John
Lee Hooker
What he meant to
me
by Keith Woods
A warm spring evening in 1964, a queue forming from the entrance of the Cooks Ferry Inn stretching back from where the steps led down from the North Circular Road joining the footpath which ran alongside the River Lea. During this brief mid sixties period there can be little doubt that the Cooks Ferry, Edmonton was the premier blues venue in north London. Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Memphis Slim and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins all performed at the venue during this period along with the man to whom we pay tribute – John Lee Hooker.
Thirty-seven years ago but I can remember the moment
as clearly as if it was yesterday. Standing in the queue patiently waiting for
the doors to be flung open, this 18 year old mod boy chatting to his mates heard
a wag call out from behind, “It’s not every day you see John Lee Hooker
walking along the River Lea!” Sure enough, there he was, sauntering along the
pathway towards us, guitar case in hand in the company of, I guess, the tour
promoter. As he approached, the queue disintegrated, gathering around him to
shake his hand, have autographs signed and the like, a smile stretched across
his face. Dressed in a black ‘near’ zoot suit he looked both cool and
totally relaxed.
There have been numerous so-called blues booms over
the years but the blues was never so hip, before or since, than it was during
those few wonderful years. It put John Lee Hooker’s ‘Dimples’ in the pop charts and ‘Smokestack
Lightnin’ reached the bottom part of the top thirty. Howlin’ Wolf in the
British record charts seems inconceivable now - well it seemed pretty bizarre at
the time, but it happened, thanks largely to the British R & B bands who
were out there nightly plundering the great blues legends’ back catalogues.
Think what you may about some (all?) of them, it was they who were bringing the
names of the greats to the lips of the kids.
Thirty-seven years is a hell of a time ago. Chief
reviewer of 'Tales From The Woods', Hardrock Bunter, was only about four years
old. This esteemed magazine’s expert on skiffle and pre-Beatles British
Rock'n'Roll Darren Vidler (whose column(s) will be appearing in future editions)
was still a few years from being born so obviously I can’t recount the gig in
great detail. In fact I am a little bit hazy about who were backing him up that
night (anyone out there remember?) but I do remember him opening his set with ‘Crawlin’
King Snake’. Equally I recall ‘Dimples’,
‘Boom-Boom’, ‘The Road Is So Rough’, ‘Mama You Got A Daughter’,
‘Time Is Marching’ and naturally
‘Boogie Chillin’. I remember him keeping time by thumping the stage
floor with his foot. I remember the deep rich growl of his voice that sent
shivers up the spine of this young blues fan, just like Muddy Waters, Howlin’
Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Jimmy Reed did when I was privileged enough to see
them in the flesh.
I got to see John Lee Hooker several times over the
years - Hammersmith Odeon, Crystal Palace Blues Festival to name a couple. The
great thing about him was that he changed so little. No funked up rhythms, no
large horn and string sections - he simply hung in there waiting to come into
vogue again, like in the late eighties with the release of ‘The Healer’
album and its follow up ‘Mr Lucky’. Joined by a guest star list including
Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Carlos Santana and Ry Cooder, John Lee Hooker found
himself in the UK Album Charts resulting in the twilight of his career being
spent in comfort and security - a luxury denied so many bluesmen of his
generation, or equally of any generation. The nineties was spent in semi
retirement just working when he chose to. He was booked to appear last year at
the Bishopstock Music Festival but had to cancel out because of ill health so,
sadly, I never got to see him play one last time.
John Lee Hooker was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi
on August 17th 1917, one of eleven children. Taught the rudiments of
the guitar by his sharecropper step father, aged around 13 he left the
Mississippi delta for Memphis, Tennessee. There, he worked as an usher in a
Beale Street theatre, playing his guitar for small change in the streets before
returning to Mississippi. Not for long though as he was soon off again, this
time heading way up north to Cincinnati where he sang in a gospel group called
The Big Six, also, it is claimed with, The Fairfield Four. Hoping to cash in on
World War II assembly line work he moved to Detroit in 1943 playing the clubs at
night. His recording career began in 1948 with ‘Boogie Chillin’ which, despite being a throwback to earlier times,
by early 1949 became a number one R & B chart hit.
Throughout the early 1950s he recorded for numerous
labels under equally numerous pseudonyms. He joined the Chess label in 1952,
staying until 1954, working with Muddy Waters and alongside other big name blues
acts associated with that legendary label. He continued to moonlight until
joining the label with which he is most associated, VeeJay, in the late fifties,
first coming to Europe in 1962 with the American folks blues festivals.
He toured the UK and Europe virtually every year
throughout the remainder of the sixties. By 1970 he had left Detroit to settle
in California, recording the album ‘Hooker & Heat’ with Canned Heat.
Albums continued from John Lee spasmodically throughout the remainder of the
seventies and much of the eighties, until the release of the aforementioned
‘Healer’ took everybody by surprise and consequently became one of the
biggest selling albums by a blues artist in history. Inducted into the
Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990, later that same year a special tribute concert
was held at Madison Square Gardens. By now signed to the Point Blank label,
another big selling album (‘Mr Lucky’) to his credit, and with riches in the
bank he could only have dreamed of he continued to work as the mood took him
right up to a few days before he died peacefully in his sleep. He died virtually
playing the blues I can’t think of a better way to go.