John Lee Hooker

If they played more blues, people would just get it - they try to hold it back but just about can't hold it back now because the blues is really going. ~ John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was born August 22, 1917 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. His father was a sharecropper and Baptist minister, and only gospel music was allowed in their home. His parents divorced when he was four, and the next year his mother remarried Will Moore, a blues singer and guitar player. Hooker learned guitar from his stepfather, who played in the one-chord Shreveport style, and through him met other bluesmen such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and Blind Blake.

Hooker left home at the age of 15, originally going to Memphis and then working in factories Cincinnati and other cities before he settled in Detroit where he played at house parties and in the clubs along Hastings Street.

He began his recording career with Modern Records in 1948 with the release of "Boogie Chillen". Because of contract constraints he recorded for different labels under a number of names over the next two decades. In the sixties he was part of the blues revival discovered by folk and rock musicians, influencing groups like Canned Heat, The Animals and The Yardbirds.

Hooker performed with contemporary artists, winning Grammy Awards in 1990 and 1998 for recordings with Bonnie Raitt and with Van Morrison. He also won Grammies in 1996 and 1998 for his albums "Chill Out" and "Don't Look Back", as well as a lifetime achievement award in 2000.

"Boogie Chillen' was named one of the songs of the century by the Recording Industry Association of America, and Hooker is a member of the National Blues Hall of Fame. He died in Los Altos, California on June 21, 2001 at the age of 83.