John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was a notable American blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. His fame rose when he performed electric guitar adaptations of Delta Blues. He also has this inclination to insert early North Mississippi Hill country blues and talking blues into his music with a genius twist.

He is often compared in greatness to B. B. King, who was also born in Mississippi, just like Hooker. King’s contribution to Delta blues was a comprehensive guitar technique that harmonized blues with components of jazz, rhythm and blues and other popular music genres.

But John Lee Hooker created a style of his own, in contrast, by retaining a pure and traditional approach of the Delta blues. In the postwar, he achieved more success, doing a crossover, using vocals with solo guitar. This was the style of earlier Delta players which he adopted, used to the hilt in his hit record, Boogie Chillen, in 1948.

The later releases of John Lee like I’m in the Mood (1951), Boom Boom (1962) and The Healer (1989), incorporated soul and rock music.

When Hooker was starting out in his musical career, he performed and recorded with rock musicians. One of his earliest partnerships was with The Groundhogs, a British blues rock band.

Hooker and Canned Heat

In 1970, he played adaptations of his songs with the group Canned Heat, an American blues and boogie rock band. The result was the joint album Hooker ‘n Heat.

At his best, only with his electric guitar strapped on him, Hooker describes his musical style:

The display of aggressive energy in fast boogies and also an ample show of intensity for stark and slow blues. A back to the basics guitarist – playing simple harmonies, pentatonic scales and also one chord modal harmonic structures.

John Lee Hooker toured expansively beginning the 1950s and he also made appearances in movies like The Blues Brothers (1980) and The Color Purple (1985). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and had a huge influence on bands such as The Animals and The Rolling Stones.

John Lee Hooker recorded more than 100 albums. Among them was The Healer (1989) which had appearances by Carlos Santana and Bonnie Raitt. Other notable albums are The Best of Friends (1998) and Grammar Award winner Don’t Look Back (1997).

Hobo

A hobo is a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, especially one who is impoverished. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States around 1890. Unlike a “tramp”, who works only when forced to, and a “bum,” who does not work at all, a “hobo” is a traveling worker.

H. L. Mencken, in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote:

Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but see themselves as sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.