<back - JOHN LEE HOOKER - John Lee Hooker was born in the Mississippi Delta in 1917 or 1920, depending on whom you hear it from. He was too young to really know Blues music pioneers like Charley Patton or Robert Johnson, but his stepfather did. His stepfather, Will Moore, was a Blues singer/ guitarist playing the same fish fries and juke joints that Robert Johnson, Son House and others played. At age 14, John Lee headed north to escape the crush of the Great Depression and the omnipresence of the religious, who had decreed that Blues music was the devil's music. He continued playing with Blues musicians and singing in Gospel groups every opportunity he could.

It wasn't long before independent recording companies snapped up Mr. Hooker. His first release, Boogie Chillen, was for Modern and released in 1948. By the 50's John Lee Hooker enjoyed a good deal of success with songs like Crawlin' King Snake and I'm in the Mood. He signed with Chicago's Vee-Jay Records, for which he eventually recorded his most recognized song, 1962's 'Boom Boom'. The Animals recorded their own version of the song, and introduced John Lee Hooker to England. Hooker, along with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, Elmore James, BB King, Little Richard and Chuck Berry, became a major influence on English rockers like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, and Van Morrison. At the same time in the early 1960s, a Blues revival occurred in the U.S., which reintroduced Son House, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, and John Lee Hooker. They all enjoyed a wave of popularity that continued through the end of the 1960s. In 1970, John Lee Hooker recorded Hooker and Heat, an album with the rock band, Canned Heat. He continued to tour and record through the next decade. In 1989, John Lee hooked up with several of the musicians he had influenced, like Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt, to record the album 'The Healer', receiving a Grammy. John Lee Hooker was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame (1980) and the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame (1991) and the R&B Foundation presented John Lee Hooker the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.  MP3- BOOGIE CHILLEN | BOOM BOOM |