1990: Don't Look Back (1997)

John Lee Hooker was one of the most prolific and influential artists in blues history. His up-and-down career survived nearly sixty years of music industry tastes and changes, ending when it had reached its zenith. Many of his songs live as blues standards, and he is a major influence on numerous rock/blues artists who recorded Hooker's songs and borrowed from his distinctive style. In contrast to the twelve-bar, three-chord blues played by most of his contemporaries, Hooker's unique brand of blues was often based upon a simple melody wrapped around a one-chord riff, accompanied by the rhythmic stomp of his foot and the rich tones of his mesmerizing voice.

Accounts of Hooker's year of birth vary: 1915, 1917, and 1920 crop up, but most scholars hold with 1917. He was one of eleven children born to Minnie and William Hooker, Mississippi Delta sharecroppers. His mother separated from his father when Hooker was very young, and she married a farmer named Will Moore, who played the blues locally and became a prominent influence in Hooker's musical development. Moore gave Hooker his first guitar and taught his stepson a mix of 1920s country Delta and one-chord Louisiana blues. Hooker also sang gospel music locally before leaving rural Mississippi when he was fifteen for the bright lights of Memphis to start a music career.

By the 1940s, Hooker had settled in Detroit, hoping to pick up some work in the expanding automobile trade. It was there that he gained a reputation as a top-notch performer and recorded the famous blues anthem "Boogie Chillen," whose familiar riff has been borrowed by various artists, most notably, ZZ Top on their first hit, "La Grange." Hooker sang the song into a penny arcade vending machine, a novelty of its day that recorded for the price of a quarter. He presented the crude demo to a small Detroit record company, and the owner, Bernie Besman, was amazed at what he heard. He immediately began recording Hooker's songs, and "Boogie Chillen" became a number one hit across the country on R&B charts.

Over the next four years, Besman recorded Hooker's music, capturing his sound by equipping a microphone inside Hooker's acoustic guitar and placing a recording microphone inside a toilet. He rested the speaker on the lid. In this way, Hooker's forceful guitar, relentless foot-stomping rhythm, and gospel-style singing received a reverberating echo that shaped his trademark hypnotic blues sound, which was just as compelling when recorded in later years with better technology.

Hooker had several other hits, including "I'm in the Mood," "Dimples," and the frequently borrowed "Boom, Boom." However, his discography is complicated—he recorded for more than two dozen record labels under a variety of pseudonyms because of contractual problems, usually pertaining to disputes over song royalties. Hooker's popularity waxed and waned in the United States in proportion to the popularity of blues music in general; hence he was delighted to learn of his rising status in the 1960s in the British rock scene. Bands such as the Animals, the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and many others began recording his music. He toured both Europe and the United States, becoming a legend and an inspiration for stars such as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, and Carlos Santana. Hooker continued to record throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but it was mostly a recycling of his past material. His career momentum began to slow by the end of the 1970s. Although he appeared in the film The Blues Brothers (1980) and recorded a song for another film, The Color Purple (1986), by the mid-1980s his career was on the verge of collapse.

Hooker rebounded, however, with the 1989 album The Healer, which featured guest appearances by Bonnie Raitt, Santana, Robert Cray, and George Thorogood. It earned him a 1990 Grammy Award for Best Blues Recording and sold more than 1 million copies. A string of successful recordings followed, all of them featuring contributions by big-name musical admirers. Mr. Lucky (1991) garnered critical raves and a Grammy nomination; among those featured on the album are Keith Richards, Ry Cooder, and Johnny Winter. That same year, Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

His next album, Boom Boom (1992), a reprise of many of his old hits, was buoyed by the contributions of the Texas blues veterans Jimmie Vaughn and Albert Collins. Van Morrison, a longtime friend, played on Chill Out (1995), which won a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Recording. Santana, on the verge of his own remarkable comeback, played on the title track. Hooker's next release, Don't Look Back (1997), also won a Grammy in that same category. Van Morrison produced the album, and it contains some of the last songs that Hooker wrote along with Jimi Hendrix's "Red House." Hooker had promised Hendrix's father and sister that he would put the slow twelve-bar blues on the album in homage to the renowned rock guitarist, who counted Hooker as one of his leading influences.

Hooker's last recording was The Best of Friends (1998). Just as the title implies, the album hosts an all-star cast of well-wishers who contributed to the album's songs, many of which are again reworked versions of Hooker's old hits. In a poetic turn the guitarist Eric Clapton, whose musical development owes as much to Hooker as anyone, plays on "Boogie Chillen." At the 2000 Grammy Awards, Hooker received a Lifetime Achievement Award for musical excellence. He continued to perform, sometimes teaming with blues legend B.B. King, on light concert tours until he died in his sleep on the morning of June 21, 2001, at his home near San Francisco. Hooker's passing marked the loss of one of the last direct links to the original Mississippi Delta blues.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Boogie Chillen (Sensation, 1949); I'm John Lee Hooker (Vee Jay, 1959); House of the Blues (Chess, 1960); The Folklore of John Lee Hooker (Vee Jay, 1961); Burnin' (Vee Jay, 1962); The Big Soul of John Lee Hooker (Vee Jay, 1963); Moanin' and Stompin' the Blues ( King, 1970); Endless Boogie (ABC, 1970); Hooker n' Heat (Liberty, 1971); Johnny Lee (Greene Bottle, 1972); Mad Man Blues (Chess, 1973); Free Beer and Chicken (ABC Records, 1974); Never Get Out of These Blues Alive (Pickwick, 1978); The Best of John Lee Hooker (Crescendo, 1987); Real Folk Blues (MCA, 1987); Simply The Truth (One Way, 1988); The Healer (Chameleon, 1989); Mr. Lucky (Silvertone, 1991); The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker (Riverside, 1991); John Lee Hooker: The Ultimate Collection 1948-1990 (Rhino, 1991); Boom Boom (Pointblank/Virgin, 1992); Chill Out (Pointblank/Virgin, 1995); Alone (Blues Alliance, 1996); His Best (Chess/MCA, 1997); Don't Look Back (Pointblank/Virgin, 1997); The Best of Friends (Pointblank/Virgin, 1998).