Hooker John Lee, *22 August 1917 Clarksdale (Mississippi), †21 June 2001 Los Altos (California), American singer, guitarist, composer, and blues songwriter. He learned to play the guitar from his stepfather, Will Moore. Before he began performing in clubs in Memphis in 1929, he worked on farms in Mississippi. In 1931, he took a job as a singer in gospel bands in Cincinnati. In 1941, he moved to Detroit, where he performed in a young talent competition in 1943. In 1948, he recorded his first album, Boogie Chillen’, accompanied by guitar. In 1950, he began using piano accompaniment, then drums and a second guitar. In 1955, he settled in Chicago. From 1960, he performed at festivals, clubs and venues in the United States and Europe. Hooker, a “classic” figure of the Chicago blues, came from the tradition of the rural Mississippi Delta blues and remained faithful to African musical traditions. He modelled himself on local guitarists (C. Harris and J. Smith), and his singing was influenced by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Hooker’s style – an easily identifiable voice and a characteristic, sparse, generally chordal sound of the electric guitar – should be placed in the history of rock between classic black blues and rock and roll. Among the bluesmen of his generation, Hooker had the largest number of recordings, which he made under his own name and under various pseudonyms. The most popular ones include: Hobo Blues, Crawlin’ King Snake, Key to the Highway, No More Doggin’, It’s My Own Fault, I Love You Honey, Whiskey and Women, No Shoes, Boom Boom, Shake It Baby, Gloria. Hooker’s Gold Records: I’m in the Mood (1952), Dimples (1964), Boogie Chillen’ (1968). In the 1960s, most of Hooker’s blues songs found their way into the repertoires of English rhythm and blues bands (the Yardbirds, the Animals and the Spencer Davis Group) and American rock bands (the Groundhogs and the Steve Miller Band). Hooker himself enjoyed performing with white artists; one of his best albums documenting this collaboration is the LP Hooker’n’ Heat, recorded with the band Canned Heat (1971). In 1980, Hooker appeared in the film The Blues Brothers (dir. John Landis). He is a five-time Grammy Award winner: in 1990 (for the blues song I’m in the Mood with Bonnie Raitt), in 1995 (for the blues LP Chill Out), twice in 1998 (for the blues song Don’t Look Back, and for a collaboration with singer Van Morrison), in 2000 (for a lifetime achievement).
Literature: M. Leadbitter Nothing But the Blues, New York 1971.
