John Lee Hooker - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

Biography

A difficult youth

Probably born between the 17 and the August 22nd 1917 close to Clarksdale in the the Mississippi, John Lee Hooker is the last of a poor family of 11 children. During its infancy, it is exposed to the music only in the form of hymns such as Gospel, only form musical that his/her father, Pasteur of his state, authorizes with his family. It is familiarized with the Blues only after the separation of his parents in 1921 and the remarriage of his mother with Willie Moore, farm laborer and bluesman at his hours, which learns to him from the rudiments of guitar. All its life, John Lee Hooker will pay homage to his/her father-in-law, whom he considers at the origin of his very personal style. In 1923, the father of Hooker dies, and John Lee, old of only 15 years, flees his hearth. He will never re-examine neither his mother nor his father-in-law.

After various adventures on which the sources differ, it settles in 1943 with Detroit, then capital of auto industry, in the intention to exert a work of workman there. In same time, it tries to find engagements of musicians in the bars and the brothels of Hasting Street, the district of the pleasures of the city. It knows there difficult beginnings due to the sound lack of power of its instrument: it is necessary to manage to cover the noise of the consumers, even competitor orchestras! It thus adopts very early the first electric guitars, which allow, thanks to their integrated microphones and with an amplifier, to play more extremely than no matter whom, and develops an aggressive and hypnotic style, as well as possible exploiting the musical energy of electricity. In 1948, it records its first disc, the song Boogie Chillen , in a rudimentary style, near to the word, which will become its trademark.

The " first carrière" of John Lee Hooker

The black musicians being very badly paids at that time, Hooker, in spite of the success of its discs, is constrained to run the studios and the contracts, recording sometimes several times same the pieces, with tiny variations, under pseudonyms such as " John Lee Booker, " " Johnny Hooker, " or " John Cooker". Its music, very free on the rhythmic level, badly supporting the accompaniment, it is generally recorded only, marking the rate/rhythm using a capsule of Coke Cola nailed under its shoe.

In the Fifties, these are difficult times for the musicians of American Blues like John Lee Hooker: part of the black public ignores their music to the profit of the Rhythm and Blues, more involving and dancing. As for the white, the very compartmentalized market of the music in the United States, combined with the ambient Racism, prevent them from having simply access to the Blues. During this period, many bluesman, not managing more to survive of their art, is constrained to become again working or Métayer S. John Lee Hooker after a fashion manages to be maintained with flood, but its career stagnates. Until an unexpected event does not come to save gives it…

John Lee Hooker, icon of the Blues

With the Sixties the British Blues Boom comes indeed: musicians English like the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton or John Mayall redécouvrent the Blues, practice it and leave the lapse of memory quantity of legendary musicians, of which Hooker. The European, avid public of authenticity, makes him a triumph at which itself, accustomed to the contempt of the white to the the United States, is amazed. John Lee Hooker then becomes a genuine star in the whole world, at the sides of other large musicians coldly redécouverts like Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf. He records with the greatest groups of electric Blues such as Canned Heat, and starts a profitable international career which will last until its death.

In 1980, it plays its tube Boom Boom in the film The Blues Brothers . To respect its style of improvisation, its service is filmed and recorded into live, contrary to many musical films which use the playback. It joint in 1989 with other prestigious musicians such as Carlos Santana and Keith Richards to record the album The Healer , which will be worth a to him Grammy Award of the Best disc of traditional Blues. He also sings several pieces at the sides of Van Morrison, of which " Never Get Out off Thesis Alive" Blues; , " The Healing Game" and " I Cover the Waterfront" , and occurs with him on scene. At the end of its life, Hooker settles with San Francisco, where it opens a club of Blues named according to its greater success, Boom Boom Room . He falls ill in 2001, right before a round in Europe, and dies a little later at 83 years the probable age.

Style and influence

John Lee Hooker is one of the musicians of most influential Blues of his time. Its inimitable, at the same time traditional style and iconoclast, made of him a true icon of the Blues and one of the pioneers of the Rock-and-roll. Its influence on the musicians of the British Blues Boom such as the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, John Mayall and all the wave of " Blues blanc" from this time, is essential. It also contributed to launch the career of Bob Dylan, which ensured its first part the beginning of the the Sixties, and was thus noticed by many journalists.

As a Guitarist, the style of John Lee Hooker is simple (but not as much as it does not appear to with it), hypnotic and violent one. Inspired of the pianists of Boogie-woogie, he generally plays a base line with his inch while accompanying his song by melody sentences in the form by questions and answers. Hooker seldom respects the constraints of the traditional groundwork of the Blues, style codified if it is, and prefers to improvise long parts which do not obey any rule any more, the music being used as decoration with the stories told by the voice.

Although illiterate, John Lee Hooker is indeed an excellent lyric writer, who is not satisfied, like so many of its contemporaries, to copy known songs. Its words, often mainly improvised and ever repeated twice same manner, tell with a rare liveliness of the lived stories, typical of the Blues: betrayed loves, natural disasters, poverty, alcohol, Drug… the soupoudré whole of more or less metaphorical sexual references.

The brutal and impromptu style of John Lee Hooker is one of the bases of the Rock-and-roll of the the Sixties, strongly tinted of a Blues which he encouraged itself to release from very forced. John Lee Hooker is thus, with others, one of the bases of a music which is one of most inventive and beautiful world, and whose artistic, social and political influence over the XXe century is still felt nowadays.

Discography (nonexhaustive)

Albums

Film musics

1980 : John Lee Hooker appears in the film The Blues Brothers of John Landis and interprets there Boom Boom
1990: The Hot Spot of Refusals Hopper with Miles Davis and Taj Mahal

Compilations

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