# John Lee Hooker was beloved worldwide as the king

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/08/29/john-lee-hooker-beloved-worldwide-king/
- Published: 2017-08-29T18:08:04+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**John Lee Hooker 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.

The Healer 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).

Mr. Lucky 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.

Chill Out (Things Gonna Change) 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.

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