John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hookerwas an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often incorporated other elements, including talking blues and early North Mississippi Hill country blues. He developed his own driving-rhythm boogie style, distinct from the 1930s–1940s piano-derived boogie-woogie...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth22 August 1917
CountryUnited States of America
I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit.
Like you and your woman ain't gettin' along and you're in love. You can't sleep at nights. Your mind is on her - on whatever. You know, that's the blues. You can't hug that money at night. You can't kiss it.
Poor people have the blues because they're poor and hungry. Rich people can't sleep at night because they're trying to hold on to their money and everything they have.
I don't like no fancy chords. Just the boogie. The drive. The feeling. A lot of people play fancy but they don't have no style. It's a deep feeling-you just can't stop listening to that sad blues sound. My sound.
When I die, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die.
I remember back in Detroit, I used to go to the Apex Bar every night after I got off work. The bartender there used to call me Boom Boom. I don't know why, but he did.
Well I ain't seen my baby since I don't know when, I've been drinking bourbon whiskey, scotch and gin Gonna get high man I'm gonna get loose, Need me a triple shot of that juice Gonna get drunk don't you have no fear I want one bourbon, one scotch and one beer One bourbon, one scotch, one beer.
I don't think about time. You're here when you're here. I think about today, staying in tune.
I don't do nothin’ I don't want to do.
No matter what you got, the blues is there
The one thing the blues don't get is the backing and pushing of TV and radio like a lot of this garbage you hears. They choke stuff down people's throat so they got no choice but to listen to it.
I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks.
The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning.