The Guardian Obituary John Lee HookerTony Russell
In the long history of the blues there has been no figure more singular than John Lee Hooker, who has died aged 83. Where other singers rhymed, he sang in blank verse; where other guitarists might skip through the changes, he would play entire songs on one or two chords; and where other blues veterans were fortunate to be rediscovered once, he bounced repeatedly from obscurity back into the limelight. For most African-American musicians of Hooker's generation, to title an album Mr Lucky would be to exercise at least a little irony, but he did enjoy more strokes of good fortune than usually come a bluesman's way. That he could draw about him, even in old age, a crowd of admiring fellow musicians and would-be collaborators was largely due to the hypnotic effect of his music, to the mantra-like chanting over the relentlessly repetitive beat of guitar and foot, which absorbs listeners into a huge heartbeat. Those qualities were evident in his first hit, Boogie Chillen (1948), an apparently impromptu synthesis of spoken narrative and sung verses with abrupt gear-changes on the guitar. Such structural wilfulness was not uncommon among the blues musicians of the 1920s and 30s, but for much of his life Hooker was exceptional, "the last," as Ry Cooder called him, "of those unstructured, free players." So popular did he become after the success of Boogie Chillen that Hooker briefly turned into a multiple personality, recording for half a dozen labels under as many pseudonyms: Texas Slim, Delta John, Johnny Williams, Birmingham Sam & His Magic Guitar. He was based in Detroit, where he had moved in 1943, working during the day as a janitor at Dodge Motors or Comco Steel, and at night playing in nightclubs. He managed to preserve a good deal of vagueness about his early life, whether in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where he was born into a family of 11 children, or in Memphis and Cincinnati, where he spent his teens. In Clarksdale his stepfather taught him guitar, including the open G tuning he would employ to such resonant effect. He also listened attentively to the obscure Mississippi bluesman Tony Hollins, from whom he derived one of his early successes, Crawling King Snake, but most of his highly personal conception of blues-singing and playing appears to have come from within him. I'm In The Mood, a characteristically skewed reconstruction of the pop song I'm In The Mood For Love, gave him another hit in 1951, but the day of the solo bluesman was passing. In 1955 he signed with a new label, the Chicago-based Vee Jay Records, and began to work with small backing groups. The other musicians flattened his more baroque rhythmic contours and some of the hectic excitement was lost, but the success of Dimples (1956) proved the change of setting was commercially astute. While maintaining his name in the ghetto record-stores he also, exceptionally, developed a parallel career as a "folk blues" artist, playing without amplification and recalling songs from an earlier, more rural era of the blues. "I have created about three fields," he would say proudly. "A folk field, a blues field, and a jump field for the kids. If it was necessary I could do hillbilly stuff". Such dexterity enabled him, in the early 60s, both to perform at the Newport Folk Festival and to have a hit in the rhythm 'n' blues chart with Boom Boom, which entered the British top 20 in 1964 and made possible a succession of UK tours. By the late 60s the folk-blues bubble had burst and Hooker's audiences were now almost entirely white. In the 70s he collaborated with Canned Heat and Van Morrison, and in 1980 he made a celebrated cameo appearance as a street musician in the film The Blues Brothers. But by then he seemed to have wearied of touring and recording, and when the near-silence prolonged itself through the 80s it was assumed he had retired. It was the guitarist Roy Rogers and Hooker's manager Mike Kappus who reactivated his career, pairing him with a variety of artists including Robert Cray, Los Lobos and Bonnie Raitt. The result, The Healer (1989), became the best-selling blues album ever, and Mr Lucky (1991) repeated the twinning format with Cooder, Morrison and Keith Richards. The years seemed to have added potency to his other resource, the dark, sombre instrument of his voice. "That deep, well-like sound," Cooder called it, while for Raitt it was "one of the saddest things I've ever heard." By now as nearly a household name as a blues artist is ever permitted to be, Hooker was sought by film-makers to add an indigo shade to their soundtracks and by advertisers to fix his stamp upon brands. He even exploited himself, opening a music club in San Francisco, the Boom Boom Room. Enjoying his prosperity, he now worked only when he chose, but when he did sit down on a stage with his guitar he wove much of his old spell. Though he had been lauded in the 70s as a matchless exponent of the boogie beat, he cared more about telling a story. "Every song I sing," he said, "is something that happened to my life or somebody else's life in this world. You might lose your money or your car, or can't pay the rent - every person has had these heartaches and tribulations. That's why everybody digs the blues. When I sing these songs I feel them down deep and reach you down deep". Hooker is survived by his fourth wife, Millie, and by six children from his previous marriages, including musicians Zakiya and Robert.
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