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
Since you knew they was goin' to cheat you anyway, I recorded under any name with all of 'em.
You can go to Europe, and there's no turnin' back - any parts of Europe. Wherever you are, there is no stop and go for the blues. The blues go but it don't stop.
Oh, I still like to play and I still play when I want to.
My style is all to myself.
Groups are corporations now. They have pension plans. Musicians have saw the daylight.
I like dropping into a small club and playing with some people, trying to help them get a start.
I've got enough money to live me two lifetimes so I don't have to do nothing I don't want to.
I don't do nothing I don't want to do.
I do benefits. I do them all the time. There's so many people out there that needs help that I can't say I won't help them.
I'm even afraid to lay down with you at night, because when you go to bed at night, mean woman, you got an ice pick in your hand.
I been doing the same things as in my younger days, when I was coming up, and now here I am, an old man, up there in the charts. And I say, well, what happened? Have they just thought up the real John Lee Hooker, is that it? And I think, well, I won't tell nobody else! I can't help but wonder what happened.
It don't take me no three days to record no album.
I want to play music when I want, write a song if I want or watch a baseball game if I want.
I never build myself us. I let the people do that. I'm the most laid-back person, and I let them build me up. If you ask me, I say, 'I''m just a guy playin' some blues.