John Lee HOOKER TRIVIA!

"Nobody know John Lee Hooker," he once said. "They know as much about my cat as they know about me." We’ll give it a shot anyway.

1) John Lee Hooker was born in a music town. Hooker was born on August 22, 1917 in "Ground Zero of American Music", Clarksdale, Mississippi. The small rural town is located some 90 miles south of Memphis. Other famed artists from Clarksdale include Son House, Sam Cooke, KINGFISH, Ike Turner, Jackie Brenston, rapper Nate Dogg.

Muddy Waters left Clarksdale for Chicago to electrify music, and novelist Tennessee Williams stayed in C'dale. Gus Cannon of the famous Jug Stompers lived here, and Robert Johnson played guitar on the levees outside of town. Sam Cooke played his first show at the Roxy downtown. Music was in the Mississippi Delta soil. Years later, Morgan Freeman opened Ground Zero Blues Club...


2) There's a signed John Lee Hooker guitar at the Ground Zero Blues Club in his hometown. Just across the street from Muddy Waters' cabin at the Delta Blues Museum, you can order a beer under Hooker's signature and watch authentic Delta Blues any night of the week at the epicenter of the blues. Speaking of Hooker's guitars...


3) Hooker's first musical instrument was reportedly a tire tube nailed to a barn door. He was taught guitar by his stepfather, and blues legend T Bone Walker gave Hooker his first electric. Growing up in a sharecropping family, Hooker had the blues rhythm early on... a unique trait he carried for the rest of his life. The bluesman never had any formal training in music. In fact, this lead to an interesting fabric that wove itself into Hooker's music...


4) Hooker's rhythm was so strange he sometimes had to accompany himself in the studio by stomping on a piece of plywood. Nobody could quite follow him in percussion. If you're a Hooker fan, you'll probably already know how he likes to add in a beat or two here or there -- a trait common among first generation delta bluesmen.


5) John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana were close. Both being intensely rhythmic guitarists, it is hardly a surprise. Santana collaborated with Hooker on the 1989 Grammy-winning album THE HEALER. The album also included music with Bonnie Raitt, Charlie Musselwhite, Los Lobos, Roy Rogers, George Thorogood, and Robert Cray.

Speaking of Hooker's albums...


6) John Lee Hooker released over 100 albums in his career. He was one of the most prolific blues recording artists, ever. But it was his first big hit, 1948's "Boogie Chillen" that sold almost a million copies and made him a star.


7) John Lee Hooker launched Bob Dylan's career -- Bob Dylan's first public appearance was opening for John Lee Hooker at Gerde's Folk City in Greenwich Village, NY. By the next year, Dylan was a supernova.


8) Hooker went by many names... partly to stick it to predatory 50s record labels. He'd record one song as John Lee Booker for a few bucks, then head down the block to record another song as John Cooker for a few bucks more.

Some of the aliases he recorded as in his early days: John Lee Booker, Texas Slim, Delta John, Birmingham Sam, Johnny Williams, and His Magic Guitar. He also many nicknames over the years, including the Boogie Man, the Hook, the King of the Boogie, and the Crawlin' Kingsnake.


9) Hooker had a long time studder. In fact, it may have contributed to his success... in Hooker’s biography Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century, record label Bernard Besman is recorded claiming that "his primary reason for deciding to record the young bluesman in the first place was that he was intrigued by the notion of a man who stuttered when he spoke, but not when he sang." Mr. Hooker even wrote a song about it: 1953's "Stuttering Blues."


10) John Lee Hooker appeared playing guitar in The Blues Brothers. It was his only movie performance, but it was a good one. As The Blues Brothers were navigating through Chicago's Maxwell Street to convince a skeptical Aretha Franklin, Hooker is showcased playing his famous song "Boom Boom" -- and arguing over who wrote it. Later in the movie, The Blues Brothers were listening to Hooker's "Boogie Chillen" in The Bluesmobile. Hooker's cameo stole the show because he was a star.

Speaking of stars...


11) Hooker has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But that's far from his only accolade... Mr. Hooker was awarded four Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. He was inducted into the blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.



12) Bonus Trivia -- Muddy Waters is playing John Lee Hooker's guitar on the cover of his live album "At Newport 1960".