This is a sad day indeed. Found this at Mr. Showbiz' Website: June 22, 2001 Blues Icon John Lee Hooker Dead HOLLYWOOD (Variety) =97 John Lee Hooker, the Mississippi-born guitarist whose unique groaning voice and droning guitar style defined boogie blues and influenced generations of rock and rollers, died Thursday at the age of 83. He died in his sleep of natural causes at his Los Altos home near San Francisco, Hooker's agent, Mike Kappus, said. Hooker had performed over the weekend in Santa Rosa. Hooker's influence over blues and rock musicians spanned decades, from The Rolling Stones and The Animals in the 1960s to George Thorogood and the Destroyers in the '70s and Los Lobos in the 1980s. In the last dozen years, Hooker had reclaimed his place on the blues mantel, as artists such as Carlos Santana and Van Morrison performed with Hooker on his albums and helped revitalize his dormant career. Hooker's greatest influence was heard in the music of the Southern California blues band Canned Heat, the members of which built their careers around his style. Hooker's appeal was raw and primal, and he often performed with small bands that emphasized the hypnotic nature of his driving guitar. Whether performing at festivals or in clubs, Hooker's power was omnipotent and distinct, drawing on the rural acoustic blues he learned as a young teenager and the raucous style he developed performing at parties in Detroit. Hooker's lyrics were often dark and, if not explicitly prurient, = his intentions were never obscure in songs such as "Crawlin' King Snake" and "I'm in the Mood." Hooker put nine songs in the top 30 on the R&B charts and had two No. 1 R&B singles: "Boogie Chillen" in early 1949 and "I'm in the Mood" in late 1951. "Boom Boom" reached the R&B top 20 in June 1962 shortly after Hooker teamed with Eric Burdon and The Animals as his backing unit; The Animals reached No. 43 on the pop charts in 1965 with their version of the song. Hooker's version was used in a Lee Jeans ad in 1992. He recorded more than 100 albums over six decades; the last was 1997's "Don't Look Back" on the Pointblank label. He recorded so often and for so many fly-by-night producers that his music has been endlessly repackaged; last year alone, there were more than 20 Hooker releases of old material. Born Aug. 22, 1917, in Clarksdale, Miss., he learned guitar from his stepfather, Will Moore, who was friends with blues guitarists Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, and Charley Patton. Hooker left home at 14 and joined the Army, which sent him packing after three months. He drifted through Cincinnati and Memphis, Tenn., working as a guitarist accompanying gospel groups such as the Fairfield Four. Like many Southern blacks in the 1940s, Hooker made the journey north to work in an industrial city, landing a janitorial job with Chrysle= r in Detroit. He played three or four nights per week in the Motor City =97 his experiences would be chronicled in songs such as "House Rent Boogie" and "Wednesday Evening Blues" =97 and soon he attracted the attention of talent scouts. Modern Records, a Los Angeles-based blues label, signed Hooker in October 1948, and a month later, he recorded "Boogie Chillen," accompanied solely by his guitar. The record was radically different from the R&B of the day, which was dominated by Nat "King" Cole's cool style and the blues stars who, like Louis Jordan, were emphasizing frenetic, upbeat tunes. "Boogie Chillen" would eventually sell 1 million copies. Despite signing with Modern, Hooker willingly recorded for any producer able to produce cash for a session. Two months after "Boogie," Hooker sold "Black Man Blues" to Cincinnati's King Records, which released the disc under the name Texas Slim. Hooker would use at least 10 different pseudonyms between 1949 and 1954, releasing about 70 singles on 21 different labels. It was his Modern sides, "Crawlin' King Snake" and "I'm in the Mood" among them, however, that were his biggest sellers. In 1955, he moved over to Vee Jay in Chicago, which had become the blues epicenter, and he was positioned as an R&B star with a backing band led by Eddie Shaw. (Changing labels was a Hooker specialty: In 1965-66 alone, he recorded for Verve-Folkways, Impulse, Chess, and BluesWay.) He found far more success, however, at the end of the decade, when he was touted for his rural upbringing, situating him next to folk-blues iconoclasts such as Lightnin' Hopkins. He was among the pure blues artists who performed at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival; the following year, at Gerde's Folk City in New York, Bob Dylan got his first paying gig as Hooker's opening act. He toured the United Kingdom as part of the American Blues Festival 1962 package and shared bills with bands that would later feed the British Invasion. His song "Dimples" became a British hit in 1964, eight years after it was recorded. His Stateside champions, however, were far less prominent, and it wasn't until 1971, when he recorded Hooker 'n' Heat with Canned Heat, that he would crack the U.S. album charts. While artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Hound Dog Taylor, and Champion Jack Dupree had some resurgence in the 1970s, Hooker's career faded. Thorogood's recording of Hooker's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" in 1977 brought the aging blues man some recognition, as did his cameo in the Dan Aykroyd film The Blues Brothers in 1980. But it wasn't until the 1989 release of The Healer that Hooker's career was successfully put back on track. The album boasted guest performances by Santana, Los Lobos, and Robert Cray, and his duet with Bonnie Raitt on "I'm in the Mood" would earn him the traditional blues Grammy. The Healer was followed up by more all-star-laden recordings, such as Mr. Lucky, on which he was teamed with Albert Collins, Keith Richards, and Van Morrison; 1995's Chill Out, which was accompanied by the announcement of his retirement from public performance; and Don't Look Back (1997), which was produced by Van Morrison and featured another revived blues legend, Charles Brown. In the late 1980s, Hooker said, "I been doing the same things as in my younger days, when I was coming up, and now here I am, an old man, up there in the charts. And I say, 'Well, what happened? Have they just thought up the real John Lee Hooker, is that it?' And I think, 'Well, I won't tell nobody else!' I can't help but wonder what happened." Hooker was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2000. His song "Boogie Chillen" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. Over the last decade he spent his time between his homes in Northern California and Southern California. He was an avid baseball fan and collected cars. Robert James, Jr., Fine Arts Resource Center Coordinator Dept. of Performing & Fine Arts <http://spacer.uncfsu.edu/d_fah/> Fayetteville State University/Fayetteville, NC 28301-4298 Phone: (910) 672-1439; Fax: (910) 672-1572
