He was known as “The King of Boogie”, a pillar in not only blues music, but a figure who transcended time and space, a true artistic legend, from his meager beginnings with his slow, bluesy approach on a simple guitar, to the heights of stardom even into his 70s, always listened to, heard, and everybody wanted a piece of him.

John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1917 - June 21, 2001) was born in Mississippi, the youngest of 11 children, raised by a Baptist preacher William Hooker, and grew up listening only to religious songs and gospel spirituals in church. When his father died, his mother, Minnie Ramsey remarried to a man named William Moore, a bluesman who taught young John how to play guitar, and is credited with giving the kid his style. A style built around a one-chord thrusting rhythm, which he would craft to make his own. He left home at 14 for Memphis with guitar in hand, and began playing on Beale St. at the New Daisy Theatre and some local jukes. During the second World War he worked in factories, and eventually got a job with Ford Motor Company in Detroit where he would frequent the heart of the black music scene on Hastings St. where his guitar was a welcome change to the mostly piano blues of the day. It is where he bought his first electric guitar, most likely the Epiphone Sheraton.



He was making a name for himself by cutting a new ‘driving’ style of blues, away from the standard 12-bar blues progression and into groove and beat. He scored a recording contract with Modern Records in 1948 when a demo of Boogie Chillun was sent to them by producer Bernie Besman. It was the beginning of his legendary ascent. It became a hit single under the title Boogie Chillen and a best-seller race record* in 1949 selling over a million copies. Even though he was illiterate, he was an outstanding lyricist, and composed many songs of his own. But in the 50s, black artists got very little for their work and had to manipulate things to make a little more cash. For example, John Lee often used a different name to avoid contract obligations, he was John Lee Booker for Chess and Chance Records (‘51-’52), John Lee for DeLuxe records (‘53-’54), and also went by the pseudonyms John Lee Cooker, Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam & his Magic Guitar, Johnny Williams, and the Boogie Man.



His style was evolving into something ‘his own’ often changing tempos to fit the song, which made it harder for bands to follow him, but then he met Eddie Kirkland with whom he toured and recorded. He went into the studio at Vee Jay Records in Chicago with session musicians like Eddie Taylor who could figure out his ‘strange’ ways. He would record many classics under the label: Boom Boom, Dimples, I Love You Honey, and Drugstore Woman, to name a few. In the 60s, he toured Europe and appeared at the American Folk Blues Festival which won him critical acclaim and charted in the U.K. with Dimples. It was around this time when he started to record with rockers, the first band being the Groundhogs, then in 1970 with American blues/rockers Canned Heat on Hooker n Heat, his first album to make the charts at #78 on Billboard 200.

Some of his best material was on collaborative efforts like Endless Boogie recorded at ABC Records with Jesse Ed Davis, Carl Radle, Steve Miller and Mark Naftalin. The making of the album was described by Allmusic, “Although Hooker has always had trouble finding bands that could keep up with his idiosyncratic timing, it’s not an impossible task, and the musicians on board for this session just seem to be endlessly riffing rather than providing a sympathetic framework for John Lee to work his magic”. Then there was Never Get Out of These Blues Alive, in 1972 which featured names like Van Morrison, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite, and Miller. It was re-released in  1987 with 4 additional songs from the session with his cousin Earl Hooker on slide guitar.



Some of his most memorable singles served as templates for bluesmen and women for generations, including a “talking blues” cover of a Randy Toombs song made famous in ‘53 by Amos Milburn, called One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer. But Hooker’s cut went deeper, to a slower beat where he talks the blues instead of wailing it. His use of vibrato and empty spaces gives the track the smell of the liquor, and the taste of tobacco in his low-down sultry voice. The rights to the song were bought by George Thorogood who would also find great success with the public. His appearance in the 1980 Blues Brothers movie playing Boom Boom as a street busker is burned in the collective consciousness; the essence of the kind of ‘cool’ he was. It is easily the most identifiable Hooker song which charted in the U.S. and abroad. The lyrics are lusty and bold, “Boom boom boom boom, I’m gonna shoot you right down, Right off your feet, take you home with me, Put you in my house, boom boom boom boom”. The song has been listed as one of The Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll by the R&R Hall of Fame in 1995, and has been covered by so many greats including Mae West, the Animals, Dr. Feelgood, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eric Clapton, Big Head Todd and the Monsters to mention a few.  



In 1989 he released The Healer with Bonnie Raitt, Carlos Santana, and Los Lobos, which houses the hit I’m in the Mood, and collected a Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Performance. Raitt later mentioned that working with Hooker changed the way she thought about men in their 70s and 80s. His cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s Crawlin’ King Snake fits like a glove for his direct acoustic style, honing a solo down to a single repeated note. And of course his unique voice, low and menacing like a perfect snake.  

Throughout the 90s his influence on the music world was not only revered by his peers and life-long followers, but also to the younger generations. He inspired the need for these youngsters to pick up a guitar, such as the Gibson ES-335, and Les Paul Goldtop, which became go-to guitars for bluesmen far and wide. His immense body of work won him an induction into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  



John Lee Hooker’s music lives eternal around the world in TV shows, commercials, and movies. His energy was infamous, right up until a week before his death, he played his last Saturday night gig at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa California.

He was, and remains the ‘essence of cool’.