John Lee Hooker | Biography, Delta Blues, Boogie-Woogie, & Facts | Britannica (original) (raw)

Quick Facts

Bynames:

John Lee Booker, John Lee Cooker, Texas Slim, and Birmingham Sam and His Magic Guitar

Also Known As:

Texas Slim

John Lee Booker

Birmingham Sam and His Magic Guitar

John Lee Cooker

John Lee Hooker (born August 22, 1917, Clarksdale, Mississippi, U.S.—died June 21, 2001, Los Altos, California) was an American blues singer-guitarist, one of the most distinctive artists in the electric blues idiom.

Born into a Mississippi sharecropping family, Hooker learned to play the guitar from his stepfather and developed an interest in gospel music as a child. In 1943 he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he made his mark as a blues musician. On such early records as “Boogie Chillen,” “Crawling King Snake,” and “Weeping Willow (Boogie)” (1948–49), Hooker, accompanied only by an electric guitar, revealed his best qualities: aggressive energy in fast boogies and no less intensity in stark, slow blues. A primitive guitarist, he played simple harmonies, pentatonic scales, and one-chord, modal harmonic structures. Later hits included “Dimples” (1956) and “Boom Boom” (1962).

Hooker toured widely from the 1950s and appeared in the motion pictures The Blues Brothers (1980) and The Color Purple (1985). Hooker, whose music influenced such bands as the Rolling Stones and the Animals, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Among the more than 100 albums he recorded are The Healer (1989), which features appearances by Bonnie Raitt and Carlos Santana; the Grammy Award-winning Don’t Look Back (1997); and The Best of Friends (1998).

Britannica Quiz Pop Culture Quiz

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Kara Rogers.