John Lee Hooker

**John Lee Hooker** (August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter born in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi.

### Early life

Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 in Coahoma County near Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was born to William Hooker and Minnie Ramsey and was the youngest of eleven children. He and his siblings were home-schooled and they were only allowed to listen to religious songs. His parents separated in 1921 and his mother married William Moore, a blues singer the next year. Moore introduced Hooker to the guitar. John would later credit Moore for his distinctive playing style.

### Later life

All through the 1930s, Hooker lived in Memphis where he worked on Beale Street and sometimes performed at house parties. In 1948, he started working at Ford Motor Company.

### Career

Hooker's early solo songs were recorded by Bernie Besman. John Lee Hooker rarely played on a standard beat, changing tempos to fit the songs. This made it nearly impossible to add backing tracks.

### Pop culture

Hooker appeared and sang in the 1980 movie _The Blues Brothers_. He recorded over 100 albums.

In 1989, he played with Keith Richards, Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt to record _The Healer_ and won a Grammy Award. Hooker recorded lots of songs with Van Morrison, including "Never Get Out of These Blues Alive", "The Healing Game" and "I Cover the Waterfront".

## Death

He fell ill just before a tour of Europe in 2001 and died soon afterwards at the age of 83. The last song Hooker recorded before his death, is "Ali D'Oro".

## Quotes

- "It don't take me no three days to record no album." (during the recording of the double album _Hooker 'N Heat_ with Canned Heat.)

- "I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks." (when describing his own music in an article from _The Daily News_, Atlanta, Ga. 1992)

- "Women are like wet bars of soap.  Hold on to em too hard and they pop outta your hands." (as spoken to Randy Wilkinson in New Orleans 1983, friend and road manager)

## Albums

|colspan=3 style=" background:lightblue"|1950s||
| --- | --- | --- |
|1959|_How Long Blues_|released on United|
|_I'm John Lee Hooker_|Vee Jay Records||
|_The Country Blues of John Lee Hooker_|Riverside Records||
|_Burning Hell_|Riverside||
|1960|_Travelin_|Vee Jay Records|
|_That's My Story_|Riverside||
|_House Of The Blues_|Chess Records||
|_Blues Man_|||
|_The Blues _|Crown Records||
|_John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues_|King Records||
|1961|_I'm John Lee Hooker_|Galaxy Records|
|_Plays And Sings The Blues_|Chess||
|_The Folk Lore of John Lee Hooker_|Vee Jay||
|1962|_John Lee Hooker Sings The Blues_|Crown|
|_Burnin' _|Vee Jay||
|_Live At Sugar Hill_|Galaxy||
|_Folk Blues_|Crown||
|_The Best of John Lee Hooker_|Vee Jay||
|_Drifting the Blues_|||
|_Tupelo Blues _|||
|1963|_Don't Turn Me from Your Door: John Lee Hooker Sings His Blues_|Atco Records|
|_The Big Soul of John Lee Hooker _|Vee Jay||
|_John Lee Hooker On Campus_|Vee Jay||
|_The Great John Lee Hooker_|Crown||
|1964|_John Lee Hooker At Newport_|Vee Jay|
|_Burning Hell_|||
|_Great Blues Sounds_|||
|_I Want to Shout the Blues  _|||
|_The Great John Lee Hooker_|Japan only||
|1965|_Hooker & The Hogs_||
|1966|_It Serves You Right to Suffer_||
|_The Real Folk Blues_|Chess||
|1967|_Live at Cafè Au Go-Go_||
|1968|_Hooked on Blues_||
|1969|_Get Back Home_||
|_If You Miss Ìm ... I Got Ìm_|||
|_Simply The Truth_|||
|_That's Where It's At!_|||
|_Get Back Home_|(First Issue)||
|_If You Miss 'Im...I Got 'Im_|||
|1970|_John Lee Hooker on the Waterfront_||
|_Moanin' and Stompin' Blues_|||
|1971|_Endless Boogie_||
|_Goin' Down Highway 51_|||
|_Half A Stranger_|||
|_Hooker 'N' Heat/Infinite boogie_|||
|_I Feel Good_|||
|_Never Get Out Of These Blues Alive_|||
|1972|_Live At Soledad Prison_||
|1973|_Born In Mississippi, Raised Up In Tennessee_||
|1974|_Free Beer And Chicken_||
|_Mad Man Blues_|||
|1976|_Alone_||
|_In Person_|||
|1977|_Black Snake_||
|_Dusty Road_|||
|1978|_The Cream_||
|1979|_Sad And Lonesome_||
|1980|_Everybody Rockin' _||
|_Sittin' Here Thinkin' _|||
|1981|_Hooker 'n' Heat_|Recorded Live at the Fox Venice Theatre|
|1986|_Jealous_||
|1988|_Trouble Blues_||
|1989|_Highway Of Blues_||
|_John Lee Hooker's 40th Anniversary Album_|||
|_The Detroit Lion_|||
|_The Healer_|||
|1990|_The Hot Spot_|Featuring Miles Davis|
|_Don't You Remember Me_|||
|1991|_More Real Folk Blues: The Missing Album_||
|_Mr. Lucky_|||
|1992|_Boom Boom_||
|_This Is Hip_|||
|_Urban Blues_|||
|_Graveyard Blues_|||
|1993|_Nothing But The Blues_||
|_Everybody's Blues_|||
|1994|_King of the Boogie_||
|_Original Folk Blues...Plus_|||
|_Dimples_|Classic Blues||
|1995|_Alternative Boogie: Early Studio Recordings, 1948-1952_||
|_Chill Out_|||
|_Whiskey & Wimmen_|||
|_Blues for Big Town_|||
|1996|_Moanin' the Blues_|Eclipse|
|_Alone: The First Concert_|||
|1997|_Don't Look Back_||
|_Alone: The Second Concert_|||
|1998|_Black Man Blues_||
|2000|_On Campus_||
|2001|_Concert at Newport_||
|_The Cream_|Re-issue||
|_The Real Blues: Live in Houston 1979_|||
|_House Rent Boogie_|||
|2002|_Live at Newport_||
|2003|_Face to Face_||
|_Burning Hell_|Our World||
|_Rock With Me_|||
|2004|_Jack O' Diamonds: The 1949 Recordings_||

## Other websites

- Official John Lee Hooker Site
- John Lee Hooker 1980 Blues Foundation Induction into Hall of Fame
- The Boom Boom Room San Francisco nightclub founded by Hooker

## Infobox (musical artist)

- **name**: John Lee Hooker
- **img**: JohnLeeHooker1997.jpg
- **img capt**: John Lee Hooker at the Long Beach Blues Festival, 1997
- **img size**: 250
- **landscape**: Yes
- **background**: solo_singer
- **birth place**: Coahoma County, Mississippi, Coahoma County, Mississippi
- **instrument**: Guitar
- **genre**: Blues
- **occupation**: singer-songwriter
- **years active**: 1948-2001
- **label**: Vee-Jay, Chess Records and others
- **url**: [http://www.johnleehooker.com/ johnleehooker.com]