The Biography of John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was born on August 22nd 1917 in Tutwiler Mississippi, in a family of sharecroppers being the fourth of eleven children. His father didn’t like blues music and even called it “the devils music.” He first started experimenting with music in church and built his first instrument from a piece of string and an inner tube. Interestingly, his earliest musical influence was his stepfather called William Moore who mentored him. William was a blues musician and he inspired John to start playing the guitar, and he then later credited him for his unique style of playing the instrument.

Soon after William taught John how to play guitar, they were playing together at house parties and dances near their hometown. Surprisingly, when John was only 14 years old he ran away from home as he was unhappy about living in Mississippi although he enjoyed playing with his stepfather.

In the early 1940s, John had already moved to Detroit. His day job was being a janitor in an auto factory, but during his nights he found his passion and he used to entertain his friends by playing at house parties. There is where he collated and increased his fanbase when playing at house parties, including Elmer Barbee, a local record store owner. Elmer was so impressed by John’s musical talent he introduced him to Bernard Besman who was a record distributor and owner of Sensation Records.

In 1948 he had already recorded a few songs for Besman. One of those recordings was the “Boogie Chilun”, which sold over 1 million copies and became a number 1 jukebox hit. Soon after this success he released “I’m in the Mood” “Crawling Kingsnake” and “Hobo Blues.” For the next 15 years he signed with Vee-Jay Records and kept a good recording schedule and released over 100 songs on imprint.

When the 1960s came around he saw an opportunity to take his career another way with the folk movement and returned to his solo artist career. Some artists like “the Rolling Stones”, “the animals and Yardbirds” introduced John to a new audience which made him become the superstar that he was.

When he was 72 John released his best and biggest album called “The Healer” which sold over 1 million copies. John was definitely talented and popular and won many awards such as, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the Grammy Award for Best Traditional blues album in 1990, 1996 and 1998. He also won the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 for the “Boogie Chilling”, and another Grammy award for Best Pop Collaboration with vocals in 1998 for “Don’t Look Back.”

Last but not least he won Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Award in 1999.

Unfortunately John died to natural causes on June 21st 2001 at 81 at his home in Los Altos in California.